§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the cost is in 2001–02 of the implementation of recommendations in the social exclusion unit's report on neighbourhood renewal. [14083]
§ Ms KeebleI have been asked to reply
The National Strategy Action Plan for Neighbourhood Renewal aims to develop common goals including better health, skills, housing and physical environment, and to narrow the gap on these measures between the most deprived neighbourhoods and the rest of the country. If these aims are to be fulfilled, efforts to provide direct support to deprived neighbourhoods must be combined with efforts to "bend" mainstream programmes that provide funding to ensure that challenges faced by deprived areas can be addressed. To this end the Government will be spending an additional £43 billion a year on core public services by 2004. The costs of implementing the recommendations on neighbourhood renewal are embedded in these and the other billions of pounds spent by Government Departments, and it would involve disproportionate costs to disaggregate this expenditure.