78.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the statement contained in the booklet "The Budget and Your Pocket," that 1s. 11d. per family per week is paid out of taxes to help provide homes at reasonable rents for the families most in need, and that nearly another 6d. comes out of local rates, applies to Scotland.
The figures given in the booklet are averages for Great Britain as a whole. For Scotland alone, the comparable figure to 1s. 11d. is about 1s. 9d. As for the contribution out of local rates, the figures available do not permit an exact comparison between Scotland and England and Wales, but the average amount per household for Scotland is probably somewhat higher than the average for the whole of Great Britain.
Does that mean that we in Scotland are paying 10 times more for armaments than we are paying for housing?
I should not have thought that that followed, but it does mean that contributions from taxation per household are rather lower in Scotland than elsewhere.
Will the Minister assure us that the Treasury are exercising as great a vigilance on the defence services as on the housing services?
Do I understand from that answer, that the Government are in a position to give separate statistics for Scotland's finance, as no doubt he will be aware that so far the Secretary of State for Scotland has been unable to do so?
We have endeavoured to give a separate figure on this point.