asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the total expenditure on educational priority areas in the year 1974–75; and what is the anticipated expenditure in the year 1975–76.

As there has never been a national designation of education priority areas, it is not possible to give figures for expenditure relating to them. However, successive Governments have taken into account criteria of the kind suggested in the Plowden Report; areas of special need have benefited not only from the preferential allocation of resources within major capital programmes—for example, the nursery education programme—but also from other sources such as the Urban Programme, grants under Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, additions to teacher quotas and salary additions for teachers in social priority schools.