Public Expenditure

Mr. Wyn Roberts

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will update the figures relating to per capita expenditure by Government in England, Scotland and Wales, published by the Treasury in the Official Report on 29th November 1976.

The table below gives identifiable public expenditure per head in England, Scotland and Wales in 1974–75, 1975–76 and 1976–77, analysed by the main programmes of the Public Expenditure Survey. A new presentation of public expenditure has been adopted since the reply to the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) on 29th November 1976—[Vol. 921, c. 46–48]—and to reflect this the figures in the table exclude the capital expenditure of the nationalised industries but include Government grants and net lending to them. Figures of identifiable public expenditure on this new basis were given in reply to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) on 25th February 1977—[Vol. 926, c. 682–683)—and on 18th March 1977—[Vol. 928. c. 347–348]—and in Table 2 of "Devolution" Financing the Devolved Services" (Cmnd. 6890). Those figures are now revised and updated in the table below. The figures for 1976–77 are still provisional.

IDENTIFIABLE PUBLIC EXPENDITURE PER HEAD BY PROGRAMME^*
						1974–75			1975–76			1976–77†
						England	Scotland	Wales	England	Scotland	Wales	England	Scotland	Wales
						£	£	£	£	£	£	£	£	£
Agriculture, fisheries, food and forestry	…	…	…	…	…	19	36	31	23	39	31	15	38	29
Trade, industry and employment	…	…	…	…	…	19	48	38	25	74	52	30	85	65
Net lending to nationalised industries	…	…	…	…	…	11	15	7	12	12	36	-3	—	31
Roads and transport	…	…	…	…	…	33	40	34	39	51	45	42	55	52
Housing	…	…	…	…	…	78	92	68	78	105	70	86	113	77
Other environmental services	…	…	…	…	…	33	42	37	45	63	46	47	66	47
Law, order and protective services	…	…	…	…	…	22	22	18	29	29	25	33	33	29
Education and libraries, science and arts	…	…	…	…	…	103	121	106	130	157	135	149	176	152
Health and personal social services	…	…	…	…	…	85	100	86	112	136	116	129	155	131
Social security	…	…	…	…	…	125	127	141	171	171	189	202	204	226
Other public services	…	…	…	…	…	9	10	13	13	13	27	14	15	29
Common services	…	…	…	…	…	6	5	4	9	7	6	10	7	7
Total	…	…	…	…	…	543	658	583	686	856	776	754	948	875
^* Identifiable public expenditure is expenditure which can be identified from official records as having been incurred in a particular country, but excluding debt interest and expenditure on defence and overseas services which is incurred on behalf of the United Kingdom as a whole. The extent to which expenditure can be identified varies between countries and different years, and the coverage of the figures may therefore vary even where similar services are being provided. Net lending to the nationalised industries in each year, and capital grants to them in 1974–75, are allocated to countries pro rata to their identified capital expenditure in each country; capital grants in 1975–76 and 1976–77 are allocated according to the projects they financed.
† Provisional. The figures are rounded independently and may not sum to total.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how he accounts for the underspending on cash limited expenditure in the current year; how large underspending is in relation to the current year's cash limits; and how large the underspending is in relation to his expectations at the time of the March Budget;(2) what is his estimate of the amount of underspending on total public expenditure in 1977–78; and to what causes he attributes such underspending.

In the first half of this financial year, expenditure under central Government cast limits was about 96 per cent. of the profiles prepared by Departments at the start of the year. There is no obvious common factor to account for the lower rate of spending than predicted. The profiles themselves are subject to considerable uncertainty. Beyond this I cannot add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) on 9th November.— [Vol. 938, c. 130–1.]

Volume 939: debated on Thursday 17 November 1977