asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will provide information about the progress of expenditure against cash limits.

I have placed in the Library of the House copies of two tables issued with the Winter Supplementary Estimates. The first shows for cash limited expenditure how the totals of Estimates approved to date, with the Winter Supplementary Estimates now sought, compare with the limits. The second gives provisional figures of this cash-limited expenditure in the first half of the year, alongside the amounts which were expected to be spent during that period when profiles of the pattern of spending were prepared early in the financial year.