asked the Minister of Transport if he will list in the Official Reportthe allocation of local transport expenditure which he has accepted for the purposes of transport supplementary grant for 1980–81; and if he will list the totals of transport supplementary grant.

The rate support grant order at present before Parliament pro- vides for transport supplementary grant of £273 million for England at November 1978 prices—£319 million at today's prices. It assumes that councils will spend £959 million at November 1978 prices—£1,125 million at today's prices. Allocations to individual counties within these total figures are shown below.Whilst I accept that counties' final spending patterns could be different from the pattern of their accepted expenditure, I would expect any additional spending to be counterbalanced by a reduction elsewhere in their budgets, in order to avoid jeopardising the Government's overall public expenditure objectives.