asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what percentage of housing authorities have been given housing investment programme approvals for 1987–88 which are lower than that for which the authority sought approval.

In their housing investment programme submissions local authorities are asked to state the total size of their proposed capital programme. The figures they give cannot therefore be compared with the amounts they received in housing investment programme allocations, because we expect more than half of local authority capital expenditure on housing in 1987–88 to be funded from capital receipts rather than from allocations.