To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what amounts of social policy expenditure have been allocated by his Department and its agencies to combat rural disadvantages.

The Rural Development Commission, which is the Government's principal agency in England for carrying forward our policies on the rural economy, is developing and implementing a wide range of initiatives which deal with economic and social problems in the countryside. The Commission's expenditure on its social programmes in 1989–90 was £4.7 million.