22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what proposals he has for sorting out the financial difficulties of local authorities which have arisen as a result of the poll tax.
On the basis of their own estimates of community charge collection levels, local authorities will receive around 99 per cent. of their total budgeted income in relation to both 1989–90 and the current year. We therefore must avoid making too much of their difficulties, especially as aggregate external finance for next year is being increased by 10–4 per cent.
30.
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland by how much local government spending has increased or decreased in Scotland since the introduction of the community charge.
| Numbers on the community charge register: July 1990 | ||||||||
| Known exemptions from community charge | ||||||||
| Number liable to personal community charge (including students) | 18+ in receipt child benefit | Prisoners | Foreign armed forces | Dependents of foreign armed forces | Severely mentally handicapped | Other | Total | |
| Borders | 78,285 | 85 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 300 | 19 | 412 |
| Central | 202,412 | 237 | 301 | 0 | 0 | 663 | 2,880 | 4,081 |
| Dumfries and Galloway | 111,434 | 159 | 64 | 0 | 0 | 457 | 124 | 804 |
| Fife | 259,961 | 449 | 131 | 22 | 0 | 825 | 334 | 1,761 |
| Grampian | 373,581 | 400 | 114 | 687 | 0 | 1,159 | 1,039 | 3,399 |
| Highland | 148,270 | 169 | 85 | 129 | 0 | 346 | 47 | 776 |
| Lothian | 578,982 | 875 | 339 | 113 | 0 | 2,388 | 688 | 4,403 |
| Strathclyde | 1,737,284 | 4,750 | 5,306 | 1,737 | 247 | 7,609 | 15,458 | 35,107 |
| Tayside | 291,682 | 578 | 67 | 450 | 0 | 843 | 118 | 2,056 |
| Orkney | 14,372 | 40 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 237 | 320 |
| Shetland | 15,982 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 51 | 190 | 262 |
| Western Isles | 22,165 | 16 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 112 | 5 | 138 |
| All Scotland total | 3,834,410 | 7,776 | 6,425 | 3,318 | 247 | 14,794 | 21,139 | 53,519 |
Notes:
1. The Lothian figure for foreign armed forces includes their dependents.
2. "Other" includes patients in residential homes, nursing homes or hospitals, members of religious communities, residents in Crown property, persons of no fixed abode, etc.