Mr Major’s Written Parliamentary Answer on Local and National Expenditure – 10 January 1989

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Local and National Expenditure on 10th January 1989.

Mr. Battle To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table showing expenditure by function for (a) housing, (b) other environmental services, (c) education and science, (d) health and personal social services and (e) social security, broken down into expenditure accounted for by (i) local authorities and (ii) central Government for each year between 1968–69 and 1990–91 in both cash and real terms.

Mr. Major [holding answer 22 December 1988]: Detailed information on public expenditure by function and Department was given in the introductory tables to the departmental chapters in “The Government’s Expenditure Plans 1988–89 to 1990–91” Cm 288-II. These tables also differentiated between expenditure accounted for by local authorities and central Government. Information on trends in cash and real terms since 1978–79 were given in the historical trends section of Cm 288-I, which also gave the GDP deflators from which other real terms figures can be calculated. Similar information updated to take account of the 1988 public expenditure survey will appear in the departmental booklets and chapter 21 of the 1989 public expenditure White Paper due to be published in January.