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Domestic Central Heating

Chris Huhne: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the number of households that will be provided with (a) central heating and (b) insulation in each year of his plans as announced in the Pre-Budget Report. [37055]

John Healey: The Government announced an additional £300 million to provide free central heating installations to pensioner households on pension credit who do not already have such systems. These funds will be delivered through the warm front programme and funding will be available from this current financial
 
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year. Warm front has assisted over one million homes and already installed over 50,000 central heating systems. This additional funding will help deliver a significant number of more central heating systems to pensioners on pension credit who do not have them.

Insulation for pensioner households on pension credit will be provided by energy suppliers as part of their obligations under the Energy Efficiency Commitment. Under the current structure of EEC, suppliers are required to achieve energy savings targets and for this phase of the EEC (2005–08) of the EEC 130 TWh of savings have to be achieved. The suppliers have indicated that they will be able to provide insulation to any pensioners on pension credit.

Excise Duties (Receipts)

Chris Huhne: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the receipts from (a) vehicle excise duty, (b) air passenger duty, (c) fuel duty and (d) VAT on fuel as a percentage of gross domestic product in each year since 1996–97; and if he will estimate future receipts consistent with the forecasts in the Pre-Budget Report. [37117]

John Healey: Projected UK gross domestic product, and receipts from vehicle excise, air passenger and fuel duties, were set out in the financial statement and Budget Report and in the Pre-Budget Report, every year since 1997. Copies of these can be found in the Library of the House. The latest estimates were published in the 2005 Pre-Budget Report. These estimates will be up-dated when the 2006 financial statement and Budget Report is published.

HM Revenue and Customs do not collect VAT receipts on the basis of individual goods so no estimate of VAT on fuel as a percentage of gross domestic product is available.

Gifts

Mr. Amess: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the gifts received by (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department in each of the last two years for which information is available; what the approximate value of each was; and how many were (i)accepted and (ii) returned. [37407]

John Healey: Guidance for Ministers on the acceptance of gifts is set out in the ministerial code. An annual list of gifts received by Ministers valued at more than £140 is published. The annual list provides details of the gift received, its value, the donor and whether the gift was retained by the department, purchased by the
 
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Minister or marked for disposal. Information for June 2001-March 2005 is in the Libraries of the House. Information for 2005–06 will be published as soon as it is available after the end of the financial year.

For officials, the Treasury's gifts' policy states that officials should refuse or return gifts worth more than £25, if such a course of action does not harm good working relations. Gifts valued at over £25 should be handed over to the department for disposal or the recipient can purchase them.

Illegal Meat Imports

Sir Michael Spicer: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many seizures of illegal meat imports were made in the last month for which records are available. [37633]

Dawn Primarolo: HM Revenue and Customs made 2,496 seizures of products of animal origin in September 2005. Of these seizures, 1,333 contained meat.

Legal Aid

Jim Cousins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will place in the Library the reply given to the Law Society's letter to him of 31 August about the future of legal aid. [37427]

Mr. Des Browne: I have done so.

Local Authority Grants

Chris Huhne: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the Government's total grants to local authorities as a percentage of gross domestic product in each financial year since 1978–79. [37054]

John Healey: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the national statistician, who has been asked to reply.
 
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Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 15 December 2005:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question requesting an estimate of the Government's total grants to local authorities as a percentage of gross domestic product in each financial year since 1978–79. (37054)

I have provided some estimates from the National Accounts for non-financial transfers between central government and local government. The economic sectors of the National Accounts have a broad definition, for example central government is broader than the Government, and local government includes entities such as schools, police authorities etc as well as local councils. The National Accounts are compiled on an accruals basis and include imputed amounts, so should not be confused with cash payments.

The transactions can be sub-divided into current transfers and capital transfers.

Current Transfers

These include:

Revenue Support Grant;

redistribution of national non-domestic rates which is classified as a central government tax;

specific grants such as those for mandatory student awards and rent allowances; and

an imputed payment in respect of the cost of pension increase payments.

Capital Transfers

These mainly consist of grants paid by central government to local government to finance capital expenditure. They also include payments from development corporations and some one-off payments, such as commutation grants and amounts for repayment of over-hanging debt following Large Scale Voluntary Transfers of housing. As with the current transfers, the National Accounts include some imputed payments

The table below shows the separate current and capital transfer series and the total. It also shows total GDP and the total transfers as a percentage of GDP. All these data are at market prices and are not seasonally adjusted.

In 1978/79 total transfers from central government to local government were equivalent to 6.1 per cent. of GDP. In 2004/05 this percentage was 8.7 per cent.

Total transfers from central Government to local government, as a percentage of GDP, from 1978–79 to 2004–05 Market price, not seasonally adjusted (£ million)

Financial year	Current transfers	Capital transfers	Total	Gross domestic product	Total as a percentage of GDP
1978–79	10,347	227	10,574	172,637	6.1
1979–80	11,822	267	12,089	207,608	5.8
1980–81	14,602	270	14,872	236,503	6.3
1981–82	15,748	291	16,039	259,486	6.2
1982–83	16,423	294	16,717	283,459	5.9
1983–84	20,149	268	20,417	308,331	6.6
1984–85	20,382	780	21,162	330,869	6.4
1985–86	20,911	675	21,586	362,803	5.9
1986–87	22,690	861	23,551	388,131	6.1
1987–88	24,440	935	25,375	431,246	5.9
1988–89	24,758	949	25,707	479,934	5.4
1989–90	25,800	2,197	27,997	525,138	5.3
1990–91	41,190	2,084	43,274	563,715	7.7
1991–92	51,696	2,584	54,280	594,901	9.1
1992–93	56,513	7,863	64,376	615,087	10.5
1993–94	56,134	2,975	59,109	652,820	9.1
1994–95	58,645	2,559	61,204	689,767	8.9
1995–96	58,727	4,580	63,307	729,808	8.7
1996–97	59,860	2,654	62,514	773,146	8.1
1997–98	59,763	2,747	62,510	824,044	7.6
1998–99	61,211	2,785	63,996	870,464	7.4
1999–2000	64,627	3,050	67,677	921,762	7.3
2000–01	67,958	3,921	71,879	965,041	7.4
2001–02	72,488	4,537	77,025	1,006,523	7.7
2002–03	79,333	7,933	87,266	1,062,954	8.2
2003–04	86,465	7,114	93,579	1,121,029	8.3
2004–05	93,713	8,649	102,362	1,175,666	8.7

 
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