Dawn Primarolo: ...of expenditure and sought to scale it down. The process of setting the standard spending assessments followed the Government's normal procedure. The Government allow themselves to live in cloud cuckoo land in terms of what they believe that local authorities should spend and pay no regard to their actual expenditure and commitments. We saw that with the grant-related expenditure assessment...
Dawn Primarolo: ...fact that the total expenditure figure is £62 million, anybody who believes that a reduction of £21 million will be achieved without loss of services and loss of jobs is clearly living in cloud cuckoo land. Let us look at the experience in Bristol this year. Let us consider the information that we should wish the Secretary of State to take into account when identifying cuts. The poll tax...