Agriculture Department cut
Ellis asks for the Agriculture Department’s cut. Bruton declines to answer the individual departmental question directly and begins listing figures for major departments.
The Minister has told us that he has a tabular statement in front of him giving details of the various cuts and I should like him to tell us the amount of the cut for the Department of Agriculture.
Comment on this
The Deputy could ask the same question about each Department I mentioned and then I would give him all the information. If the Deputy really wants to create such a big fuss about this I will give him the information. I circulated it for the reasons I have given but I am not going to be drawn into answering individual questions about each Department because we would end up wasting more time arguing. I am prepared to give the Deputies the information if they want to make a song and dance about this. The information is: Posts and Telegraphs, £4.24 million; Environment, £3.31 million; Justice group, £3.14 million; Education group, £2.60 million; Defence, £1.60 million; Finance group, £1.17 million and others, £3.81 million.