asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give details of the advantages, financial or otherwise, which accrue to localities inside the designated growth areas of Central Scotland as compared with scheduled development districts outside such growth areas.

Both types of area are eligible as development districts for the financial benefits of the Local Employment Acts and last year's Finance Act. But a decision on whether to remove a growth area from the list of development districts would depend upon the economic position of Central Scotland as a whole, not only upon its own unemployment position.

Secondly, there will be more public investment in, and for, the growth areas. For further details, I would refer the hon. Member to Chapter 1 of the white paper on Central Scotland and to paragraphs 121 and 122.

Is the hon. Member aware that we have all read that many, many times, that the Fife County Council and others have read it and that we are still no further forward as to what are the precise advantages to be obtained from being within the boundaries of a growth area compared with being outside the boundaries? Is he aware that the letter which I received from his right hon. Friend on this matter simply made confusion worse confounded in that he said that the boundaries had been very carefully drawn after enormous consideration but that it did not matter very much whether one was inside or outside the boundaries?

If the hon. Member reads carefully what I said in my Answer before I referred to the white paper, which I did only to provide him with further detail, he will see that there are there two advantages: first, that a development district in a growth area will not necessarily cease to be a development district simply because of a change in the position of its own unemployment; and, secondly, that there will be more investment in and for a growth area.

Surely the Minister is aware that the Government have already stated in reply to the Estimates Committee that they would hesitate before removing any development district from the schedule because of a drop in unemployment. There is no change there. The fact is that in Scotland all the growth areas were already in development districts. What Chapter 1 says and what he said is that this is purely a matter of definition and that there is no difference at all. Will he tell me, for instance, how much of the additional £30 million of public investment which is being spent this year—because this is to be the biggest boom year in respect of this matter—is being spent in the growth areas?

I hope that this does not mean that the hon. Member is against the principle of growth areas, because the principle has been supported by economists, economic journals and other reports. I cannot off the cuff give him an answer to the second part of his supplementary question. It is a different question, which no doubt deserves a place on the Order Paper.