§ 6. Mr. Mossasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what rate of interest would now be payable on £1 in order to produce an increment equivalent in real value to the interest which would have been paid on £1 in 1938.
§ Mr. BirchIf I have understood the hon. Member correctly, the rate of interest would have to be 2.7 times as great as in 1938.
§ Mr. MossCan the right hon. Gentleman say why no change has been made in the interest payable on small savings such as are placed in the Post Office Savings Bank, since the decline in the internal purchasing power of the £, plus the decline in the real value of the interest paid, means that a person who saved £1 in 1938 has, in fact, lost 4s.?
§ Mr. BirchIf the hon. Member is referring to the rate of interest paid by the Post Office Savings Bank, it has, of course, been the same since 1860, and many things have happened since then.
§ 7. Mr. Mossasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what financial increment has accrued to a person who placed £1 in Post Office savings in 1946 and left it to fructify.
§ Mr. PowellInterest on £1 deposited in the Post Office Savings Bank in January, 1946, and left to fructify would now amount to 5s. 6d.
§ Mr. MossYes, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that a person saving £1 since 1946, owing to the decline in its real value, despite the addition of compound interest at the rate of 2½ per cent, would still be left 2s. 6d. worse off?
§ Mr. PowellHe would be better off than if he had not saved it.
Commander MaitlandWould my hon. Friend say what would have happened to that investment if it had been in Daltons?