§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that since the financial year 1964–65 defence expenditure will have risen by 20 per cent. for the current financial year; and whether he will give a detailed list of the rise in expenditure on a similar basis for each of the Government spending Departments.
§ Mr. DiamondDetails of the rise in expenditure met from Votes by Government Departments are given in Table 199W XVI in the Financial Secretary's Memorandum on the Estimates 1968–69 (Cmnd. 3583). I regret that this contains an error of transcription; the 1964–65 figure for Defence Budget Estimates should be £1,940,618 thousand (excluding Exchequer Extra Receipts) and not £2,074,048 thousand. On the corrected figure the estimated rise in Defence Budget expenditure between 1964–65 (outturn) and 1968–69 (estimate) is 17 per cent., at current—as opposed to constant—prices.