§ Mr. George Gardinerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the per capita foreign currency debt of the public sector, expressed in sterling terms, at February 1974 and at the latest available date, for the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, France, Italy, West Germany, and Japan.
§ Mr. Robert Sheldon, pursuant to the reply [Official Report, 10th July 1978; Vol. 953, c. 402], gave the following information:
The following figures are the best available estimates of per capita foreign currency debt of the public sectors of the specified countries: but the figures are not comparable because those of the United States, France and Italy cover borrowing by the central Government alone and do not take into account foreign borrowing by the rest of the public sector.
PUBLIC SECTOR BORROWING £per capita End-February 1974 Latest available estimate United Kingdom: Central Government 34 115* Other public sector 31 108* U.S.A 6 6 Canada n.a. n.a. France 3 5 Italy 2 47 West Germany 3 6 Japan 8 23† * End-June 1978 (provisional). † End-December 1976. The Government's policy for the management of the external debt of the public sector is to combine net repayment of debt year by year with new borrowing to spread the maturities. Since October 1977 arrangements have been made to prepay around $3½ billion of external debt and new borrowing has amounted to $1¼ billion.