§ Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are his present plans for prepayment of official external debt.
§ Mr. HealeyThe Government's policy for external debt management was set out in my 1978 Budget speech. The policy is to combine some net repayment of debt year by year with new borrowing to lengthen the maturity schedule. In furtherance of this policy, last year we repaid $4.6 billion of debt, $3.6 billion of which was repaid ahead of maturity-$2 billion to the IMF and $1.6 billion to the markets. New borrowing in 1978 totalled $1.8 billion. For this year the Electricity Council is in the process of repaying early a $½ billion Euromarket loan and I have authorised the early repayment of $1 billion to the IMF. This will be made shortly. When that repayment is made we shall have repaid to the IMF the equivalent of all our 1976 standby drawings and all the amounts we drew under the four credit tranches. We also have firm plans to repay an additional $½ billion of market debt and, in view of the strength of our external position, I am authorising planning for up to a further $1 billion prepayment of market debt.