HL Deb 08 December 1980 vol 415 c635WA
Lord Balogh

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they will tabulate the successive official estimates made in the period 1965 to 1980 on the impact of the North Sea discoveries of gas and oil on:

  1. (a) the United Kingdom balance of payments;
  2. (b) Government revenue (including royalties);
  3. (c) gross national product; and
  4. (d) disposable real income.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Lord Cockfield)

The main source of official estimates of the impact of North Sea oil and gas on the United Kingdom economy is the series of articles in the Treasury's Economic Progress Report on the following dates:

July 1976
August 1977
August 1978
October 1979
July 1980
Information on some of these subjects has also been published in Department of Energy's publication Development of oil and gas resources of the United Kingdom (the "Brown Book"; 1975 to 1980 editions) and the CSO's publication United Kingdom Balance of Payments (the "Pink Book"; 1978 to 1980 editions). An article on North Sea oil and gas in the United Kingdom balance of payments since 1970 appeared in the Bank of England's Quarterly Bulletin for September 1979.

The estimates of the impact of North Sea oil and gas on various parts of the United Kingdom economy have been made using a variety of different price bases and, in some cases, using different methodologies and assumptions. It would not be practicable, without disproportionate cost in time and effort, to produce a table which compared all these estimates on a common price basis using common methodology.