§ Mr. Stuart Hollandasked the Secretary of State for Industry (1) what has been the contribution of self-financing to the investment requirements of British private industry since 1974;
(2) what has been the contribution of stock market equity finance to the investment of British manufacturing industry since 1974.
§ Mr. David MitchellIt is not possible to relate individual sources of companies' funds to particular uses. Statistics of the sources and uses of United Kingdom industrial and commercial companies' funds are published regularly in "Financial Statistics" table 9–2. On the definitions used in that table, internal funds accounted for 55 per cent. of total sources of funds in 1974 and for about 70 per cent. in each subsequent year; issues of ordinary shares for cash in the United Kingdom accounted for between 1 per cent.—in 1974—and 8 per cent.—in 1975. Expenditure on fixed assets and on the increase in book value of stocks in the 495W United Kingdom accounted for between 68 per cent. and 78 per cent. of total uses of funds. It must be emphasised that different answers could be obtained by classifying certain items differently—for example by treating payments of taxes and dividends as uses of funds instead of deducting them from income as in the table in "Financial Statistics".
Separate information for manufacturing industry is not available for recent years.