§ Mr. Gouldasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the extent of over-funding or under-funding for each quarter since the beginning of 1982; what have been the total sales of commercial bills for each quarter over the same period; and what has been the sterling index, the level of industrial production and the level of real wages for each quarter over the same period.
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§ Mr. Ian Stewart[pursuant to his reply, 12 November 1984, c. 90]: Under and over funding can be defined in a number of different ways. Quarterly data on the PSBR and purchases of public sector debt by the United Kingdom private sector (other than banks) and the external finance of the public sector are in table 11.3 of the September Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin.
Data for total sales of commercial bills are not available. Table 5 of the September 1984 Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin provides the closest approximation; it shows acceptances, mainly of commercial bills, granted by the banks to United Kingdom residents at mid quarter dates. Net transactions in commercial bills by the issue department are shown for calendar quarters in table 1.6 of the October edition of "Financial Statistics".
Quarterly data for the sterling index are in the table on page 50 of Economic Trends, and data on the level of industrial production are in Economic Trends page 26.
There is more than one definition of real wages. Economic Trends page 40 shows quarterly data on wage rates and earnings. Quarterly data on retail prices are given on page 42 of the same publication.