§ Mr. Stuart Hollandasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the contribution of (a) self-financing and (b) stock market equity finance to the investment requirements of British private industry since 1978.
§ Mr. FletcherIt 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 8.2. On the definitions used in that table, percentage contributions have been as follows:
Percentage of total sources of funds Total internal funds Issues of ordinary shares for cash 1978 78 4 1979 75 3 1980 65 3 1981 64 5 1982 63 3 1983 78 5 January-September 1983 84 6 1984 89 3 Expenditure on fixed assets and on the increase in the book value of stocks in the United Kingdom has accounted for between 57 per cent. and 72 per cent. of total uses of funds in these years. 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").