§ Sir Brandon Rhys Williamsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his current estimate of the rate of exchange between the pound sterling and the deutschmark which would correspond to purchasing power parity in respect of the items included in the retail prices index.
§ Mr. Ian StewartThe Government do not make such calculations. Some estimates of purchasing power parities were given in "Purchasing Power Parities and Real Expenditures in the OECD" published by the OECD in 1985, a copy of which is available in the House of Commons Library. As this publication explains, purchasing power parities should not be interpreted as equilibrium exchange rates.
§ Sir Brandon Rhys Williamsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table indicating the extent of the variations in the rates of exchange for the pound sterling and the mark from week to week in the London market over the past year.
§ Mr. Ian StewartEnd-week rates are published in table 18 in the Bank of EnglandQuarterly Bulletin. Average sterling/deutschmark rates on a monthly basis are published in table 13.1 of "Financial Statistics".