Current Account Deficit

HC Deb 27 July 1989 vol 157 cc851-2W

Mr. Austin Mitchell

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how much of the budget surplus in 1988 was used to neutralise the effect on credit and the money supply of the current account deficit; and how this was achieved;

(2) whether he will publish in the Official Report his estimate of the monetary counterpart of the current account deficit in 1988 and in the first five months of the current year;

whether he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for each year since 1970 the balance of payments with the EEC and with the rest of the world on current account less viable trade at current and at 1988 prices; and to what he ascribes the change of mind.

Mr. Norman Lamont

I shall answer when resources permit.