Government Debt (Hansard, 2 May 1989)

§ Mr. Allen
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer by what date he expects Government debt to be wholly repaid.
Mr. Lilley: Repayment of the whole of the outstanding stock of debt is not an objective of Government policy.

§ Mr. Allen
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the approximate current overseas holding in the national debt.

§ Mr. Lilley
At the end of 1987–88, the total market holdings of sterling national debt were £173.2 billion, of which £22.1 billion were held by the overseas sector.

§ Mr. Allen
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer which financial sectors received the largest repayment of debt arising from the recent Budget decisions.

§ Mr. Lilley
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave him on 4 April 1989, at column 5. Detailed figures for 1988–89 will not be available for several months. It is impossible to identify in advance the precise composition of the debt repayment arising from the forecast PSDR of £14 billion in 1989–90.

Mr. Robert G. Hughes
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the national debt at May 1979 and at April 1988.

§ Mr Lilley
National Debt is measured annually at the end of the financial year. The total outstanding at the end of 1978–79 was £86.9 billion (47 per cent. of GDP) and at the end of 1987–88 was £197.3 billion (44 per cent. of GDP).
National debt however, is not the best measure of public sector indebtedness, for instance because it covers only central Government debt, not the whole of the public sector. A better measure is net public sector debt, which was £95.3 billion (50 per cent. of GDP) at the end of 1978–79, and £171.3 billion (38 per cent. of GDP) at the end of 1987–88.

§ Mr. Allen
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the principal beneficiaries to date of his 1989 Budget decision to repay £14 billion Government debt.

§ Mr. Lilley
The nation as a whole will benefit from this decision as a result of the permanent reduction in debt interest payments, which will free public money for priority spending programmes while still reducing general Government expenditure as a share of GDP.