§ Mr. PearsonTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the average age of capital stock of machinery in manufacturing industry in the United Kingdom relative to(a) the United States of America, (b) Japan, (c) France and (d) Germany. [33413]
§ Mr. OppenheimA paper recently published by the DTI and Cabinet Office, "The UK's Investment Performance Fact and Fallacy", available in the Library of the House, outlines the available evidence on the relative age of the UK's capital stock of machinery. The evidence, from trade surveys and studies of similar plants in different countries, finds UK machinery to be of a similar age to that in other major countries.