Mr. Vaneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer his estimate of the surplus of undistributed profits, after paying all taxes, available to British industry as a whole today, compared with 1938; and by how much the purchasing power of the £ sterling has fallen since 1938.
§ Mr. R. A. ButlerThe total income of companies and public corporations, after provision for depreciation and after meeting the liabilities for direct taxation and for the payment of dividends and interest arising from the income received in the years concerned, is estimated to have been £113 million in 1938 and £725 million in 1951 (the latest year for which information is available). These figures are given in Table 285 of the Annual Abstract of Statistics No. 89.
The purchasing power of the £. measured by the price index for all consumers' goods and services calculated annually for national income purposes, taking 1938 as 100, was 9s. 7d. in 1951. This price index cannot, of course, be regarded as a measure of the change in the purchasing power of undistributed profits and no price index exists which is appropriate for this purpose.