§ 61. Mr. Osborneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much the United Kingdom has received since the end of the war in the form of gifts and loans from abroad and from the sale of overseas investments; and how much has our standard of living been higher proportionately because of this.
§ Mr. MaudlingFrom the end of the war to the end of 1951, the latest date for which comprehensive figures are available, gifts and loans received by Her Majesty's Government from abroad amounted to £775 million and £1,568 million, respectively; sales of investments in the non-sterling area amounted to £435 million; a total of £2,778 million. It is impossible to say how much higher our standard of living has been on account of these receipts because it depends upon how we would have acted without them: by how much, for example, imports and overseas investment would have been reduced and the effects of these reductions on consumption and home investment. Nor is it likely that we would have made all the overseas loans and gifts—amounting to £1,400 million—that we made in the same period. As a matter of arithmetic, the total of £2,778 million is equivalent to about 5 per cent. of the national output, about 6 per cent. of personal expenditure, or about 25 per cent. of United Kingdom imports, in the period.