§ Mr. David Priceasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what have been the changes in the United Kingdom's official foreign borrowings since the present Government took office in March 1974 to the latest convenient date.
§ Mr. DellI assume that the hon. Member is referring to the overseas foreign currency borrowing of Her Majesty's Government. Between the date the present Government took office and end-June 1975 the only borrowing has been the $2.5 billion Her Majesty's Government loan, which was drawn down between 59W October 1974 and February 1975. In addition, scheduled repayments on longterm debts arising, in the main, from the Second World War have totalled some $220 million.
§ Mr. David Priceasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his current estimate of the increase in total public expenditure and in the total public borrowing requirement since the present Government took office in March 1974; and, in each case, what proportion is due to policy changes and what proportion due to inflation.
§ Mr. DellThe Budget estimate was that public expenditure would increase from £33,900 million in 1973–74 to £53,600 million in 1975–76. Of the increase of £19,700 million about 15 per cent. was due to policy changes and about 80 per cent. to increased costs. The rest of the difference mainly reflected other volume changes in accordance with existing policies.
The borrowing requirement was estimated to increase from £4,500 million in 1973–74 to £9,100 million in 1975–76. It is not possible to distinguish the effects of inflation and policy changes on the borrowing requirement as a whole in the same way as it is possible for public expenditure: tax changes themselves are in part a reaction to inflation and both further interact with the levels of activity and costs in the economy to affect public sector receipts.
§ Mr. David Priceasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the official public borrowing requirement for each of the last 10 financial years, applying the same definition of public borrowing requirement as he used in his Budget Statement on 15th April 1975.
§ Mr. Denzil DaviesThe official statistics of the public sector borrowing requirement for each of the last 10 financial years are as follows.
60W
Financial years and Public sector borrowing requirement £ million 1964–65 … … … … 908 1965–66 … … … … 968 1966–67 … … … … 1,212 1967–68 … … … … 1,966 1968–69 … … … … 454 1969–70 … … … … –537 1970–71 … … … … 840
1971–72 … … … … 1,024 1972–73 … … … … 2,525 1973–74 … … … … 4,465 The figures for 1964–65 to 1973–74 are on the same basis as the provisional estimate of £7,602 million for 1974–75 published in the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1975–76" on 15th April 1975.