§ Mr. Knoxasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for each year since 1945 (a) the Government deficit or surplus, (b) the Government deficit or surplus expressed in terms of £ sterling per family, and (c) the Government deficit or surplus expressed in terms of £ sterling per head of population.
§ Mr. DellThe information is given in the following table. Government deficit or surplus has been taken to mean the58W financial deficit or surplus of the central Government. Its relation to the central Government borrowing requirement and public sector borrowing requirement is shown in Table 6 of the Financial Statement and Budget Report for 1975–76.
FINANCIAL DEFICIT (—) OR SURPLUS OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT (a) (b) (c) £ million £ per household £ per head of population 1946 … … -574 -12 1947 … … 105 2 1948 … … 673 13 1949 … … 739 15 1950 … … 834 16 1951 … … 391 26 8 1952 … … 163 3 1953 … … 17 — 1954 … … 261 5 1955 … … 476 9 1956 … … 277 5 1957 … … 403 8 1958 … … 470 9 1959 … … 364 7 1960 … … 82 2 1961 … … 280 17 5 1962 … … 556 10 1963 … … 144 3 1964 … … 305 6 1965 … … 608 11 1966 … … 775 45 14 1967 … … 492 9 1968 … … 773 14 1969 … … 2,028 36 1970 … … 2,802 50 1971 … … 1,946 104 35 1972 … … 442 8 1973 … … —200 —4 1974 … … —828 —15 provisional Notes:
(1) The financial deficit or surplus per household is derived from estimates of the number of households as defined in the Census of Population. Statistics of the number of households are available only for census years.
(2) The financial deficit or surplus per head or population is obtained using mid-year estimates of total population. The 1974 estimate is a projection from a 1973 base.