§ Mr. Nobleasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give a breakdown of total personal wealth by the Registrar-Generals' social classes I-V, according to the latest available information.
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§ Mr. Robert SheldonI regret that information upon which to base such an estimate is not available.
§ Mr. Nobleasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table setting out the distribution of total personal wealth according to the level of earned income of wealth holders, by intervals of £1,000 up to £10,000 and then intervals of £5,000 thereafter.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonI regret that the information upon which to base such an estimate is not available.
Top 50% Top 20% Top 10% Top 5% Top 1% of wealth-holders British quoted ordinary shares … 99 96 93 86 64 Other company securities … 99 97 94 87 68 Quoted United Kingdom Government securities … 97 90 85 77 54 Cash and bank deposits … 79 56 43 34 19 Land … 100 97 94 86 65 Non-residential buildings … 98 90 81 62 30 Household goods … 84 54 42 32 19 Trade assets … 98 83 67 53 24 These estimates relate solely to personal wealth as identified from the estate duty statisics for Great Britain. They therefore exclude a considerable amount of private property held (i) by those with comparatively small amounts of wealth for whose estate probate would not be required; (ii) in settlement, particularly in discretionary trusts and surviving spouse settlements.
Paragraphs 5–7 of Appendix 2 of the Green Paper on Wealth Tax (Cmnd 5704) deals with these, and other qualifications to the data, in more detail.