§ Mr. Gowasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the amount of debt interest—as referred to in the second paragraph on page 3 of his letter to the Chairman of the IMF dated 18th December 1975—in the years 1975–76, 1976–77, 1977–78 and 1978–79; and what was the amount of such debt interest in each of the 10 years ended 5th April 1975.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 20th January 1976; Vol. 903.], gave the following information:
The following table shows debt interest payments by the public sector in each of the last 10 financial years.
498WAssuming that all the children were under the age of 11, the effect on income after tax would be as follows:
£ million current prices 1965–66 … … … 1,470 1966–97 … … … 1,592 1967–68 … … … 1,811 1968–69 … … … 1,941 1969–70 … … … 2,066 1970–71 … … … 2,129 1971–72 … … … 2,302 1972–73 … … … 2,530 1973–74 … … … 3,254 1974–75 … … … 3,858 Source: Economic Trends Annual Supplement No. 1 1975.
In the current year I expect debt interest to amount to about £5,00 million, as forecast in the Financial Statement and Budget Report last April. For estimates of debt interest in future years I must ask the hon. Gentleman to await the publication of the Public Expenditure White Paper.