§ Mr. Skeetasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the servicing charges on the total United Kingdom external debt of £8,259 million.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonI assume the hon. Member is referring to the total identifiable short, medium and long-term external indebtedness of Her Majesty's Government detailed in the reply I gave on 10th June to the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair). The servicing cost cannot be predicted precisely as part of the debt is on floating rate terms and it is impossible to identify readily the composition of overseas holdings of British Government stocks. But, at current interest rates, and using exchange rates operating at the close on 16th June the annual cost of servicing the external debt
£ million 1964–65 1969–70 1975–76 National Debt outstanding at end of year … 30,441 33,079 55,395 Service of the National Debt … 1,065 1,458 3,560