§ Mr. John Mooreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for each year since 1945 (a) total Government debt per head of the population, and (b) the total amount of interest paid on the Government's debt.
§ Mr. Denzil Davies, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 13th July 1978], gave the following information:
Figures of the nominal value of total central Government debt held by the other sectors of the economy—local authorities, public corporations, the domestic private sector and overseas—are readily available 61W only from 1966. An article describing the relationship between statistics of national debt, central Government debt and public sector debt was published in the May 1977 issue of Economic Trends. The statistics in the article were updated in "Financial Statistics", February 1978 issue, supplementary table C, and are the source of the debt figures underlying the per capita figures shown below. The debt interest figures are from national accounts sources, and are available from 1946.
Central Government debt held outside the central Government sector per head of population; at 31st March each year Interest on central Government debt held outside the central Government sector £ £ million 1946 Not available 486 1947 519 1948 509 1949 505 1950 505 1951 548 1952 607 1953 637 1954 635 1955 705 1956 720 1957 702 1958 776 1959 770 1960 857 1961 893 1962 874 1963 930 1964 937 1965 968 1966 528 1,036 1967 538 1,105 1968 578 1,240 1969 573 1,280 1970 586 1,298 1971 594 1,384 1972 645 1,591 1973 651 1,812 1974 689 2,186 1975 796 2,697 1976 975 3,650 1977 1,161 4,572