§ Mr. Maurice Macmillanasked the Secretary of State for Energy how much 224W energy is consumed as a national average to produce £1 of gross national product in the United Kingdom; and what information is available to him about the amounts of energy used by the United Kingdom's main industrial competitors to produce £1 of gross national product.
§ Mr. EadieThe following table shows the ratio of total primary energy requirements, measured in million tonnes of oil equivalent, to gross domestic product, measured in million pounds at constant 1970 market prices, for the United Kingdom and six other countries:
ENERGY RATIOS Tonnes of oil equivalent per £ thousand of GDP 1960 1970 1973 1976 United Kingdom 0.76 0.73 0.69 0.63 United States 0.63 0.67 0.65 0.63 Canada 0.80 0.78 0.78 0.76 Japan 0.56 0.60 0.56 0.53 West Germany 0.52 0.52 0.53 0.50 France 0.46 0.44 0.46 0.41 Italy 0.38 0.53 0.53 0.51 Sources: OECD Energy Balances and OECD National Accounts. Energy ratios are influenced by, but cannot be easily corrected for, the following factors, all of which bias comparisons: the climate, geography, the industrial structure and the composition of final goods and services, the size of the domestic sector, the point in the economic cycle, exchange rates and differential rates of inflation. Consequently, conclusions drawn from comparisons of this kind can be highly misleading, and the practical usefulness of such figures is exceedingly limited.