§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the current cost of bank borrowing to each of the principal sectors of 75W manufacturing industry as a percentage of sales.
§ Mr. LawsonIn 1976, the latest date for which complete sales data are available, it is estimated that interest on bank borrowing amounted to about 1 per cent. of total turnover for the panel of manufacturing companies used as the basis of analysis in theBusiness Monitor MA3—company finance—a copy of which is in the Library. The partial evidence available suggests that the comparable percentages for subsectors of manufacturing industry are not significantly different from that for the manufacturing sector as a whole.
Data on all interest payments—mainly to banks—of industrial and commercial companies is given under the heading "other interest" in table 5.4 of the publication National Income and Expenditure 1979 Edition—the "Blue Book"—and data on bank advances to subsectors of manufacturing industry appears in table 6.17 of Financial Statistics. Copies of both these publications are also available in the Library.