§ Mr. John Mooreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for each financial year since 1973–74 for each of the main programmes listed in Command Paper No. 7439 the amount of shortfall or overrun in terms of 1978 survey prices.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 6 February 1979], gave the following information:
208WA comparison of planned expenditure and estimated outturn in 1977–78 by main programme at 1978 survey prices is given in table 5.4 of Cmnd. 7439. I regret that comparisons in this form for earlier years cannot be provided without a disproportionate expenditure of time and resources.
The hon. Member will appreciate that each White Paper is internally consistent as regards classification—that is to say, the revalued plans from the previous White Paper noted in it are adjusted to the classification of the new White Paper. The revaluation of planned expenditure over a long time span is vulnerable to the many classification changes made in successive White Papers.
For the earlier years I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 13 February 1978 to the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson)—[Vol. 944, c. 64–5]. I also refer him to tables A and B of Appendix 17 of the Second Report from the Expenditure Committee, 1977–78 (HC 257) which bring together the figures published in successive White Papers for the difference in volume terms between the outturn, as estimated about nine months after the end of the financial year, and the latest published plan in the previous White Paper.
§ Mr. John Mooreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what average annual rate of growth in expenditure on goods and services and public transfer payments is implied by the expenditure plans in Command Paper No. 7439.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 6 February 1979], gave the following information:
Over the period 1979–80 to 1982–83, public expenditure on goods and services is planned in Command Paper No. 7439 to grow in volume terms at an average of 0.9 per cent. per annum and transfer payments, excluding debt interest, by an average of 1.1 per cent. per annum. These figures do not take account of any allocation of the contingency reserve or the general allowance for shortfall shown in table 1 of Cmnd. 7439.