§ Mr. John Mooreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table showing estimated supply and use of resources in 1976, 1977 and 1978, in the same format as the first column of the growth and use of resources table that used to appear in public expenditure White Papers.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 6 February 1979], gave the following answer:
No. Such calculations are no longer performed by the Treasury, owing to serious doubts concerning their relevance in the current economic environment. The calculation of the demand content of 271W public expenditure is very uncertain. Moreover, the distinction between publicly and privately financed consumption is largely artificial as, for example, in the switch from child tax allowances to child benefits. The facility for producing such estimates is no longer available on the Treasury computer.