§ Mr. Lawsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will clarify what is meant by the term "satisfactory balance of payments" in paragraph 32 of Cmnd. 7439; and, in particular, whether and on what scale it is assumed that (a) the current account and its components, namely, non-oil trade, oil trade and invisibles, are in deficit or surplus and (b) whether the capital account is assumed to be in deficit or surplus.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 15 February 1979; Vol. 962, c. 637], gave the following information:
In making the three illustrative projections for 1977–82 it was assumed that the balance of payments on current account should be in surplus at the end of the period. The projections were therefore constrained to produce current account surpluses in the range £0 billion to £1 billion in 1982, and private expenditure was varied until a balance in that range was achieved.
In each case the surpluses on invisibles and oil trade, the latter the result of the increase in North Sea oil production, are partly offset by a deficit on goods other than oil. The projections were not carried through to a detailed construction of the external capital account, but the assumption is that the capital account is in rough balance so that the current account surplus is sufficient for some repayment of official foreign debt.
§ Mr. Lawsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish estimates of the public sector deficit consistent with table 7 of Cmnd. No. 7439, in £ billion for 1977–78 and 1978–79 and as a percentage of gross domestic product.
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§ Mr. Joel Barnett, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 15 February 1979; Vol. 962, c. 637], gave the following information:
The public sector financial deficit consistent with table 7 of Cmnd. 7439 and on the same price basis as that table, is estimated at £6.0 billion in 1977–78 and £6.2 billion in 1978–79. In each year the estimated public sector financial deficit is equivalent to 4 per cent. of gross domestic product at market prices.
§ Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for every £100 spent by the Government on each person resident in England, how much was spent on each person resident in Scotland for each of the years from 1960 to 1978; and if he will publish a table giving the relative figures and percentages for each year for each of the following subjects: the National Health Service, social work, education, arts, sport, housing, rents, local government, rate support grants, planning, water, new towns, the countryside, buses, roads, ferries, airports, passenger subsidies, land tenure, tourism, fire service, courts and administration of the criminal and civil law.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 14 February 1979; Vol. 962, c. 569], gave the following information:
The table below gives estimates of identifiable public expenditure per head 38W in Scotland and England for 1973–74 to 1977–78, consistent with those in the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Ovenden) on 17 January 1979—[Vol. 960, c. 781–94]. That answer, which gives a full explanation of the term "identifiable public expenditure", notes that the estimates, which were compiled during the late summer of 1978, use the terms and classifications of the public expenditure White Paper "The Government's Expenditure Plans, 1978–79 to 1981–82", Cmnd. 7049 published in January 1978. Estimates on that basis are not available for England for earlier years; figures for Scotland for the years from 1969–70 will be published shortly in the Scottish abstract of statistics.
Public expenditure, and therefore the figures in the tables, includes spending by central Government and local authorities but transactions between them are excluded to avoid double counting. Thus central Government grants to local authorities, such as the rate support grants, and also loans, are excluded because the expenditure which they help to finance is included as public expenditure by the local authorities. Similarly, since public expenditure includes the capital expenditure of certain public corporations, including new town corporations, grants and loans to those corporations are excluded. The table, however, distinguishes identifiable public expenditure by local authorities and new towns.
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IDENTIFIABLE PUBLIC EXPENDITURE PER HEAD IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND Current prices 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 Scotland England Scotland England Scotland England Scotland England Scotland England £ £ £ £ £ £ per head (as% of England per head £ per head (as% of England) per head £ per head (as% of England) per head £ per head (as% of England) per head £ per head (as% of England) per head Identifiable public expenditure by: Central government 306 (126) 243 402 (128) 314 521 (128) 408 586 (130) 451 654 (129) 508 Local authorities 180 (119) 152 241 (112) 215 310 (117) 264 332 (118) 282 363 (123) 294 Certain public corporations: New towns 5 (327) 1 6 (188) 3 11 (257) 4 10 (199) 5 8 (172) 5 Other 3 (33) 9 8 (81) 10 13 (118) 11 13 (113) 12 12 (117) 10 Total identifiable public expenditure 494 (122) 405 657 (121) 542 855 (124) 687 942 (126) 750 1,037 (127) 817 Of which: Housing 63 (148) 43 92 (118) 78 105 (133) 78 108 (123) 88 111 (130) 85 of which: Subsidies, rent rebates and allowances 24 (226) 11 33 (179) 18 41 (174) 23 46 (155) 29 50 (149) 33 Health and personal social services 74 (117) 63 100 (118) 85 136 (121) 113 153 (119) 128 175 (122) 143 of which: Health 63 (119) 53 84 (120) 70 113 (122) 93 127 (120) 106 146 (123) 119 Personal social services 10 (110) 9 14 (113) 13 21 (121) 17 24 (121) 20 26 (123) 21 Education and libraries, science and arts 95 (120) 79 121 (118) 103 157 (120) 130 176 (119) 147 189 (121) 157 of which: Education 83 (120) 69 109 (120) 91 140 (122) 115 157 (122) 129 169 (123) 137 Arts 1 (102) 1 1 (94) 1 2 (110) 2 2 (115) 2 2 (115) 2
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Roads and transport 29 (118) 24 41 (122) 33 50 (129) 39 55 (140) 40 60 (156) 39 of which: Motorways and trunk roads 5 (74) 7 7 (102) 7 10 (106) 9 11 (115) 9 14 (179) 8 Local transport 19 (126) 15 23 (114) 20 31 (121) 26 33 (124) 27 36 (130) 28 of which: Roads 16 (139) 11 18 (146) 12 21 (151) 14 22 (150) 14 22 (154) 14 Public transport investment * (33) 2 1 (51) 2 2 (67) 3 3 (90) 3 3 (82) 4 Concessionary fares 1 (192) * 1 (82) 1 2 (139) 2 2 (140) 2 3 (134) 2 Passenger transport subsidies to British Rail Subsidies to bus, underground and ferry services 1 (180) * 2 (66) 3 4 (94) 4 2 (504) * 3 (493) 1 2 (43) 4 2 (63) 3 Central government subsidies 3 (827) * 1 (171) 1 1 (283) * 1 (292) 1 1 (274) 1 to transport industries of which: new bus grants * (237) * * (10) * * (159) * 1 (227) * 1 (136) * Civil aviation — (—) 1 1 (94) 1 3 (154) 2 2 (193) 1 2 (299) 1 Other environmental services 32 (115) 28 43 (131) 33 63 (141) 45 65 (143) 46 75 (158) 47 ofwhich: Water services (other than land drainage and flood protection) 9 (124) 7 12 (166) 7 18 (187) 10 16 (158) 10 17 (176) 9 Town and country plannng 4 (93) 4 5 (134) 4 6 (123) 5 6 (143) 4 6 (130) 5 Recreation 4 (111) 4 3 (98) 5 12 (192) 6 12 (193) 6 12 (179) 7 Tourism 1 (88) 1 * (159) * * (253) * * (288) * 1 (339) * Law, order and protective services** 16 (94) 17 21 (100) 21 29 (103) 28 32 (101) 32 36 100) 36 of which: Courts, the administration of justice etc 1 (79) 1 2 (134) 1 2 (123) 2 3 (143) 2 3 (148) 2 Fine services 2 (101) 2 3 (100) 3 5 (109) 4 5 (105) 5 5 (105) 5 The figures are rounded independently to the nearest £1 * Less than £0.5 per head. † Provisional. ** Not all Home Office expenditure on Law, order and protective services is split between England and Wales.