§ Mr. Meacherasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the percentage rise in M3, both on an annual and monthly basis, for the last three years; and what proportion of this, both annually and monthly, was accounted for, respectively, by a rise in the public sector borrowing requirement and by a rise in bank lending to the private sector.
§ Mr. LawsonThe basic information on the counterparts of £M3 is with one minor exception, available in "Financial Statistics" published monthly by the Central Statistical Office. Monthly data on M3 and sterling M3 for the last 20 months are given in table 7.2. Any edition in early 1979 will give the data back over the last three years. Monthly changes in bank lending to the private sector are to be found in table 7.3. The minor exception relates to PSBR figures. Monthly PSBR figures are not compiled. Table 7.3 gives a series showing the CGBR each month and the PSBR on a quarterly basis. The figures given are the size of the borrowing requirements in each month.
The breakdown of £M3 changes into elements ascribable to the PSBR, bank lending to the public sector and so on, as shown in table 7.3, has the characteristics of an accounting identity. The various elements are not independent; a rise in one does not imply a one-for-one change in the money supply.