§ Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Northampton, North on 15 December on rates of pay, if he will make an estimate for 1980 on the assumption of known changes in parity and nationally negotiated wage increases in other EEC countries and the United States of America.
§ Mr. Jim Lester[pursuant to his reply, 18 December 1980]: I regret that the information requested for European Community countries is not yet available. However, following is a comparison between the United Kingdom and the United States of America for April 1980 for three engineering industries.
net sales proceeds under directive 76/491, as well as regular assessments of market realisations in the main European markets prepared by private consultants.
Detailed information from official sources on prices paid for fuel oil by industrial consumers is not however available over the entire period since 1945. The following table shows figures since 1968 for Community countries and the United Kingdom as at January of each year and currently. To give the longest possible run of figures two sources have been used covering the periods 1968–78 and 1978 to the present. The different statistical bases give rise to two figures for the overlap year of 1978. It should also be borne in mind in making international comparisons that difficulties can arise over the effects of currency fluctuations and differences in the proportion of individual markets covered and variations of prices within individual countries. Variations in the methods of collating data in each country may not always provide comparable figures.
It will be seen that United Kingdom fuel oil prices are currently closely in line with other EEC countries. This follows recent price increases in some other EEC countries after a period of relatively depressed continental prices.
387W
US$/107 Kcals Jan 78 Jan 79 Jan 80 Estimates Nov 80 Germany 102.33 112.20 193.70 203.90 Belgium 93.95 90.70 168.20 247.30 France 87.96 97.40 196.10 222.90 Ireland 134.21 131.40 220.10 225.10 Italy 82.87 91.30 188.20 195.50 Netherlands 98.54 95.30 169.20 194.50 United Kingdom 103.22 101.00 194.60 218.50 Source: EEC Commission** *Including taxes and duties, excluding VAT: Consumption 5,000 tonnes per annum for OECD, 24,000 tonnes per annum for EEC Commission. †VAT included. §The EEC Commission figures have been converted to the unit(S/107 Kcals) used for the OECD series; this conversion involved some degree of estimation. **The EEC data for January 1978, 1979, 1980 are outturn estimates while Nov 1980 are more informal estimates.