§ Mr. Brocklebank-Fowlerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the per capita saving to the taxpayer of each £10 million reduction in public expenditure.
§ Mr. BiffenThere is no unique relationship between reductions in public expenditure and the effect on taxpayers. Any estimate made would involve numerous assumptions about the types of expenditure involved, overall macroeconomic policy and the response of the economy in general. Moreover, it would be subject to wide margins of error and therefore potentially misleading. It is, however, obviously true that within some aggregate revenue or public sector borrowing constraint lower public expenditure permits taxes to be lower than they would otherwise be.