§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will circulate a table in the Official Report showing the percentage increase in sterling M3 in each month since the Government came to office, his estimate of the underlying increase each month after making allowance for disintermediarisation, and when he expects the increases to show up in the rate of inflation.
§ Mr. LawsonFigures for the percentage increase in £M3 per month to August 1980 can be found in table 7.1 of the September edition ofFinancial Statistics, published by the Central Statistical Office. The corresponding increase in September 1980 was 0.6 per cent. Both before and after the ending of the corset restrictions on bank lending in June the figures are considerably distorted by disintermediation and reintermediation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has indicated that underlying growth in £M3 during the period since February this year may have been around 19 per cent. at an annual rate, but this estimate is subject to very wide margins of error and month by month estimates of disintermediation over the period are particularly prone to error. Since we confidently expect the underlying rate of monetary growth to moderate significantly in the second half of the year the rapid growth of recent months will not adversely affect our strategy for bringing inflation down, which is already meeting with considerable success.