§ Mr. Shoreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish table 1.9 and 1.10 in volume I of Cmnd. 8494, "The Government's Expenditure Plans, 1982–83 to 1984–85", in constant 1981–82 prices.
§ Sir Geoffrey HoweI shall let the right hon. Member have a reply as soon as possible.
§ Mr. Shoreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the unemployment assumptions for the three following years upon which public expenditure was based, as shown in each public expenditure White Paper since 1970.
§ Sir Geoffrey HoweUnemployment assumptions were not provided in the public expenditure White Papers prior to Cmnd 7439. Since then the unemployment assumption for Great Britain has been given in the social security chapter of each publication—Cmnd. 7439, Cmnd. 7841, Cmnd. 8175, Cmnd. 8494. In the 1981 and 1982 public expenditure White Papers unemployment assumptions for Northern Ireland were given in the Northern Ireland chapter.
Prior to Cmnd. 7439, the only assumptions that are available relate to Cmnd. 7049. These are given in a letter to the chairman of the social services and employment subcommittee and are reproduced in the thirteenth report from the Expenditure Committee, Session 1977–78 HC 647 iii, page 1100. In all cases it was made clear that the figures 226W were not forecasts of unemployment, but simply working assumptions made for the purpose of constructing expenditure projections.