§ Mr. Richard Wainwrightasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount of foreign debt currently owed by Her Majesty's Government; how much of this is due for repayment during 1983; and how much has to be repaid between January 1984 and December 1987.
§ Mr. Bruce-GardyneAt present the foreign currency debt owed by Her Majesty's Government amounts to $4 billion. Of this sum, $0.2 billion is due for repayment in 1983, and $1.3 billion is due for repayment between January 1984 and December 1987. The official foreign414W penalties; (d) the number settled with interest and/or penalties; (e) the average amount of additional tax recovered from the non-interest or penalty settlements; and (f) the average yield ie tax, interest and penalties for cases where interest and/or penalties were taken.
Statistics are available for only four full years because the current system of selecting accounts for in-depth investigation was introduced in 1977. The average amount recovered for cases in column (d)—accounts investigations where interest and/or penalties were taken—is not available as these amounts were not separately recorded until recently. Figures will be available for the year to 31 October 1982 and after.
The investigation of accounts forms part of the normal duties of inspectors in local offices and no breakdown of the average cost of an investigation is available.
currency debt includes also debts of public corporations and local authorities and amounts at present to $12.5 billion.
Data on the composition of the official debt are provided in "Financial Statistics" table S 14. A schedule of capital repayments is published annually in the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, and appeared most recently in the June 1982 issue, p. 234.