§ 24. Mr. David Marshallasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the decline in gross domestic product as measured by the average estimate of factor cost since the second quarter of 1979.
§ 27. Mr. Jim Marshallasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the decline in gross domestic product for the United Kingdom since May 1979; and what has been the average change in gross domestic product since that date for all other members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
§ Mr. BrittanBetween the second quarter of 1979 and the third quarter of 1982, the average estimate of GDP at factor cost fell by 5.5 per cent. But output in the second quarter of 1979 was erratically high following the strikes and exceptionally bad weather in the first quarter. A better comparison, with the first half of 1979, shows a fall in 523W GDP of just under 4 per cent. The OECD secretariat estimates that between the first half of 1979 and the first half of 1982 gross domestic product—at market prices—in other OECD countries rose by 3 per cent.