§ Mr. Stuart Hollandasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what has been the contribution of (a) self-financing and (b) stock market equity finance, to the investment requirements of British private industry since 1978;
(2) what was the share of the source of funds the British industrial and commercial companies accounted for by (i) total internal funds and (ii) issues of ordinary shares for cash in 1984 and from January to September 1985.
§ Mr. ButcherIt is not possible to relate individual sources of companies' funds to particular uses. Statistics of the sources and uses of United Kingdom industrial and commercial companies' funds are published regularly in "Financial Statistics", table 8.2. On the definitions used in that table, percentage contributions have been as follows:
Percentage of total sources of funds Total internal funds Issues of ordinary shares for cash 1978 78 3 1979 76 3 1980 64 3 1981 62 5 1982 60 4 1983 76 6 1984 75 3 January/September 1984 89 3 1985 66 8 Expenditure on fixed assets and on the increase in the book value of stocks in the United Kingdom has accounted for between 54 per cent. and 71 per cent. of total uses of funds in these years. It must be emphasised that different answers could be obtained by classifying certain items differently (for example, by treating payment of taxes and dividends as uses of funds instead of deducting them from income as in the table in "Financial Statistics").