§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the shareholdings held by the Government in two categories(a) golden shares and (b) other shareholdings and give the percentage holding and the current market value in each case.
§ Mr. LilleyI have been asked to reply.
The Government hold special shares in the following companies, Mersey Docks and Harbour Company; Britoil; Cable and Wireless; Jaguar; Sealink; British Telecom; British Aerospace; VSEL Consortium; British Gas; Rolls-Royce; BAA; British Steel; Anglian Water; Northumbrian Water; North West Water; Severn Trent; South West Water; Southern Water; Thames Water; Welsh Water; Wessex Water; and Yorkshire Water.
Details of the Government's other shareholdings are given in the "Consolidated Fund and National Loans Fund Accounts 1987–88: Supplementary Statements" (HC59). The 1988–89 supplementary statements will be laid before the House on 18 December. The Government will retain residual shareholdings in each of the 10 water companies. Precise details of the numbers of those shares are not yet available. The current market value of the shareholdings can be established from the International Stock Exchange official list.
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§ Mr. NorrisTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the amount of Government debt written off in each of the privatisations effected by Her Majesty's Government since 1979.
§ Mr. LilleyI have been asked to reply.
The normal practice on privatisation of a nationalised industry or company wholly or majority owned by Government is to repay, rather than write off debt. This repayment may be financed from the company's existing resources, the injection of new equity, or new debt finance. In some cases, the Government provide the finance to repay debts, for example, by an equity injection. Such finance is shown in the relevant departmental programme of the public expenditure White Paper. Subsequent sales of the Government's interests in a company are recorded in the privatisation programme in the PEWP.
National loan fund debt has been formally written off only in the following privatisation cases:
Year and company Amount £ 1980–81 National Freight Corporation (under Section 45 of the Transport Act 1980) 100,000,000 1982–83 British Transport Docks Board (under Section 6(1) of the Transport Act 1981) 81,293,616 1984–85 British Telecom (BT (Extinguishment of Loans) Order 1982 2,789,865,772 1986–87 BAA (under section 3 of the Airports Act 1986) 43,503,340 1989–90 Water Companies (under section 86 of the Water Act 1989) 5,028,346,588 These write-offs had no direct effect on public expenditure in as much as they represented a reconstruction of the balance sheets of the industries concerned. In each case, having had NLF debt written off, the successor company issued new securities to be held by the Secretary of State as assets of the consolidated fund pending realisation.
Public dividend capital has been reduced in three privatisation cases:
Year and Company Amount £ 1980–81 British Airways Board (under the Civil Aviation Act 1980 Sl(l)) 160,000,000 1980–81 British Aerospace (under the British Aerospace Act 1980) 60,000,000 1988–89 British Steel (under the British Steel Act 1988) 500,000,000 A further £3,480,000,000 of borrowing by British Steel under section 18(1) of the Iron and Steel Act 1982 was written off on privatisation.