Public Sector Borrowing Requirement

HC Deb 18 July 1994 vol 247 cc6-7W

Mr. Wareing

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of the public sector borrowing requirement was accounted for by payments of unemployment benefit and redundancy payments in each of the years 1991–92, 1992–93 and 1993–94.

Mr. Portillo

The table sets out the latest data for payments of unemployment benefit and the PSBR in each of the years 1991–92, 1992–93 and 1993–94. No data are collected centrally on public sector redundancy payments.

	1991–92	1992–93	1993–94
Payments of unemployment benefit £ million	1,642	1,801	1,786
Public sector borrowing requirement	13,879	36,578	45,937

It is not meaningful to express total general Government expenditure or any of its components as a percentage of the PSBR since the PSBR is the difference between expenditure and receipts.