§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the annual profits and losses of the nationalised industries in current prices for each year between 1974 and 1997. [11350]
§ Dawn Primarolo[holding answer 29 July 1997]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the chief executive of the Office for National Statistics, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. John Bercow, dated 31 July 1997:
the Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as Director of the Office for National Statistics to your recent question on the annual profits and losses of the nationalised industries in the current prices for each year between 1974 and 1997.I regret to say that estimates of profits/losses of the nationalised industries are not produced.For the National Accounts, the nationalised industries are classified within the Public Corporations sector. As of April 1997, the nationalised industries were as follows:
- Briish Coal Board
- Magnox Electric
- British Railways Board
- London Region Transport
- Highlands Islands Airports
- British Nuclear Fuels
- Post Office
- Civil Aviation Authority
- British Waterways Board
- Caledonian MacBrayne
The Public Corporations sector also contains many other bodies, e.g. NHS trusts, the BBC, Channel 4, and urban development corporations. The composition of the sector has changed significantly, over the period from 1974, particularly with privatisations.The National Accounts definition of the United Kingdom profits, losses of Public Corporations is entitled to the gross trading surplus (this is gross of depreciation). It would be possible to construct gross trading surplus aggregates for the nationalised industries from 1991 to 1996 only, but this would be at disproportionate cost. Data before 1991 are unavailable.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not publish data for the gross trading surplus of the Public Corporations sector as a whole. This series goes back to 1946 but is affected by breaks due to sectoral reclassifications, including privatisation, nationalisation and the establishment of NHS trusts. I attach a table of the data from 1974 to 1996. This data, from 1986 onwards, will appear in the 1997 edition of United Kingdom National Accounts which is being published on 8 August. Gross trading surplus data for 1997 are not yet available.443W
Gross trading surplus of public corporations Year Current prices (£ million) 1974 2,561 1975 3,094 1976 4,505 1977 5,095 1978 5,466 1979 5,710 1980 6,309 1981 7,974 1982 9,502 1983 10,004 1984 8,511 1985 7,262 1986 8,213 1987 6,993 1988 7,554 1989 5,951 1990 3,426 1991 1,410 1992 1,699 1993 2,438 1994 2,698 1995 4,230 1996 3,959