Mr Major’s Written Parliamentary Answer on the Exchange Rate – 26 January 1988

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on the Exchange Rate on 26th January 1988.

Mr. Austin Mitchell To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will set out in tabular form the relationship between the three-monthly change for the period 1975 to 1987 in the real exchange rate and the three-monthly change in (a) exports (volume), (b) imports (volume), (c) profits, (d) the retail prices index, (e) gross national product growth, (f) the level of domestic economic industry and (g) unemployment, all one year later.

Mr. Major The figures requested are all readily available from published sources. The volume of exports and imports, industrial and commercial company gross trading profits, the retail prices index, industrial production and the level of unemployment may all be found in Economic Trends. Figures for the gross national product may be found in the monthly digest of statistics. There is no unique measure of the real exchange rate. Figures for the sterling exchange rate index and various measures of United Kingdom competitiveness are published in Economic Trends.