Category: Chief Secretary (1987-1989)

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Disposable Income on 17th November 1987.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the latest estimate of per capita disposable income for each region in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Major I refer my hon. Friend to the regional accounts for 1985, published in chapter 10 of “Regional Trends 1987”, a copy of which is available in the House of Commons Library. Regional accounts for 1986, together with revised estimates for 1985, will be published in the November 1987 issue of “Economic Trends” on 16 December 1987.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Expenditure Statistics on 13th November 1987.

Mr. Gordon Brown To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of expenditure in the latest year for which figures are available on(a) food, (b) fuel, (c) children’s clothes and shoes, (d) books, newspapers and periodicals, (e) bus fares, (f) new house building and (g) funerals.

Mr. Major [holding answer, 12 November 1987] Some estimates of expenditure on the categories requested are compiled in the context of personal sector transactions recorded in national accounts, covering years up to 1986 and published in the 1987 edition of the United Kingdom national accounts, the ‘CSO Blue Book’. Total expenditure, which would include purchases by other sectors (for example, businesses) is not available.

Current and constant price estimates for expenditure on food, fuel and power, clothing and footwear, books, newspapers and magazines and buses and coaches are available from tables 4.7 and 4.8 of the CSO Blue Book. Spending on children’s clothes and shoes is not separately identified. Current price estimates up to 1986 for expenditure on dwellings (excluding existing dwellings and land) are available from tables 12.1 and 12.3 of the CSO Blue Book.

The CSO Blue Book does not contain estimates of expenditure on funerals but available information suggests that undertakers’ charges amounted to about £240 million at current prices in 1986.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Public Expenditure on 13th November 1987.

Mr. Blunkett Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of the proposed cash increase in public expenditure which he announced on Tuesday 3 November is available to fund new services or facilities, taking into account (a) inflation, (b) pay awards, (c) commitments entered into or spending already being undertaken, over and above the previous public expenditure predictions on which his announcement was based, (d) “overspend” already taking place, (e) demographic changes and (f) announcements of increases made previously by him or other Ministers.

Mr. Major [holding answer, 9 November 1987] The plans published in the Autumn Statement represent increases of about 5 per cent. a year in cash terms in general Government expenditure (excluding privatisation proceeds) between 1986-87 and 1990-91. Excluding the expected effects of general inflation, as measured by the GDP deflator, the real increase is about 1.25 per cent. a year. These plans will enable significant improvements in services and new initiatives in the Government’s priority areas, including the NHS, inner cities, education and prison building, while at the same time reducing the proportion of national income devoted to public expenditure. The precise extent to which these cash plans fund new or improved services will depend on the extent to which public sector managers achieve moderate pay settlements or are able to generate additional resources by securing improvements in value for money.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Diplomats on 9th November 1987.

Mr. Rooker Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the contributions paid by each grouping of foreign diplomats to the cost of local authority services for the latest convenient period; how contributions are fixed; and what arrears are outstanding from any grouping.

Mr. Major [holding answer 5 November 1987]: I regret that this information cannot be provided without disproportionate cost.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Empty Government Property on 4th November 1987.

Mr. Rogers Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of Government-owned houses and flats have been empty for more than six months.

Mr. Major I regret that this information cannot be provided without disproportionate cost.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement on 2nd November 1987.

Mr. Chris Smith Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will indicate, for each of the last three financial years and in estimate form for the current financial year, the reduction in the public sector borrowing requirement which has accrued from the removal of the capital borrowing requirements of privatised industries into the private sector; and if he will break this down on an enterprise by enterprise basis.

Mr. Major The nationalised industries’ contribution to the public sector borrowing requirement is defined as the sum of their external financing requirements. The Government cannot provide estimates, which would be purely hypothetical, of what the financing requirements of privatised companies might have been had they been still in the public sector. Details of the industries’ external finance up to the point of privatisation are published in the public expenditure White Paper for the following year; provisional outturns are first published in the cash limits provisional outturn White Paper.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Civil Servants on 2nd November 1987.

Mr. Rooker Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the change in the proportion of civil servants working in departmental regional offices since 1980.

Mr. Major The proportion of all non-industrial home civil servants working in Birmingham has risen from 1.6 per cent. in January 1980 to 1.7 per cent. in January 1987.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Price Stability on 29th October 1987.

Mr. Latham Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on progress towards achieving Her Majesty’s Government’s ultimate objective of price stability.

Mr. Major Price stability remains the Government’s ultimate objective. Recent movements in the retail prices index have been consistent with the Budget forecast of 4 per cent. inflation in the fourth quarter of 1987. A new forecast will be published in the autumn statement.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Invisible Earnings on 29th October 1987.

Mr. Quentin Davies Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current level of invisible earnings in the United Kingdom; and how it compares with the levels five and 10 years ago.

Mr. Evennett Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current level of invisible earnings in the United Kingdom; and how it compares with the levels five and 10 years ago.

Mr. Major I refer my hon. Friends to the answer given earlier today by my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood).

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Unit Labour Costs on 29th October 1987.

Mr. Hind Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest figures for unit labour costs in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Charles Wardle Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest figures for unit labour costs in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Major The latest figures show that in the first quarter of 1987 unit labour costs for the whole economy rose by 3.7 per cent. Manufacturing unit wage costs rose by 1.5 per cent. over the previous year in the three months ending in August.