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Debt

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply. Letter from Stephen Penneck, Director General for ONS, to Lord Roberts of Conwy, dated February 2012. As Director General for the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking what is Her Majesty's Government’s latest estimate of the totality of (1) private sector debt in the United Kingdom, and (2) public sector debt. (HL15112) Latest Data Using the latest data published by ONS on 22 December 2011, for the third quarter of 2011, please find below the information you have requested with further detail regarding how the sectors have been grouped and the specific data items we have used. Public and Private Sector Debt

UK. 3 Quarter 2011
	£ billions
Public sector total financial liabilities	1,650
Private sector total financial liabilities	28,063

"Source: ONS, UKEA 3rd Quarter 2011" Further detail The above figures are the aggregated total financial sector liabilities as published in the sector financial balance sheets of the United Kingdom Economic Accounts (UKEA). These liabilities do not make any allowance for the financial and non-financial assets held by each sector. For the purposes of this question, we have defined the sectors as follows Private sector private non-financial corporations; financial corporations; and household and non-profit institutions serving households. Public sector public corporations; local government; and central government. The total financial liabilities supplied are valued at current market prices (ie not adjusted for price inflation) and are unconsolidated. Alternative public sector net debt measure For the public sector there is an alternative definition of debt, which is the standard measure of public debt used in the UK to monitor (and forecast) the Government's fiscal position. This measure is known as the public sector net debt and the latest estimates are published in the monthly Public Sector Finances statistical bulletin jointly published by ONS and HM Treasury (at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index. html?nscl=Public+Sector+Finance). Public sector net debt is defined as the total financial liabilities of the public sector minus the liquid assets, and is valued at nominal prices rather than market prices. All data are consolidated across the public sector, ie all intra public sector asset/liability holdings are removed. On this basis, public sector net debt was: £1,004 billion at the end of December 2011, excluding public sector banking groups and the temporary effects of Government financial interventions; and £2,330 billion at the end of December 2011, including public sector banking groups and the temporary effects of Government financial interventions. The public sector banking groups referred to above are Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Lloyds Banking Group plc, Northern Rock Asset Management and Bradford and Bingley. Within the United Kingdom Economic Accounts figures, these banking groups are all recorded under financial corporations and so are within the private sector.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

15112; 735 c35-6WA

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Debts Private sector Public sector debt

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk