Below the Line Expenditure

Oral Answers to Questions — National Finance – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 21 April 1959.

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Photo of Sir William Anstruther-Gray Sir William Anstruther-Gray , Berwickshire and East Lothian 12:00, 21 April 1959

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the expression, "below the line expenditure," was first used by a Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Budget statement; and to what extent the categories of expenditure so described have since changed.

Mr. Amory:

Returns of Government expenditure, above and below the line, have been laid before Parliament for the past 100 years or more and I am unable to answer the first part of the Question without more research than it would be reasonable to undertake.

For details of the various types of expenditure involved, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to figures published in Financial Statements and summarised in convenient form in successive Abstracts of Statistics.