To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Government adopted the international national accounting convention which requires mortgage interest tax relief to be shown as public expenditure for budgetary purposes. [79059]

National accounts are prepared in accordance with internationally agreed guidelines. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) decided to adopt the new European System of Accounts (ESA 95) as the standard for the National Accounts Blue Book published in September 1998. In national accounts prepared under ESA95, all payments of Mortgage Interest Relief are shown as part of Total Managed Expenditure (TME).