Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of the amount of international debt held by (a) private sector companies and (b) individuals registered in the UK.

The amount of sovereign debt held by private sector creditors differs significantly across countries. Over the last decade, the share of sovereign debt held by different types of private sector creditors has increased relative to official bilateral and multilateral creditors, particularly in low-income countries. For example, a recent World Bank publication noted that at end-2020, low-and middle-income countries owed five times as much to private sector creditors as they did to bilateral creditors. According to the IMF, for the 73 low-income countries eligible for the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative, the share of external debt owed to the private sector increased from 10 percent of GDP in 2006 to 19 percent of GDP in 2020.

As most private debt takes the form of tradable instruments, the amount of international debt held by individuals registered in the UK can fluctuate on a regular basis. Figures from the Office for National Statistics estimate that UK investors owned around £12,663 billion of investment in international assets at the end of 2021.