§ 41. Sir H. Williamsasked the President of the Board of Trade the reason for using 1930 as the basis for the wholesale price index numbers published in the Board of Trade Journal and the year 1948 for those published in the Statistical Digest.
Mr. H. WilsonThe base of the index is the average of the prices in 1930 of the items included, weight being given to these according to their importance in imports and production in that year. The Board of Trade publishes each month index numbers on this base and, for convenience in making comparisons with other pre-war statistics, percentage changes in them since 1938. In the Statistical Digest, only the changes since 1938 (not 1948, as suggested by the hon. Member) expressed in index number form, are published.