§ Mr. Hordernasked the Secretary of State for Trade how many forms are 136W issued by his Department, or by agencies of which he is the sponsoring Minister; how many people or organisations are invited to respond to each of them; and what, briefly, is the general purpose of each.
§ Mr. MeacherThe number of statistical forms issued by my Department to firms engaged in the distributive and service trades in 1975 was 344,000. Full details were given to the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) on 5th April 1976—[Vol. 909, c. 77.] The purpose of the inquiries is to provide a wide range of information about economic developments for use by the Government and by industry and trade and by the public generally. The statistics provide the basis, for example, for the quarterly national income accounts; statistics of the turnover of the retail and catering trades; statistics of capital expenditure, investment intentions and stock changes, and so on.