§ Mr. JesselTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what machinery exists to register appropriate changes to the weighting of components in the cost of living index to relate to changes in normal household consumption of different items; and if he will list those as applied to cigarettes in the last 30 years;
(2) what weighting is given at the present time and 10, 20 and 30 years ago or at suitable convenient dates to cigarettes in the retail prices index or its predecessor.
§ Mr. LeeThe weighting of the retail prices index is updated at the beginning of each year. Since 1962 the weight for each component has been revised in the light of the latest available information on household consumption from the family expenditure survey. In the case of a 461W few items (including cigarettes) allowance is made for under-recording of expenditure in the survey, by supplementing its results with more comprehensive information from the consumers' expenditure estimates in the national accounts. As they are introduced the new weights are published in Employment Gazette. Those for cigaretes have been as follows:
Weight for cigarettes in general RPI (parts per thousand) Date Weight 1959–61 70 1962 70 1963 69 1964 66 1965 67 1966 68 1967 64 1968 59 1969 60 1970 57 1971 53 1972 48 1973 44 1974 39 1975 42 1976 42 1977 42 1978 44 1979 40 1980 37 1981 33 1982 37 1983 36 1984 33 1985 34 1986 35 1987 33 1988 32