§ Mr. DafisTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make it his policy to adjust national income accounts and gross national product calculations to take account of natural resource usage and pollution.
§ Mr. NelsonThe national accounts, compiled by the Central Statistical Office, measure economic activity in a clearly defined way in line with international recommendations. Development of methods of evaluating environmental factors in an economic accounting568W framework to complement the national accounts is also being encouraged by international organisations. For a number of reasons, however, not least the difficulty of putting monetary values on environmental factors, the development of integrated environmental and economic accounts is particularly difficult. The Central Statistical Office will be publishing an article on this subject, with illustrative statistics, in the November issue of "Economic Trends".