§ Dr. LadymanTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what statistics her Department collates relating to petrol prices throughout the United Kingdom; what analysis it makes of regional trends; and if she will publish this information. [38381]
§ Mr. BattleNational petrol, and diesel, price data are collected and published by my Department monthly in Energy Trends one month in arrears. Provisional estimates, for the previous month, are published earlier at the beginning of each month in the Advance Energy Statistics Press Notice. Longer runs of data and information relating to duty rates are published annually in the Digest of UK Energy Statistics. The very localised nature of petrol pricing means that meaningful regional analyses has to be based on very small regions. As such it is not cost effective for my Department to collect and publish such detailed information. My Department does, however, monitor the top level regional data produced by private sector organisations.