§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 22 February 2000,Official Report, column 998W, to the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), if he will recalculate the figures using data from the 1998–99 Family Expenditure Survey. [129806]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Matthew Taylor, dated 24 July 2000:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking, pursuant to our answer of 22 February 2000, for corresponding estimates for 1998–99 of the percentage of the income of each quintile group of the population using data from the Family Expenditure Survey.The information requested is set out in the table attached. The analyses in the article are based on data from the Family Expenditure Survey and are therefore subject to a margin of error due to sampling variation. The changes in the figures from 1997–98 are too small to draw conclusions about changes in the tax burden over this two year period. These figures are derived from Table 2A in Appendix 1 of the article 'The effects of taxes and benefits on household income, 1998–99' published in the April 2000 edition of Economic Trends.