§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people in(a) Greater London and (b) the Sutton and Cheam constituency earn (a) £3.60 per hour, (b) £3.61 to £3.80 per hour, (c) £3.81 to £4 per hour and (d) £4 to £4.50 per hour; and what percentage of total employees this constitutes in each case. [134892]
§ 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. Paul Burstow, dated 6 November 2000:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question on earnings in Greater London and the Sutton and Cheam constituency. (134892)The following table shows the percentage of employee jobs earning within specified hourly pay bands in Greater London and Sutton and Cheam. The table is based on data from the New Earnings Survey (NES) for April 2000. NES answers are given as percentages earning below specified thresholds, rather than numbers. This is because appropriate grossing factors for the NES sample are not available at very detailed levels.
Percentage Greater London Sutton and Cheam £3.60 exactly 0.2 0.7 £3.61–£3.80 0.6 1.3 £3.81–£4.00 1.0 0.7 £4.01–£4.50 3.2 6.0
However, the NES underestimates the number of low paid jobs since it does not provide a comprehensive picture of the lower end of the earnings distribution. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) best estimates of the number of jobs in the UK with hourly pay less than national minimum wage rates were published in the NES press release on 26 October available in the House of Commons Library. These estimates are based on a new methodology that combines information from the NES and the Labour Force Survey. Further tables, including estimates for Government Office Regions, will be published on the National Statistics website (www.statistics.gov.uk) on 10 November.