§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what adjustment he has made to the public sector borrowing requirement consequent upon the decision of the Office for National Statistics to classify major trust ports as public sector bodies; [87561]
(2) pursuant to his answer of 3 December 2002, Official Report, column 681W, on trust ports, what adjustments have been made to public sector accounts as a result; [87559]
(3) pursuant to his answer of 3 December 2002, Official Report, column 681W, on trust ports, when classification of major trust ports as public bodies became effective; and whether the classification has retrospective effect. [87552]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Christopher Chope, dated 16 December 2002:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent questions on trust ports. (87522, 87559, 87561)The reclassification of major trust ports to public corporations in National Accounts became effective in September 2001. Available data were introduced retrospectively back to 1996. The 614W National Accounts data are used for the public sector accounts. The Chancellor's fiscal measures are based on these and hence reflect the changes made to the National Accounts data.Trust ports data appear in the public sector accounts and net cash requirement in many places. I am not able to give you a breakdown of this. However, trust ports are not particularly significant in the overall public corporations' accounts, for example their gross operating surplus and capital formation both account for about 0.6% of the sector total.