Internet Access (Hansard, 14 February 2002)

§ Ruth Kelly

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Shaun Woodward, dated 14 February 2002: As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question regarding data about the percentage of adults who had internet access in (a) St. Helen's South, (b) the St. Helen's MBC area (c) Merseyside, (d) Manchester, (e) the North West RDA region, (f) the other RDA regions, (g) England and (h) the UK in each of the last five years. (35420) 582W Currently the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has available regional information for households but not adults. Presented below are the percentages of households with home access to the Internet in each of the government office regions (this is the lowest geographical breakdown available). This information is provided for the 1998–1999, 1999–2000 and 2000–2001 financial years. These data were not collected prior to 1998–1999, the data for the 2001–2002 financial year will be available in June 2002.

Percentage of households with access to the Internet by Government Office Regions 1998–2001
Percentage
	April to March
Government Office Region	1998–99	1999–2000	2000–01
North East	7	14	25
North West	9	18	32
Yorkshire and the Humber	8	15	29
East Midlands	9	19	32
West Midlands	8	20	33
East	11	22	35
London	16	25	40
South East	13	24	39
South West	9	19	37
England	11	20	34
Wales	7	15	22
Scotland	8	14	24
Northern Ireland	5	11	20
UK	10	19	32

Note:

Like all estimates from sample surveys these figures are subject to sampling variability. This is greater for regional than for UK estimates.

Source:

Family Expenditure Survey (April 1998 to March 2001); Expenditure and Food Survey (April 2001 onwards).