§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will place in the Library the information in the National Statistics Omnibus for(a) 2000 and (b) 2001 on internet use, broken down by (i) age and (ii) gender, in each region and nation of the United Kingdom. [29695]
§ Ruth KellyThe information falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Jim Cousins, dated 24 January 2002:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question regarding data from the National Statistics Omnibus on internet use, for 2000 and 2001, broken down by (i) age and (ii) gender in each region and nation of the United Kingdom. (29695)Since July 2000, the National Statistics Omnibus Survey has provided information on internet use for individuals in Great Britain based on a month's data gathered four times a year. These data are published along with household level data from the Expenditure and Food Survey, each quarter in the National Statistics First Release on Internet Access. These releases include background information on the National Statistics Omnibus Survey and the Expenditure and Food Survey.The internet access first releases presenting the latest figures on internet access are available in the House of Commons Library. The release dated December 2001 presented data from the Expenditure and Food Survey for households with home access to the internet broken down by region.Currently regional breakdowns of the individual level data from the Omnibus Survey are not published by age and gender in the internet access first releases as they are not reliable at that level of detail due to small sample sizes. We are currently investigating combining the four months of data to produce annual estimates which will increase the sample size and reliability of the information. If the results are then sufficiently robust we will publish this information and make it available in the House of Commons Library. We will inform you of the outcome.