§ Mr. Michael Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether the Retail Prices Index Advisory Committee has made a recommendation on the re-basing of the Retail Prices Index ; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WhitelawThe advisory committee has considered the rebasing of the Retail Prices Index and has recommended to me that the reference base should be changed to January 1974 = 100. It has also recommended that figures on the existing base of January 1962 =100 should continue to be published in parallel with the new series during 1974. I have accepted the committee's recommendations, which will be introduced in March in respect of the index for February.
This is a purely arithmetical change which will make no difference to the percentage change in the index between any pair of months. It will not affect the regular revisions of the weights of the index which are made each January.