§ Mr. David Howellasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will now further revise the standard industrial classification of industry so as to reflect more accurately the nature of modern service industries; and if he will in future list the service industries' contribution to gross domestic product broken down between services to business, services to households, food and catering, culture and sport and leisure services.
§ Mr. ButcherThe standard industrial classification (revised 1980) already distinguishes business services (class 83), hotels and catering (class 66), recreational and other cultural services (class 97) and many other classes of service activities. Estimates of the contributions of different types of activity to the gross domestic product are published in so far as the detailed data needed to compile these estimates is available. The possibilities of compiling more detailed estimates than those currently published is kept under review, but the need to minimise the statistical form-filling burden imposed on businesses limits the amount of detailed information available for that purpose.