§ Mr. GapesTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will arrange for the Inland Revenue to increase the sample size of information collected from its files to enable a more accurate assessment of income levels by local authority area. [30398]
§ Mr. JackThe size of the sample for the survey of personal incomes is set with a view to meeting efficiently its primary purpose of providing information relevant to the costing of income tax proposals affecting the United Kingdom as a whole. As such, a plan to increase its size is not required.
Some information from the survey of personal incomes on income levels by local authority areas is already published in "Inland Revenue Statistics 1995". Like all information derived from sample surveys, the figures are subject to statistical variation and the published tables indicate which estimates are particularly uncertain.