Lord Lucasasked Her Majesty's Government:
By what measure "Britain has a smaller share of 17 and 18 years olds in full-time education than any major industrial nation" (to quote from the Labour party manifesto); on what data that measure is based and by what means it may be derived therefrom; whether Her Majesty's Government are content for their record to be judged by that measure; and whether that measure also applies to Northern Ireland.
§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)The statement is based on age participation rates for 1992 published by the OECD in 1995 inEducation at a Glance, copies of which are in the Library. These rates are derived from the data supplied by my department, and by other countries direct to the OECD. They are the numbers of pupils and students of the relevant age expressed as a percentage of the population of the same age and they cover the whole of the UK. I am content for my department to continue to make this information available to the OECD to allow for a comparison of our performance with other countries.