§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when his Department's housing statistics division will have prepared household projections for 1996 and 1997 for local authority areas in Tyne and Wear on the same basis as the OPCS household projections; and if he will publish both sets of figures. [1330]
§ Mr. RaynsfordOPCS (now the Office for National Statistics) does not produce household estimates and projections which are the responsibility of my Department. These estimates and projections are, however, based, inter alia, on Office for National Statistics population estimates and projections. The latest household projections for mid-1996 for the five metropolitan districts of Tyne and Wear were published in March 1995 in "Projections of Households in England to 2016", a copy of which is in the Library of the House. These were compiled from the OPCS 1992-based sub-national population projections. Household projections were not produced for 1997. Planning has started for the next set of household projections, which 163W will be based on 1996 sub-national population projections that the Office for National Statistics expects to complete in late 1998. The associated 1996-based household projections should be available a few months afterwards.
The Department also produces annual estimates of the number of households by local authority area. The latest estimates are for 1995 and the details for the Tyne and Wear area are as follows:
Number Gateshead 86,000 Newcastle upon Tyne 121,000 North Tyneside 84,000 South Tyneside 66,000 Sunderland 120,000
§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he expects to receive the results of the research and reviews of the robustness of future household projections; and if he intends to make those results available to the House. [1342]
§ Mr. RaynsfordThe most recent household projections have been subject to considerable public scrutiny since their publication in March 1995, in particular by the Environment Select Committee in evidence for its report on Housing Need in 1996. Whilst generally endorsing the projections, the Committee recommended that the Department continues to examine the extent to which household formation is affected by economic and social factors. This is currently being addressed by the Department of Applied Economics, Cambridge University, as part of a wider research project for the Department on the modelling of the need for social housing. The project has been extended beyond its original completion date and should now be finalised by the Autumn.
Last year, the Department also commissioned Heriot-Watt University to undertake a detailed literature review on household formation, with particular emphasis on evaluating the available evidence on the extent to which economic factors affect the propensity for new households to form. This work has recently been completed, and I expect to see the results shortly.
As is the usual practice with external research commissioned by the Department, I would expect reports to be published as soon as practicable.
§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what research he has evaluated into the impact of international passenger survey statistics, and large student populations, on household projections; and what conclusions he has reached. [1340]
§ Mr. RaynsfordMy Department has undertaken no research as such on the impact of the International Passenger Survey statistics on the household projections. Projections of the future pattern of migration between England and the rest of the world are the responsibility of the Government Actuary's Department (GAD). In collaboration with other departments, GAD undertook a thorough review in 1992 of the methods used to set international migration assumptions. This led to a new methodology which was used for the first time in the164W preparation of the 1991-based national population projections. As with previous projections, the assumed level of migration over the projection period takes into account information from a run of previous years in order to even out the fluctuations from year to year. The robustness of sources of information on migration, including the International Passenger Survey, is kept under regular review by the Office for National Statistics.
We are currently investigating the effects of large student populations on the household projections. However, any proposals for revisions to the methodology for handling students in the underlying sub-national population projections will need to be discussed with the Office for National Statistics before they can be implemented.