§ Mr. David ShawTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the accounting treatments being adopted by each EU member state in their 1996 and 1997 national accounts which differ from United Kingdom practice; and what assessment he has made of the expected effect of each difference. [15333]
§ Mrs. Angela KnightThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the chief executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. David Shaw, dated 3 March 1997:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me as the Director of the Office for National Statistics to reply to your recent question on the accounting treatments being adopted by each EU member state in their 1996 and 1997 national accounts which differ from United Kingdom practice; and what assessment he has made of the expected effect of each difference.There is a requirement for certain statistics relating to European Monetary Union convergence to be compiled and reported to Eurostat in line with the European System of Accounts, second edition (ESA79). For the purposes of excess deficit criteria, the European System of Accounts (ESA95) Regulation 2223/96 requires that 1 September 1999 reports will be the last to be submitted on an ESA79 basis.ESA79 is used as the basis for accounting treatment for the debt and deficit criteria for EMU. There are some differences in treatment between member states. In these cases, in order to ensure better comparability for the debt and deficit procedure, after consultation with statistical experts from member states, The Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) takes decisions on methodological rules to be applied by member states. Eurostat visits member states to check compliance with these rules. However, no specific assessment has been, or could realistically be, made of the effects of differences in treatment in other countries' own accounts from UK practice. UK accounting treatment is described in United Kingdom National Accounts—The Blue Book,published annually by the Office for National Statistics.Council Directive 89/130/EEC, Euratom, of 13 February 1989 (known as "the GNP Directive") requires that member states provide data on Gross National Product at market prices (GNPmp) on an ESA79-basis for own resource purposes annually to the Commission. The Directive also requires member states to provide the Commission (Eurostat) with an inventory of the procedures and basic statistics used to calculate GNPmp and its components. The GNP Committee has the job of examining compliance of GNPmp data with ESA79 definitions, and examining the statistical sources and the procedures used for calculating GNPmp and its components.Data for 1996 have not yet been compiled by member states. What treatment has been adopted—and any differences between countries—will not become clear until these accounts are published, or submitted to Eurostat. Therefore any comparison of differences in treatment between the UK and other member states could not yet be done for latest years.For the national accounts in general, in advance of the introduction of ESA95, there is no statutory framework which determines treatment to be adopted by each member state in their national accounts as a whole. As I mention above, Eurostat does however maintain copies of inventories describing the procedures and basic statistics in that part of the accounts used to calculate 490W data on Gross National Product at market prices (GNPmp) and its components, required under the GNP Directive for own resource purposes.