§ Mr. LoughtonTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the elements used to calculate the RPI in each of the member countries of the EU together with their respective weightings; and if he will indicate what changes have been made in each of these lists since 1 January 1996. [33509]
§ Mrs. Liddell[holding answer 9 March 1998]: The 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. Tim Loughton, dated 10 March 1998:
As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the RPI.The contents of the UK RPI "basket" of goods and services are revised annually, as are the weightings attached to each category of spending. Each year's list of items, together with the 107W category weightings, are given in the RPI Business Monitor (March 1996 and April 1997 issues respectively), a copy of which is available in the House of Commons library.Other Member States of the EU update the list of items in their national consumer price indices, and the weights associated with the items, at varying frequencies. The majority update every five years but there are a few which revise their weights annually, namely: France, Sweden and, from the start of 1998, the Netherlands. Information about the items used by other Member States of the EU is not available.