§ Mr. GibbTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of GNP the construction industry represents in each OECD and EU country. [34243]
§ Mrs. LiddellThe 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. Nick Gibb, dated 12 March 1998:
As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the construction industry.The ONS only publishes data relating to the United Kingdom.Usually, construction is not measured as a percentage of Gross National Product (GNP), this is due to data being unavailable relating to net property income from abroad of the construction industry. The usual convention estimates construction as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).International data is published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). GDP by type of activity, including construction, is published in; National Accounts Detailed Tables Volume II 1997 edition. The most recent published data on an OECD basis for the UK relates to the year 1994. For example, in 1994 construction, at current prices, was measured at £31,035 million, this represented 4.67% of GDP.More recent estimates of UK construction and GDP are available from the United Kingdom National Account (Blue Book 1997). However, this set of data contains revisions to previous estimates and will not be fully consistent with the UK estimates published by OECD. In 1996 construction, at current prices, was measured at £33,746 million, representing 4.55% of GDP.Copies of both publications are available in the House of Commons library.