§ Mr. CotterTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the level of alcohol duty evasion in each of the last three years. [81055]
§ Mrs. RocheHM Customs and Excise estimates for revenue evaded (excise duty and VAT) through cross-Channel smuggling of alcohol for the last three years are given in the table.
Letter from John Kidgell to Mr. Jonathan Sayeed, dated 22 April 1999:
In the absence of the Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the UK saving ratio.The ONS calculates the UK saving ratio, and it is published in the Quarterly National Accounts First Release and Economic Trends. Both publications are available in the House of Commons Library. The ONS does not produce estimates of the saving ratio disaggregated by income group.The ONS is developing a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), which will produce estimates of income and expenditure disaggregated by industry and household type. This work could be extended to include a breakdown by income group, but we have no plans to do so at present. A SAM depends on the reconciliation of data from a number of sources, including household surveys, where sample sizes may not be sufficiently large to give robust estimates at the detailed level. Progress on the SAM project will be reported in Economic Trends in due course. A copy of an article by David Hughes, which appeared in Economic Trends in September 1996, giving the framework for the SAM, is attached for your information.