§ Mr. Alasdair MorganTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will list for Scotland and each local authority area of Scotland(a) the weekly median earnings and (b) the amount of median earnings for those in the first and ninth deciles, for (i) all manual, (ii) all non-manual and (iii) all workers; [110471]
(2) what are the proportions of full-time workers in (a) Britain, (b) Scotland and (c) each local authority area in Scotland with hourly gross earnings (i) including and (ii) excluding overtime, below (1) £7.15, (2) £6.58, (3) £4.94 and (4) £3.60 for the categories (A) male manual, (B) male non-manual, (C) all male, (D) female manual, (E) female non-manual, (F) all female, (G) all manual, (H) all non-manual and (J) all workers. [110470]
§ Mr. TimmsThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Alasdair Morgan, dated 21 February 2000:
As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your recent questions about the average earnings for workers in Scotland, the Scottish local authorities and Great Britain.The New Earnings Survey (NES) can provide earnings data for small geographical areas. However, the release of NES data is restricted to figures, which are derived from a sufficiently large sample of employees, and have an acceptable level of accuracy.764WI have provided the available data for Scotland, the Scottish local authorities and Great Britain in the attached tables. These are based on the 1999 NES, the latest survey for which data are available. These are large tables and copies of them are being placed in the Library of the House rather than reproduced in Hansard.The NES is based on a one per cent. sample of employees in the PAYE system and is therefore likely to under-represent relatively low paid staff earning below the tax threshold and in particular those who work part-time.