HL Deb 05 June 2000 vol 613 cc130-1WA
The Earl of Northesk

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether their statistical data relating to e-commerce and the dot.com sector are adequate; and, if not, what action they propose to take to improve the situation. [HL2532]

The Minister for Science, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville)

A Government Statistical Service interdepartmental group is reviewing means of meeting requirements for statistics in this rapidly developing area. In general, e-commerce transactions are covered by existing statistical collection but they are not separately identified.

Information on Internet access is available From the Family Expenditure Survey. The expenditure diary on the Family Expenditure Survey has been amended to identify Internet transactions by households separately. The time use survey will collect data on the amount of time spent on the Internet.

For the e-commerce enabling industries such as computer software, pilot data collection by the Office for National Statistics on individual products and services is planned. Research is also in hand in cooperation with Internet service providers to access information that they hold on patterns of Internet use. A report Whose Net? Characteristics of Internet Users in the UK, is available on website www,pat15.org.ulc. This report was commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry from De Montfort University and involved the co-operation of 12 leading Internet service providers.

Data on the usage by business of information and communication technologies and e-commerce applications are collected in the DTI's International Benchmarking Study which compares UK performance with that in other leading economies.

The best approach to the collection of data from business which identifies the value of electronic transactions separately is still to be established. It is important to achieve the right balance between the value added through the availability of such statistics and the extra costs and burdens involved.

International comparability is particularly important for business statistics on e-commerce, as many different types of transactions and network can be involved. The UK has been participating fully in the derivation of internationally acceptable definitions of e-commerce. Other countries' experience in collecting relevant data is also being taken into account, though typically these are very recent developments.

More information can be found in an article "E-commerce@the.ONS.UK" in the April 2000 edition of Economic Trends, also available on the e-envoy's website.