Gross Domestic Product Statistics

HC Deb 06 March 2000 vol 345 cc515-6W

Mr. Matthew Taylor

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to publish regional GDP statistics. [112364]

Miss Melanie Johnson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from John Pullinger to Mr. Matthew Taylor, dated 6 March 2000: The Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been asked to reply to your recent question on plans to publish regional GDP statistics. I am replying in Dr Holt's absence. ONS last published GDP by Government Office Region (GOR), for years up to 1997, in an ONS News Release in January 1991¹. An article with additional tables and commentary was published in the March 1999 edition of Economic Trends². Sub-regional estimates of GDP up to 1996 were last published in an ONS News Release in October 1998³ ONS plans to publish estimates of regional GDP up to 1998 and sub-regional GDP up to 1997 in the summer of 2000. ¹ ONS(99)36. Regional gross domestic product. 29 January 1999. ² J. S. Virdee. Regional Accounts 1997: Part 1. Economic Trends No. 544, March 1999. ³ ONS(98)351. Local area gross domestic product. 22 October 1998.