§ Peter BradleyTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what the growth rate was of the(a) urban and (b) rural economy (i) in the last financial year, (ii) in the last five years and (iii) in the last 10 years; [17147]
(2) what the per capital GDP was in the last financial year for people in (a) inner city, (b) urban, (c) towns with population of less than 10,000 and (d) rural areas. [17146]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Peter Bradley, dated 26 November 2001:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your two recent questions on estimates of economic growth and GDP per head in rural and urban areas of the United Kingdom (17146/7).The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not currently produce estimates of GDP per head on an urban/rural basis. ONS is aware of the growing need for statistics and information to be available on rural and urban geographies. To this end, we are playing an active role on a cross government group being led by officials from the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, which is developing guidance on common definitions of rural and urban areas. These definitions will then form the basis of developing statistics for those geographies.ONS currently compiles and publishes estimates of GDP and GDP per capita by Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS) areas. There are five levels of NUTS in the UK and GDP estimates are produced for the first three. NUTS level 3 is the geography that is most closely aligned to county councils, unitary authority and metropolitan areas and is also the lowest geographical level that data are available.ONS last published estimates of GDP at the NUTS level 3 in April 2001, providing annual (calendar year) estimates for 1993 to 1998. These data are available through the House of Commons library. ONS plans to publish estimates for 1999 in the first half of 2002.