§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will list the changes in the national accounts resulting from the new European system of accounts which will affect general Government expenditure; [27448]
(2) what assessment he has made of the effect of changes in the national accounts resulting from the European system of accounts on general Government expenditure. [27446]
§ Mr. Andrew SmithThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from John Kidgell to Mr. John Bercow, dated 15 January 2002:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your parliamentary questions concerning the list of changes in the national accounts resulting in the new European System of Accounts which will effect general government expenditure and what assessment has been made of the effect of these changes. I am replying in his absence. (27446, 27448).These questions cannot be answered fully, partly because general government expenditure is not defined in the European System of Accounts (ESA) and is no longer published and partly because differences between the old and latest versions of the ESA are no longer estimated.Several publications in 1998, when the UK introduced the 1995 version of ESA, documented the changes made to the national accounts. One of these was the November 1998 Pre-Budget Report 311W (pages 123 to 125) which gave a full quantified description of the effect of introducing ESA on some of the common measures of public expenditure. Details were also given in the Office for National Statistics Blue Book and other publications published on 24 September 1998 and in an article in the July 1998 edition of Economic Trends. All these publications are available through the Library of the House.