HC Deb 27 June 2002 vol 387 cc1051-2W
Annabelle Ewing

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what the(a) weekly median earnings and (b) distribution of earnings for those earning (i) under the point below which 10 per cent. of earners fall and (ii) the point above which 10 per cent. of earners exceed, are in (A) Scotland and (B) each of the unitary local authority areas in Scotland, broken down by (1) all manual, (2) all non-manual and (3) all workers; [63696]

(2) what proportion of full-time workers in (a) Scotland, (b) each of the unitary local authority areas in Scotland and (c) Great Britain have hourly earnings (i) including and (ii) excluding overtime below (A) £7.97, (B) £7.32, (C) £5.38 and (D) £4.10 broken down by categories (1) male manual, (2) male non-manual, (3) all male workers, (4) female manual, (5) female non-manual, (6) all female workers, (7) all manual, (8) all non-manual and (9) all workers. [63697]

Ruth Kelly

[holding answer 25 June 2002]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Annabelle Ewing, dated 27 June 2002: As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent questions on the distribution of weekly earnings and average hourly earnings for workers in Great Britain, Scotland and the unitary authorities in Scotland. (63696 & 63697) I am placing in the House of Commons Library, tables showing average weekly earnings, both including and excluding overtime, (Table 1) and the proportion of people earning below the different thresholds you listed, both including overtime (Table 2) and excluding overtime (Table 3). The New Earnings Survey (NES) can provide earnings data for small geographical areas. The release of NES data is restricted to figures that are derived from a sufficiently large sample of employees, and have an acceptable level of accuracy and I have provided the available data for Scotland, the unitary authorities in Scotland and Great Britain only for those areas where the samples are large enough. These are based on the 2001 NES, the latest survey for which data are available.