§ Gregory BarkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on methods used by her Department to measure rural regeneration in the United Kingdom. [81903]
§ Alun MichaelThe Government will be breaking new ground by measuring rural regeneration through its impact on rural productivity as part of the new rural economy Public Service Agreement target which commits Defra in conjunction with other Government Departments to "reducing the gap in productivity between the less well performing quartile of rural areas and the English median by 2006." As GDP data—typically used in measuring productivity—is not available at small area level my officials have developed a proxy productivity measure of the aggregate earnings of taxpayers of working age divided by the number of people of working age. A set of districts, facing problems of lower productivity, will be used to track change. This will be supplemented by other related indicators, such as business start-ups.
More details will become available shortly when the technical notes are published on Defra's website www.defra.gov.uk.