§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the rate of unemployment in each(a) region and (b) nation of the United Kingdom was in each month since 1995; and if he will make a statement. [151829]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Stephen O'Brien, dated 1 April 2004:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question on unemployment rates. (151829)The information requested is available from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) on a monthly basis for rolling three-month periods starting with December 1996 to February 1997 and ending with September to November 2003. As with any sample survey, estimates from the LFS are subject to sampling variability.It is not practicable to print a table of this size in the Official Report. However, these data are published on the Office for National Statistics website as part of Table 18 of the Labour Market Statistics First Release Historical Supplement. This may be accessed via the House of Commons Library; the web page address is: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_labour /LMS_FR_HS/Table18sa.xls.