Economic Affairs Committee to take evidence on how growth and productivity is measured
Monday 17 April 2023
At 3pm on Tuesday 18 April the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee will be holding a one-off evidence session on the statistical methodology used for measuring growth and productivity.
The committee will hear evidence from:
- Mike Keoghan, Deputy National Statistician and Director General, Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics, Office for National Statistics (ONS)
- Grant Fitzner, Chief Economist and Director, Macroeconomic Statistics and Analysis, ONS.
This evidence session, which is open to the public, will be held in Committee Room 3 of the House of Lords. It will also be streamed live on Parliament TV.
Topics the committee is likely to cover in this session include:
- The methodology applied to the public sector’s contribution to national output during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Improving the quality of public sector output estimates.
- Whether the statistical methodology used has led to the UK’s relatively poor performance post-pandemic being overstated.
- International alignment in definitions of output and work periods to allow for comparable productivity figures in public sectors.
- Challenges the digital era poses the ONS in its collation of data and estimates of activity.
