To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his Department issues advice to other Government departments on which inflation measure to use to uprate their items of revenue and expenditure. (181005)

In general, it is the responsibility of individual Government Departments to determine the appropriate inflation measure to use in uprating items of revenue and expenditure although specific items will be discussed with Treasury as part of Treasury's role in controlling public expenditure (as set out in the Managing Public Money publication, available on the Treasury website).

In respect of revenues, as stated in Managing Public Money fees, charges and levies should be reviewed regularly to achieve full cost recovery and are therefore based on actual costs rather than indexation.

In respect of some of the more significant items of expenditure, the practices for uprating social security benefits administered by the Department of Work and Pensions can be found in Appendix A of ‘The Abstract of Statistics for Benefits, National Insurance Contributions, and Indices of Prices and Earnings, 2006 Edition’, published by the Department for Work and Pensions.