To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the productivity of the UK in relation to other G7 countries since 1991. (311753)

HM Treasury and BIS are jointly responsible for Public Service Agreement 1 (PSA 1) to raise the productivity of the UK economy. One of the objectives of PSA 1 is to narrow the output per worker productivity gap between the UK and comparator nations (the USA, Germany and France).

To assess progress against narrowing the productivity gap, HM Treasury use ONS data from their biannual International Comparisons of Productivity¹ statistical release. Results are presented for the UK relative to the US, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy and the G7 in aggregate. Since 1991, the start of the ONS data series, the UK has experienced faster average productivity growth than all other G7 countries².

¹ http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=9671

² http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/ICP_HeadlineTables.xls