Early day motion tabled by primary sponsor Patrick Nicholls (Conservative), on Thursday, 16 May 1991, in the House of Commons. It is signed by 3 members in total.

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CONDUCT OF THE HON MEMBER FOR OLDHAM WEST

That this House notes that the honourable Member for Oldham West commenting on the first report of the Social Security Committee, Low Income Statistics, says that the average income of the poorest 10 per cent. of the population has dropped by 6 per cent. during the Thatcher years; notes that he inaccurately quotes the figure of 6.2 per cent. at Appendix 2 to the report, which refers to analyses by decile group mean; notes that at page xii of the report, `mean' is described as a `misleading indicator' and is otherwise disapproved; notes that page xiv shows an increase of 9.5 per cent.; notes that this point was raised and clarified at the Social Security Committee press conference which the honourable Member did not trouble to attend; notes from paragraph 15 that `Real disposable incomes grew by more than 30 per cent. between 1979 and 1988, with increases in real income being seen at all levels of the income scale. Particularly large increases were seen in the higher income deciles. Against this, the median income of the poorest decile rose by 9.5'; notes that the honourable Member fundamentally distorts to his own advantage the findings of an all-party report either through failure to check the facts or a desire to mislead the public; and calls upon him to act with more responsibility and restraint when dealing with material in a way calculated to distress, on entirely false premises, the most vulnerable sections of society.

Amendments

The Early day motion has received 2 amendments.

852A1

Leave out from 'years' to end.

852A2

leave out from "years" to end and add 'notes that the use of an arithmetic mean is the conventional method of presenting the average overall value of any group of figures and that it is statistically reliable at the sample size used as the basis of the report; further notes that the select committee report at page xii does not say that the arithmetic mean average for the poorest tenth of the population given in appendix 2 'is a misleading indicator', but that it ' could prove a misleading indicator' if the arithmetic mean average is biased by 'extreme and unrepresentative values', which would point to the existence of numbers of very poor people whose income had fallen by very sharply more than 6.2% between 1979 and 1988', and concludes that the honourable member for Oldham West has done this house a valuable service in highlighting the fact that a very large number of people are worse of as a result of Tory governments.

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Secondary information

Type

Early day motion

Reference

852 

852A1 

852A2 

Session

1990-91

Subjects

Low incomes Meacher, Michael

Link

View this Early day motion on www.parliament.uk