---

Physics Research

I must challenge those figures. I have never understood why Ministers choose the baseline that they choose when they say that something has risen by, for example, 13 per cent. I often thought that it was random, but now I think I can see that they just choose the lowest point and then compare the current position to it. There was a significant dip between 2001 and 2003—I do not know the reasons for that. If the Minister is talking about the low point, I should say that it was 2003. However, on the latest figures that I can find, we are still below where we were the year before the baseline that he used. Could he explain why he always uses that baseline rather than, say, 1997, which would seem to be a more rational baseline?