HC Deb 31 July 1974 vol 878 cc429-30W
Mr. D. E. Thomas

asked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will state the number of full-time agricultural workers engaged in the industry in Wales in each year from 1964 to 1973.

Mr. John Morris

The information requested as extracted from the June agricultural census returns is as follows:

Regular Whole-time Agricultural Workers: Wales
1964 20,244
1965 19,200
1966 17,984
1967 16,710
1968 15,720
1969 14,981
1970 13,546
1971 14,695
1972 13,870
1973 14,614
The number of workers returned prior to June 1970 are not comparable for those returned for later years because of changes in the census coverage of labour. These changes included (i) defining "regular whole-time" workers as those engaged in work on the holding for 40 hours or more per week; (ii) including for the first time managerial and clerical workers; (iii) requesting a separate return for junior partners which were previously returned as regular whole-time male workers. These changes have also resulted in some disturbance of the statistics for the years since 1970.