§ Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Trade how many company liquidations occurred in each of the past six years; how many occurred in the past six months of the current year; and what were the comparable figures in Scotland, giving a breakdown in all cases in terms of industries affected.
§ Mr. EyreFigures for 1979 and 1980 for England and Wales and for Scotland are given in the table below. Those for 393W earlier years can be found in table 8b of my Department's publication "Companies in 1978" and earlier issues, copies of which are in the Library.
For England and Wales, details of industries can only be given for the first quarter of 1980 as it can take some
INDUSTRIAL ANALYSIS OF COMPANY LIQUIDATIONS (COMPULSORY AND CREDITORS' VOLUNTARY) Numbers England and Wales* Scotland* January—March January—March January—June Industry 1979 1980 1979 1980 1980 Agriculture, horticulture and fishing 30 8 1 — — Manufacturing: Food, drink and tobacco 34 10 4 — — Chemicals 38 6 — 1 1 Metals and engineering 314 161 24 9 15 Textiles and clothing 231 82 18 6 14 Timber and furniture 116 44 7 2 5 Paper, printing and publishing 90 22 3 1 4 Other manufacturing 216 92 8 3 6 Total manufacturing 1,039 417 64 22 45 Construction 789 212 50 17 35 Road haulage 193 70 5 2 5 Wholesaling: Consumer goods 239 82 1 2 2 Non-consumer goods 87 23 6 1 2 Retailing: Food 99 26 9 2 3 Non-food 402 118 31 8 16 Financial and professional services 605 205 31 12 16 Hotels 20 6 12 4 7 Restaurants 116 44 Garages 153 37 5 7 14 Other consumer services 256 60 5 1 5 Other industries 509 190 18 4 13 Total 4,537 1,498† 238 82 163 * Relates to companies registered in England and Wales or in Scotland. † Total liquidations in January—June 1980 were 3,160.