§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will publish in the Official Report what information is available to him on the numbers of employers and employees in the horticulture industry at the latest available date; and how this compares with such figures for 1970, 1960 and 1950, together with information on the number, size, distribution and acreage of horticultural holdings.
§ Mrs. FennerInformation is not available about the number of employers and employees in the horticulture industry as a whole. The classification of holdings in the June agricultural census in England distinguishes horticultural holdings, that is those holdings which are most dependent on horticultural crops, but these account for less than half of the area of horticultural crops in England. At June 1981 there were 14,496 such holdings in England with a total area of 261,572 hectares, of which some 103,757 hectares were of horticultural crops.
Details of the distribution of these holdings is as follows:
251W
County Horticultural holdings Avon 212 Bedford 272 Berkshire 103 Buckingham 126 Cambridge 590 Cheshire 269 Cleveland 24 Cornwall 496 Cumbria 106 Derby 153 Devon 464 Dorset 171 Durham 49 Essex 740 Gloucester 284 Greater London 173 Greater Manchester 136 Hampshire 545 Hereford and Worcs 1,128 Hertford 213 Humberside 303 Isle of Wight 77 Isles of Scilly 63 Kent 1,428 Lancashire 944 Leicester 121 Lincoln 1,151 Merseyside 140 Norfolk 709 Northampton 64 Northumberland 45 Nottingham 151 Oxford 136 Salop 120
County Horticultural holdings Somerset 342 Stafford 166 Suffolk 323 Surrey 330 East Sussex 305 West Sussex 415 Tyne and Wear 30 Warwick 154 Wiltshire 145 West Midlands 74 North Yorkshire 269 South Yorkshire 55 West Yorkshire 182 14,496 Information on a comparable basis is not available for the earlier years requested.