§ Keith VazTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many textile jobs there were in(a) 2001 and (b) 2002. [144234]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Keith Vaz dated 17 December 2003:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about jobs in the textile industry.The latest available data from the Annual Business Inquiry is for December 2002. At that time, there were 148,000 jobs in industries whose primary activity was the manufacture, wholesale or retail of textiles. The figure for December 2001 was 158,000. I have delayed the answer to your question to allow the inclusion of the above estimate for December 2002, which was released on 17 December 2003.