§ Mr. BentonTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the level of unemployment was in Bootle in each year since 1997. [172330]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Joe Benton, dated 12 May 2004:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about unemployment.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics of unemployment from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation definitions. However, the LFS sample size is too small to give reliable estimates of unemployment in the Bootle Constituency.
ONS also compiles statistics of those claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) for local areas including parliamentary constituencies.
The table below gives the annual average number of JSA claimants for the Bootle constituency for each year since 1997.
358W
Number of claimants 1997 4,368 1998 3,828 1999 3,516 2000 3,218 2001 2,873 2002 2,706 2003 2,543