§ Mr. Prescottasked the Secretary of State for Trade how many British seamen have suffered fatal accidents in the course of their employment for each of the years since 1972; and how many British seamen there were for each of those years.
§ Mr. TebbitThe information in respect of seamen on United Kingdom registered ships is as follows:
Year Deaths on-board Deaths ashore abroad 1973 71 31 1974 59 29 1975 77 27 1976 58 14 1977 52 3 1978 84 6 The above figures include all deaths other than those due to disease, homicide and suicide, and those dealt with by a coroner or procurator fiscal within the United Kingdom.
There are no accurate figures for the number of seamen employed on United Kingdom registered ships, but about 100,000 seamen are estimated to have served on such vessels in each of the above years.
§ Mr. Prescottasked the Secretary of State for Trade how many seamen have 30W countries, respectively, in each of the years 1970 to 1978 and 1979 to date.
§ Mr. ParkinsonThe available information is as follows:
died while in access to or from British merchant navy vessels for each of the years since 1975; and what this represents as a proportion of 10,000 seamen.
§ Mr. TebbitThe following are the latest available figures of seamen who have been killed or drowned coming aboard from ashore:
Year Total deaths Deaths per 10,000 seamen (estimated) 1976 3 0.5 1977 7 0.7 1978 10 1.0 The number of deaths while in transit from ship to shore have never been shown to be significant, have not therefore been separately recorded, and could be extracted only at prohibitive cost.