§ Baroness Carnegy of Lourasked Her Majesty's Government:
When the Registrar General's Decennial Supplement on occupational mortality is to be published and if a statement can be made giving the available data on the differences in mortality rates between the social classes since 1970.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington)The Registrar General's Decennial Supplement on occupational mortality was published earlier today. The supplement will contain data on 550 occupations—twice as many as in previous publications—and on 170 causes of death. It will be in two parts, the second containing data on microfiche equivalent to 22,000 pages of tables. I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Supplement is primarily designed to present data on particular occupations. These occupations can be grouped into social classes, but for reasons explained in the report, the data on mortality rates in the social classes in 1979–83 from this particular source were subject to biases. More reliable data for 1981–83 have since become available from the OPCS Longitudinal Study. The current available data on mortality by social class since 1970 in England and Wales, for men of working ages, both from the Decennial Supplements and from the Longitudinal Study, are brought together in the following table.