§ Mr. David Marshallasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the total number of jobs dependent on the British steel industry; and if he will list the figures for each area of Great Britian.
§ Mr. Giles ShawOn the basis of a broad definition of the steel industry, which includes SIC groups 221 (the iron and steel industry), 222 (steel tubes) and 223 (drawing, cold rolling and cold forming of steel), the latest available regional distribution is based on the annual census of production (ACOP) for 1984 as follows:
Standard Regions of England Employment (1000s) North 12.4 Yorkshire & Humberside 31.0 East Midlands 6.7 East Anglia 0.7 South East 7.9 South West 1.2 West Midlands 18.8 North West 3.8
Standard Regions Employment (1,000s) England 82.6 Wales 21.2 Scotland 10.7 GREAT BRITAIN 114.4 NoteThe figures do not add to the sub total because of rounding.
Evidence based on the Department of Employment series of estimates of employees in employment suggests that total employment in these industry sectors fell between 10 and 15 per cent. between 1984 and 1986. The Department of Employment warns, however, that its estimates are subject to a considerable potential estimating error due to the relatively small number of employees in the industry. There are no figures available for the number of jobs which are indirectly dependent on the steel industry. but calculations based on input-output tables indicate that the ratio of the number of jobs associated with the steel industry to the number of jobs in the steel industry itself is of the order of 1.5 to 1. It is not possible to give a regional breakdown of these associated jobs as 78W the input-output tables are not broken down regionally and the jobs occur in a large number of industry and service sectors.