§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what criteria are used when setting the price to the public of Health and Safety Executive publications including the annual report; and what has been the average profit yielded by these publications in each of the last five years.
589W
§ Mr. NichollsIn line with Her Majesty's Treasury rules, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) operates a pricing policy which seeks to recover in full the costs of production. Information is not available for the last five years but the HSE has produced a memorandum trading account in each of the last three financial years as follows:
Year Profit £ 1986–87 306,000 1987–88 167,000 1988–89 150,000
The available information from the censuses of employment taken in September 1984 and September 1987 is given in the table below Numbers and percentage of employees in employment1 in the 15 industry classes with the largest number of employees in the Swindon constituency Classes of the Standard Industrial Classification 1980 September 1984 September 1987 Number (000s) Per cent.2 Number (000s) Per cent.2 32 Mechanical engineering 3— 3— 2.1 3.7 34 Electrical and electronic engineering 4.4 8.0 4.7 8.1 35/36 Manufacture of motor vehicles and other transport equipment 3— 3— — — 50 Construction 2.0 3.7 2.6 4.5 61 Wholesale distribution 4.7 8.5 3.9 6.7 64 Retail distribution 7.2 13.1 7.2 12.6 66 Hotels and catering 2.0 3.6 2.0 3.6 71/72 Railways and other inland transport 1.7 3.0 2.2 3.9 79 Postal services and telecommunications 2.6 4.7 2.5 4.4 81 Banking and finance 1.3 2.4 — — 82 Insurance except for social security 2.2 4.1 2.5 4.4 83 Business services 2.7 5.0 3.8 6.7 91 Public administration and defence 1.8 3.2 1.9 3.2 92 Sanitary services — — 20 3.4 93 Education 2.8 5.0 3.0 5.2 95 Medical, other health and veterinary services 2.8 5.1 3.1 5.4 96 Other services to the general public — — 2.0 3.6 1 Excludes the self-employed and members of Her Majesty's forces. 2 Percentage of all industries and services total. 3 Indicates in top 15 but figures cannot be given without disclosing confidential information relating to individual firms.