POPULATION STATISTICS (Hansard, 17 May 1993)

§ 9. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege)

The information requested is as follows:

Children of below school age

There were 3.88 million children of below school age (aged 0–4) in the United Kingdom at mid-1991.

Students in further or higher education

In academic year 1990/91, some 5.8 million home students were engaged in post-compulsory education; 0.5 million in schools, 4.2 million in public sector further education and over 1 million in public sector higher education.

Mentally handicapped people above school age and below retirement ages

There is no precise information nationally about the number of people with learninge disabilities (mental handicap), or the degree of those disabilities. However, evidence from a number of epidemiological 78WA studies suggests that there are probably between 120,000 to 160,000 adults in England with severe and profound learning disabilities.

Patients above school age and below retirement ages who are in hospitals, nursing homes etc.

The information is not available in the form requested. Details of the number of NHS hospital admissions and day cases completed in 1989–90 for patients aged 15–65 years in England are as follows:

Hospital Episode Statistics: NHS Hospitals England 1989–90.

Ordinary admissions and day cases completed in 1989–90 in all specialties, patients aged 15-65. Information is not collected centrally for nursing homes.

	Number
Ordinary admissions	3,908,540
Day cases	790,771
Total	4,699,311
Note: These figures include all episodes which were completed during 1989–90. Some of these episodes may have begun before 1st April 1989. Episodes which were not completed during 1989–90 are not included.

Adults who are chronically ill mentally or physically but not in hospitals, nursing homes, residential homes etc.

This information is not held centrally.

Adults who are physically disabled, unable to work, and below retirement ages

The information is not available in the form requested.

Information on the number of adults who are registered as disabled with local authorities in England is collected by the Department of Health triennially; the most recent figure available (excluding adults whose primary handicap is either visual or auditory) is 1,259,000 at 31st March 1990. Registering with the local authority does not necessarily indicate that the person is unable to work.

The reports of the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys' surveys of disability in Great Britain, which were published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office in 1988 and 1989, contain the most comprehensive data on the prevalence of disability in Great Britain and are available in the Library.

People in receipt of retirement pensions

The number of people in receipt of contributory and non-contributory retirement pensions in Great Britain is 9,492,250.

The number of people in receipt of contributory and non-contributory retirement pensions in Northern Ireland is 218,160.

Note: The figures for Great Britain and Northern Ireland cannot be aggregated because the schemes are not run on a comparable basis.

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People in prisons, borstals and detention centres

The total population in custody in Prison Service establishments in England and Wales is 43,345 at 7th May 1993.

People in receipt of unemployment benefit

The seasonally adjusted figure for the number of people in the United Kingdom receiving unemployment related benefits (that is, people who are out of work and claiming income support, national insurance credits or unemployment benefit on the day of the count) is 2,940,800, which is 10.5 per cent. of the workforce at March 1993.