Folkestone and Hythe (Hansard, 27 November 2001)

§ Ruth Kelly

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Michael Howard, dated 27 November 2001: As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question on the number of people aged 18 to 24 years who were unemployed for more than six months for each year since May 1992 in the constituency of Folkestone and Hythe. (17734) The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics for unemployment from surveys following the internationally standard International Labour Organisation definition. However, for the Folkestone and Hythe parliamentary constituency the survey sample size is too small to provide estimates. ONS also compiles statistics of claimants of unemployment-related benefits. the claimant count consists of all people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance or National Insurance credits at Employment Service local offices. They must declare that they are out of work, capable of, available for and actively seeking work during the week in which the claim is made. Prior to January 1996 comparable figures for earlier years are not available on the same geographical basis. Information on computerised claims by age and duration for parliamentary constituencies from January 1996 were based on the ward boundaries of the 1991 census while figures before are based on the ward boundaries of the 1981 census and are available from June 1985 to January 1996. The information requested is given in the attached table.

Claimants aged 18 to 24 claiming for six months or more in the Folkestone and Hythe parliamentary constituency for each May 1992 to May 2001¹
Year	Age 18–24
May 1992	444
May 1993	617
May 1994	640
May 1995	595
May 1996	520
May 1997	314
May 1998	215
May 1999	73
May 2000	54
May 2001	33
¹ computerised claims only