Carers (Hansard, 7 July 2003)

§ John Healey

I have been asked to reply.

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

Letter from Len Cook to Dr. Cable, dated 7 July 2003:

As National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking what information has been collated on the number of full-time, non professional, carers broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) disability or other conditions of the person cared for.(123442)

The principal source of information on the number of carers in England and Wales is the decennial Census of population. The question on unpaid caring in the 2001 Census asked for the number of hours spent caring which were not part of any paid employment. The number of people in England and Wales who provide unpaid care and who were not otherwise employed is shown in "Table S026 (Sex and economic activity by general health and provision of unpaid care)" of the Census 2001 National Report for England and Wales, which was published on 7 May 2003. A copy of this report was placed in the House of Commons Library. The corresponding figures for each of the 376 local authorities in England and Wales are available on CD-ROM, a copy of which is also available in the House of Commons Library. A further table in the National Report for England and Wales "Table S027 (Households with a person with a limiting long-term illness (LLTI) and their age by number of carers in household and economic activity)", which you might find useful is also broken down by local authority and is on the same CD-ROM.

652W

The Census did not ask for characteristics of the person cared for and it is not therefore possible to answer part (b) of your question with information from the 2001 Census.

Information on unpaid caring in Scotland and Northern Ireland is available from the General Register Offices of those countries.