HC Deb 19 March 2003 vol 401 c766W
Mr. Hepburn

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many households in(a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK were in fuel poverty on (i) 1 February 1997 and (ii) 1 February 2003. [103557]

Mr. Wilson

The Government published "The UK Fuel Poverty Strategy Pt Annual Progress Report" on March 2003. This showed that the number of households in fuel poverty in the UK is estimated to have fallen from about 5½ million in 1996 to about 3 million in 2001.

The available information on fuel poverty in the is set out as follows. Figures are not available centrally for the Jarrow constituency or for South Tyneside.

addition, a UK company might require an individual licence to communicate, before entering into a contract to supply goods or services to Iraq, if the business they wished to discuss was not covered by the provisions of the Open General Licence to Communicate dated 19 November 1998.

The details of export licence applications from particular companies are normally commercially confidential and exempt from disclosure under exemptions 13 and 14 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. However, details of export licence applications from ICL, to export computer systems to Iraq prior to the imposition of UN sanctions in August 1990, were published in the 1996 Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions. A copy of the 1996 Scott Report is available from the Libraries of the House.

We have not been able to identify any export licence application from ICL or Fujitsu, to supply computers or related equipment to Iraq, since 2 May 1997.