The information falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 9 May 2008:"As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many self-employed people worked in the construction industry in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK in each year since 1997. (202455)""The Office for National Statistics compiles employment statistics for local areas from the Annual Population Survey (APS) and its predecessor the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation definitions.""Table 1, attached, shows the number of people aged 16 and over, resident in the Jarrow constituency, South Tyneside, the North East and the UK who were self employed in the construction industry in each year since 1997. Estimates are obtained from the annual LFS for each 12 month period from 1997 to 2004 ending in February. For time series comparisons, the APS estimates from 2005 to 2007 are provided covering the 12 month periods ending in March, but the most recently released estimate is also included, which covers the 12 month period ending in September 2007.""As these estimates are for a subset of the population in small geographical areas, they are based on small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty.""In order to produce estimates for small geographical areas, APS and annual LFS estimates are provided based on survey microdata. It should be noted that the estimate provided is weighted to population estimates consistent with those published in 2003. Reweighted analysis using the latest population estimates, published in summer 2007, will be available from 14 May 2008." Table 1: Number of self-employed people in the construction industry in Jarrow, South Tyneside, the North East and the UK Thousand 12 months ending Jarrow South Tyneside North East UK February 1997 ¹— ¹— 15 111 February 1998 ¹— 1 20 681 February 1999 1 1 20 668 February 2000 ¹— 1 16 643 February 2001 ²— 1 13 653 February 2002 1 1 14 694 February 2003 1 1 18 725 February 2004 ²— 1 18 787 March 2005 1 1 19 816 March 2006 1 1 23 820 March 2007 ²— 1 24 842 September 2007 1 1 24 838 ¹ Sample size too small to provide estimates ² Less than 500 Source: Annual Labour Force Survey & Annual Population Survey