The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated March 2009:"As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many residents of (a) Ribble Valley, (b) Lancashire and (c) England were diagnosed with bowel cancer in each of the last 10 years. [261571]""The latest available figures for newly diagnosed cases of cancer (incidence) are for the year 2006. Numbers of newly diagnosed cases of bowel cancer in each calendar year since 1997 for residents of (a) Ribble Valley, (b) Lancashire and (c) England are in Table 1." Table 1. Number of newly diagnosed cases of bowel cancer¹, persons, Ribble Valley local authority, county of Lancashire, England, 1997 to 2006 Area 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Ribble Valley 38 31 33 43 31 46 35 42 33 29 Lancashire 644 696 696 729 721 693 672 697 688 708 England 28,112 28,750 29,058 28,951 28,216 28,218 28,496 29,430 29,945 30,046 ¹ Bowel cancer is defined as codes C18-C20 in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). Source: Office for National Statistics