Written question asked by Paul Stinchcombe (Labour) on Monday, 9 November 1998, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 16 November 1998. It was answered by Andrew Smith (Labour) on Monday, 16 November 1998 on behalf of the Department for Education and Employment.

Dept for Education and Employment

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, what assessment has been made of the extent of (a) job losses and (b) business failures, in the United Kingdom road haulage industry since 1st May 1997.

Answer: Mr. Stinchcombe: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment has been made of the extent of (a) job losses and (b) business failures, in the United Kingdom road haulage industry since 1 May 1997. [59343] Mr. Andrew Smith: I have not made such an assessment, but have considered information which is available on an area which broadly corresponds to the road haulage industry--the service component of the road haulage industry (that is, freight transport by road): For this category; (a) information from the Summer 1998 Labour Force Survey suggests there were around 250,000 people in the UK in employment. This was not significantly different from the number in employment in Summer 1997 of approximately 245,000. (b) in the UK during 1997, there were around: 3,300 business start-ups, enterprises registering for value added tax; and 3,850 business closures, enterprises de-registering from VAT. Below the VAT registration threshold, enterprises are included only if they have chosen to register voluntarily or not to de-register.

Secondary information