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21 Oct 2008 : Column 334W—continued

Treasury

Asbestos

Mr. Hepburn: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people were diagnosed with an asbestos-related condition in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) England in each year since 1997. [224757]

Ann Keen: I have been asked to reply.

The information is not available in the format requested, as there are no data available at the constituency level. The following table shows the number of deaths in South Tyneside, the north-east and the United Kingdom, where asbestos was specified as the underlying cause, from 1997 to 2005, which are the latest figures available.

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004( 1)	2005( 1)
South Tyneside	3	0	0	0	1	2	5	3	0
North East	10	8	10	13	14	20	19	19	15
England	55	49	55	57	68	94	96	83	107
(1) Provisional Note: This excluding cases that also mention mesothelioma Source: Health and Safety Executive British Asbestosis Register

The following table shows the number of deaths from mesothelioma broken down in the same way.

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004( 1)	2005( 1)
South Tyneside	15	12	8	15	18	9	8	15	10
North East	126	100	119	123	154	127	112	134	159
England	1,181	1,334	1,406	1,425	1,630	1,622	1,642	1,731	1,787
(1) Provisional Source: Health and Safety Executive British Mesothelioma Register

The following table shows the number of admissions to hospital where the primary diagnosis refers to pleural plaques for residents of South Tyneside Primary Care Trust (PCT), North East Strategic Health Authority (SHA) (formerly Northumberland, Tyne and Wear SHA and County Durham and Tees Valley SHA, prior to 2006-07) and England for 1997-98 to 2006-07. This is not the same as how many people have required treatment for pleural plaques as not everyone in need of treatment is admitted to hospital. Also, the number of admissions does not necessarily represent the number of patients as a patient may be admitted to hospital more than once.

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	South Tyneside PCT	North East SHA (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear SHA and County Durham and Tees Valley SHA prior to 2006-07)	England
2006-07	*	33	570
2005-06	7	37	508
2004-05	6	30	433
2003-04	7	25	379
2002-03	*	22	357
2001-02	0	32	352
2000-01	*	23	337
1999-2000	*	26	283
1998-99	*	23	291
1997-98	*	15	245
Notes: 1. Small numbers: Due to reasons of confidentiality, figures between 1 and 5 have been suppressed and replaced with ‘*’ (an asterisk). Where it was possible to identify numbers from the total due to a single suppressed number in a row or column, an additional number (the next smallest) has been suppressed in order to protect patient confidentiality. 2. Quality of care: Data derived from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) cannot be used in isolation to evaluate the quality of care provided by NHS trusts. There are many factors that can affect the outcome of treatment and it is beyond the scope of HES to adequately record and present all of these. 3. Ungrossed data: Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed). 4. Finished admission episodes: A finished admission episode is the first period of inpatient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Finished admission episodes are counted against the year in which the admission episode finishes. Please note that admissions do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year. 5. Primary diagnosis: The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital. The ICD-10 codes used to identify pleural plaques are: J92.0—Pleural plaque with presence of asbestos. J92.9—Pleural plaque without asbestos. 6. Number of episodes in which the patient had a (named) primary diagnosis: These figures represent the number of episodes where the diagnosis was recorded in the primary diagnosis field in a Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record. 7. Data Quality: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts (PCTs) in England. Data are also received from a number of independent sector organisations for activity commissioned by the English NHS. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain. 8. Assessing growth through time: HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. During the years that these records have been collected by the NHS there have been ongoing improvements in quality and coverage. These improvements in information submitted by the NHS have been particularly marked in the earlier years and need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. Some of the increase in figures for later years (particularly 2006-07 onwards) may be due to the improvement in the coverage of independent sector activity. Changes in NHS practice also need to be borne in mind when analysing time series. For example, a number of procedures may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and may no longer be accounted for in the HES data. This may account for any reductions in activity over time.

Bank Services

Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer under what legislative powers the Government recently froze the assets of Icelandic banks in the United Kingdom. [227922]

Ian Pearson: The Government froze the UK funds of Landsbanki under the power in section 4 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, 2001. HMG has not frozen any other Icelandic banks. The Act includes a range of provisions. In this instance, use of the power had no relation to the counter-terrorism provisions elsewhere in the Act. The power allows HMG to make a freezing order where action to the detriment of the United Kingdom's economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken by a foreign Government or other person. This was the basis on which the power was used. The Treasury will keep the freezing order under review.

Bank Services: Regulation

Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what directions he has given to the Financial Services Authority to improve and make more transparent securitisation and credit default swaps markets. [227923]

Ian Pearson: The FSA and HM Treasury are engaged with the UK trade associations involved in developing the market-led "Ten Industry Initiatives to Increase Transparency in the Securitisation Market". These 10 initiatives are in response to the European Council of Finance Ministers (ECOFIN) October 2007 Roadmap, and have been submitted to the European Commission.

Banks: Incentives

Mr. Dai Davies: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, under the bank restructuring plan announced on 13 October, board members and other senior executives of banks in receipt of recapitalisation funds and investment capital from public funds will be permitted to receive any non-cash bonuses in the form of share options, pension benefits or other non-cash end-of-year benefits. [227920]

Ian Pearson: As part of its investment, the Government have agreed a range of commitments with banks accessing the capitalisation scheme. The Government expect that no cash bonuses will be paid to Directors in the current year. Going forward, and to ensure that taxpayers' interests as shareholders in the bank are protected, and the performance of the company enhanced, directors' remuneration will be linked to long-term value creation and take account of risk.

The terms have been agreed on a case-by-case basis with banks accessing the recapitalisation scheme, although elements are common to all participating banks.

Credit Unions

John Battle: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many members of credit unions there are. [228284]

Ian Pearson: The total number of credit union members in Great Britain as at end December 2007 (based on the annual supervisory returns submitted by credit unions to the FSA) was 675,789 with a breakdown as follows:

	Number of credit union members
Qualifying members	580,101
Non-qualifying members	11,903
Juvenile depositors(1)	83,785
(1 )Persons too young to be members or hold shares.

There are in addition 419,364 members in 180 credit unions in Northern Ireland.

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John Battle: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what credit unions were registered in each region of the UK in each year since 1997. [228285]

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Ian Pearson: The breakdown of credit union registrations in the UK by region since 1997 is as follows:

	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	Total
Scotland	11	10	8	5	2	3	1	3	0	2	1	0	46
Wales	2	3	4	4	1	0	0	1	2	0	1	0	18
England(1)	37	34	38	31	20	28	10	12	10	8	2	1	231
Northern Ireland	—	5	6	—	2	1	1	—	—	—	—	—	15
Total	50	52	56	40	25	32	12	16	12	10	4	1	310
(1) East Midlands, East of England, Greater London, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.

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