asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is her estimate of the school population there will be in the Northern Region in 1981 and in Wales and the other English regions, respectively; and what assumptions she has made in the calculations.

My Department's estimates of the number of pupils in maintained primary and secondary schools in the English regions and in Wales in 1981 are as follows:

Estimated school population in 1981
Northern Region	570,000
Wales	519,000
Other English Regions
Yorkshire and Humberside	889,000
North-West	1,187,000
East Midlands	672,000
West Midlands	960,000
East Anglia	298,000
Greater London	1,065,000
Other South-East	1,639,000
South-West	674,000

The above figures have been calculated from the projection for England and Wales as a whole on the basis of past trends in the proportions of the total school population at each age within each region.