asked the Secretary of State for Social Services, further to his reply of 1 December 1981, Official Report, column 88, if he will give details of the total population of the United Kingdom for each of the years 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980 and for the latest date available; and if he will give the number of people in each case who were covered by the National Health Service only, and the number of people who were covered by a private health scheme.

The information is given below:

	Total United Kingdom population	United Kingdom population not covered by a private health scheme	United Kingdom population covered by a private health scheme*
1950	50,565,000	50,445,000	120,000
1960	52,559,000	51,654,000	995,000
1970	55,522,000	53,540,000	1,982,000
1980	56,010,000	52,433,000	3,577,000
* This information is derived from "Provident Schemes Statistics

1980" produced by Lee Donaldson Associates. The information relates only to the three main provident associations which are estimated as accounting for about 98 per cent. of total subscription income.