To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give figures for the number of health and safety inspectors and the number of industrial accidents in (a) Wales and (b) the United Kingdom for the years 1979 and 1991.

The number of Health and Safety Executive inspectors based in Wales and the total number employed in Great Britain in 1979 and 1991 is as follows:

Year (1 April)	Inspectors based in Wales	Inspectors employed in Great Britain
1979	169	1,426·5
1991	62	1,342·0
1 Excludes mines and quarries and industrial air pollution inspectors as centrally held records for 1979, for these staff, cannot be analysed by location.

The information available on the total number of occupational injuries occurring in Wales and in Great Britain in 1979 and the financial year 1990–91 is as follows:

Total injuries reported1 to Health and Safety Executive's Factory and Agricultural Inspectorates and Local Authorities
	Wales	Great Britain
21979	3n/a	269,763
4 51990£91	9,629	180,450
1 Reported under various pieces of health and safety legislation in 1979 and the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985 (RIDDOR) for 1990–91.
2 Injuries to employees only compulsorily reportable.
3 Regional analysis of injuries in 1979 is not available.
4 Injuries to employees, self-employed people and members of the public injured as a result of someone else's work activity in year commencing 1 April 1990.
5 Provisional.

Responsibility for occupational health and safety matters in Northern Ireland lies with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.