To ask the President of the Board of Trade what are the DTI forecasts for coal burn in the electricity sector and for deepmines and opencast coal production in (a) 1997, (b) 1998 and (c) 2001. [17136]

UK deep-mined and opencast coal output in 1997 are likely to be about 31 million tonnes and 17 million tonnes respectively. The previous administration published energy projections for the UK as Energy Paper 65 in March 1995 which is available in the libraries of the House indicated that coal burn in 2000 was likely to fall within the range 14.6 to 23.7 million tonnes of oil equivalent.My Department is working on a new set of projections which I intend to publish next year.