To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many businesses have gone bankrupt in each of the last three years. (240558)

The following table records numbers of trading-related bankruptcies and company liquidations in England and Wales in each year full since 2005:

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many people were declared bankrupt in each year since 2004-05, broken down by those aged (a) under 20, (b) 21 to 26, (c) 25 to 30, (d) 31 to 35, (e) 36 to 40 and (f) over 41 years old; and what estimate he has made of the number in each category which will be declared bankrupt in 2008-09. (242288)

[holding answer 10 December 2008]: In the time available, the only information available is that extracted from already published reports. The statistics on the following page are taken from the report “Profiles of Bankrupts and Companies in Liquidation: 2004-05 to 2006-07”¹ and relate to England and Wales only. Equivalent information is in the process of being compiled for 2007-08, to be published in spring 2009. Official forecasts of bankruptcy numbers broken down by age groups are not undertaken; therefore no estimates are available for 2008-09.

¹http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/insolvencyprofessionandlegislation/policychange/profiles2004-7/profileBandC2004-7.htm

Date of birth is recorded in the majority of bankruptcy cases and may be used to calculate the age at which an individual is declared bankrupt. Bespoke analyses by specified age groups can be scheduled and carried out, but it should be noted that the age groupings requested here are not standard age bands that would be routinely published for any official statistics relating to individuals.