To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the average number of teeth a child aged five years had which (a) were actively decayed, (b) were filled and (c) had extracted in each of the last five years. (284768)

The information available centrally is from national health service dental health surveys of five-year-old children which are normally conducted every other year under the auspices of the British Association for the Study of Community Dentistry. The data in the following table relate to decayed, missing (not necessarily extracted) and filled (at point of examination) teeth.

The results of the survey conducted in 2007-08 will be published shortly.