Restaurants: Closures

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many restaurants in (a) England, (b) Essex and (c) Castle Point constituency were closed for failing to meet food safety and hygiene standards in each of the last five years; and for how long each was closed in each such case. (321441)

I have been asked to reply.

The figures in the following table show the number of restaurants and caterers subject to an emergency prohibition notice/order, or to a voluntary closure:

	England	Essex¹	Castle Point²
2008-09	729	11	0
2007-08³	n/a	n/a	n/a
2006-07	615	9	1
2005-06	450	5	0
2004-05	470	7	0
n/a = Not available. ¹ Data for Essex includes the district councils for Basildon, Braintree, Brentwood, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Maldon, Rochford, Tendring and Uttlesford, and the unitary councils for Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock. ² Data for Castle Point is for Castle Point district council. ³ Full year data was not collected for 2007-08.

These figures are based on the monitoring returns for food law enforcement provided by individual local authorities to the Food Standards Agency.

Data are not available for the length of time each restaurant or caterer was closed.

Volume 507: debated on Friday 12 March 2010