PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Bankruptcy (20 March 2017)

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many (a) businesses and (b) individuals filed for bankruptcy in (i) York, (ii) Yorkshire and the Humber and (iii) England in each year since 2005.

Asked by:
Rachael Maskell (Labour)

Figures for the number of bankruptcy orders in York, Yorkshire & Humber, and England in each year since 2005 can be found in the table below. Bankruptcy applies to individuals only; regional breakdowns for the number of company insolvencies are not currently available.

The Insolvency Service compiles its regional bankruptcy order statistics on a calendar year basis, therefore financial year totals are not available. Figures for 2016 will be available on the Insolvency Service website from July/August 2017 (exact date yet to be confirmed), alongside figures for other individual insolvency procedures (individual voluntary arrangements, and debt relief orders).

Table 1: Number of Bankruptcy Orders in each Region of England, 2005-2015¹

Year	York	Yorkshire and the Humber	England
2005	134	4,272	43,107
2006	214	5,812	57,576
2007	185	5,957	59,248
2008	198	6,661	62,006
2009	236	7,232	68,493
2010	170	5,929	53,064
2011	130	4,317	38,341
2012	84	3,295	29,399
2013	77	2,444	22,598
2014	75	2,032	18,985
2015	47	1,550	14,769
Total	1,550	49,501	467,586
1 Where individual has provided postcode

It should be noted that these figures do not account for any changes in the base population over time. Using the rate of bankruptcies per 10,000 adults allows for a like-for-like comparison across years.

Headline figures for insolvencies in England and Wales can be found in the quarterly Insolvency Statistics release, a National Statistics publication. Figures for October - December 2016 were published on 27 January 2017, and can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/insolvency-statistics-october-to-december-2016

Annual numbers and rates of bankruptcies by region for 2000-2015 are available in the Individual Insolvencies by Location, Age and Gender publication (also includes an Excel based analysis tool), which can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individual-insolvencies-by-location-age-and-gender-england-and-wales-2015

Answered by:
Margot James (Conservative)
23 March 2017