§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government how many redundancy payments have been made under the Redundancy Payments Act, since it came into force and in how many of these cases the persons to whom payments were made—
- (a) also received a cash payment under their employer's private pension scheme;
- (b) obtained new employment without any intervening period of unemployment;
- (c) both received such a cash payment and suffered no unemployment;
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, 447,700 redundancy payments have been made under the Redundancy Payments Act between December 6, 1965, when it came into force, and March 31, 1968. I regret that the other information is not available.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. May I ask—despite the fact that it may mean in this case some further recruitment of civil servants—whether the noble Lord thinks it will be possible to draw any conclusions as to the long-term value of this Act unless the information I have asked for is available to the Government?
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, without going into the whole purpose behind the Act, which serves both general social purposes and economic purposes, I think it will be possible to do so. I could not answer the noble Lord's question in detail; but it would be a good subject, if the noble Lord so wished, on which to put down an Unstarred Question. It would involve collecting a whole series of new statistics which I do not think would serve a very useful purpose other than to answer the noble Lord. I should like this information myself; but I really do not think its collection is justified. It would mean employing a number of extra people.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, may I then ask the noble Lord whether this is at least the sort of question that is being examined in the light of the Government's general social and economic policy in regard to employment?
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I can give an absolutely categorical answer to that. The questions he has asked are extremely relevant and the Government are examining them, but they are attempting to do so in as inexpensive a way as possible; and I hope the information that they get will enable us to assess the value of this particular system of redundancy payments. Ultimately, of course, the proof will be in the long-term development and, to some extent, the re-structuring of British industry.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord.