§ Mr. Barnettasked the Minister of Labour if he will give the total amount of redundancy payments to date, the number of employees to which such payments have been made, and the number of firms.
§ Mr. GunterBetween 6th December, 1965, when the Redundancy Payments Act came into operation, and 30th September, 1966, £17,330,000 was paid out in redundancy payments under the Act to 82,051 employees. These arose from 27,040 notifications of redundancies made by firms, some of whom made more than one notification. The actual number of firms concerned is not readily available.
§ Mr. Barnettasked the Minister of Labour if he will carry out an investigation analysis of redundancy payments to date, particularly into details of dismissed employees re-engaged by their former firms, showing the time between dismissal and re-engagement.
§ Mr. GunterOn my present information I have no reason to think that such an investigation would be useful. If the hon. Member has information which indicates that persons who have received redundancy payments are being reengaged by their former employers in circumstances which suggest that there was not a real redundancy, I should be grateful if he will let me have details.