§ Mr. Roderickasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many factories have been closed in Wales during the past five years; and how many redundancies were involved in such closures.
§ Mr. John FraserI am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that, until Sections 99 and 100 of the Employment Protection Act came into force on 8th March 1976, employers were under no statutory obligation to notify redundancies, and, of those voluntarily notified by employers, separate information for closures is available from 1st January 1972 only. Subject to these qualifications, the number of closures of establishments engaged in manufacturing industry recorded as due to occur in450W Wales and the number of work people involved, for each year since 1972, is as follows:
Year Number of Closures Number of Workpeople involved 1972 40 3,510 1973 22 1,080 1974 25 1,290 1975 19 1,380