§ Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many mills and factories producing textile and clothing products in the United Kingdom have notified their closures to his Department so far in 1980; how many jobs have been lost at each mill or factory which has ceased to trade; if he will name each factory and its location; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Jim LesterI regret that this information is not available in the precise form requested.
The number of proposed closures of textile and clothing establishments notified to my Department by the end of September 1980 under the redundancy handling provisions of the Employment Protection Act 1975 was 276. However, for a number of reasons some closures notified in this way do not, in the event, occur, and employers are under no statutory obligation to notify my Department when a notified closure does not subsequently take place. The number of redundancies associated with these closures could be provided only at disproportionate cost, but the total number of redundancies in the textile and clothing industries notified to my Department for the same period was 30,000. Redundancy information supplied to my Department under the provisions of the Employment 225W Protection Act is given in confidence, and it is not possible, therefore, to list the names of the individual companies concerned or their location.
The Government are, of course, very concerned about the problems facing the textile and clothing industries. We shall continue to do all we can to protect these industries from any unfair competition and we are committed to ensuring the strict implementation of the present multifibre arrangement and associated agreements affecting imports. We intend to press for a tough successor when the present MFA expires at the end of the 1981. The temporary short-time working compensation scheme, under which the maximum period of assistance has been increased from six to nine months, will continue to be available to textile and clothing firms as a possible alternative to redundancies.