§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the total number of persons on short-time working in (a) the West Midlands and (b) the Wolverhampton travel-to-work area in respect of whom temporary short-time working compensation grant (i) is being paid and (ii) is not being paid.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonIt is not possible to give the total number of persons on short-time working since statistics are available only for manufacturing operatives and then only by standard regions. It is not therefore possible to state how many people are on short-time working but not supported under the scheme. Statistics for the temporary short-time working compensation (TSTWC) scheme for the West Midlands could only be extracted at disproportionate cost.
468WOn the basis of the existing evidence the Health and Safety Executive has no plans to take any specific steps to ensure that the use of benzidine-based dyes is discontinued and substitutes used.
The Health and Safety Executive is continuing to keep the medical and scientific evidence under review.