§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Employment what emphasis he intends to give in the future to leisure projects and early retirement schemes in dealing with the problem of unemployment, and in particular long-term unemployment.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonProjects involving leisure facilities can be mounted within the youth opportunities programme and the new community enterprise programme.
The Government are keeping under review the contribution early retirement schemes could make to relieving unemployment, but at present the job release scheme enables men and women to retire from their job a year before State pension aid provided they are replaced by someone who is registered unemployed. For disabled men the eligible age is 60.