HC Deb 07 May 1981 vol 4 cc122-3W
Mr. Nicholas Winterton

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what was the total number of jobs supported by the temporary short-time working compensation scheme for (a) the textile and clothing industries, (b) the Macclesfield and Congleton travel-to-work areas, (c) Lancashire, (d) Cheshire and (e) the North-West region for the last month for which statistics are available, and the percentage of the total insured working population in each area which each figure represents; and if he will give the corresponding figures for February and March 1980.

Mr. Peter Morrison

I regret that statistics in the form requested are not readily available for Lancashire and Cheshire and could be extracted only at disproportionate cost. However, the following tables show the figures requested for the textile and clothing and footwear industries, for Macclesfield and Congleton employment office areas and for the North-West region:

March 1981
Area Industry Number of jobs being supported Number of jobs supported as a percentage of all employees (employed and unemployed)*
Textile and Clothing Industry† (Great Britain) 70,275 7.8‡
Macclesfield (All industries) 729 2.6
Congleton (All industries) 545 0.8
North West Region (All industries) 65,445 2.3

the figure shown at March 1981, as the method of compiling statistics was changed with effect from 1 April 1980.

Mr. Campbell-Savours

asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take steps to ensure that firms drawing temporary short-time working compensation scheme subsidies do not offer extended delivery terms to their customers having given the reason that they are unable to produce through lack of capacity.

Mr. Peter Morrison

Since the temporary short-time working compensation scheme does no more than reimburse the payments made to workers on short-time in place of redundancy, a return to full-time working is in the interests of both employer and workers, and it is open to the firm to revert to full-time working at any time during the life of the application in order to meet delivery dates.

However, firms being aided under the scheme normally do not have enough work to support full-time working, and the available work will be spread out alongside periods of short-time working as a means of keeping the labour force intact. This is acceptable under the scheme.