HC Deb 19 February 1982 vol 18 c254W
Mr. D. E. Thomas

asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many companies notified redundancies to his Department under the Employment Protection Act 1975 for 1981; how many redundancies were notified under that Act; and, of these companies, how many were registered as (a) overseas companies, (b) English-based companies and (c) Welsh-based companies.

Mr. Waddington

Information on the number and country of registration of companies that notify redundancies to my Department under the redundancy handling provisions of the Employment Protection Act 1975 is not available.

However, the total number of proposed redundancies in Great Britain notified to my Department in 1981 involved 1,058,263 employees at 22,274 establishments. Many of these redundancies do not in fact take place—for example, because of a subsequent application under the temporary short-time working compensation scheme—and there is no statutory requirement to inform my Department in such cases.

A more accurate measure of th number of redundancies actually occurring is provided by figures obtained by local offices of the Manpower Services Commission who follow up the statutory notifications with the firms concerned nearer the proposed date of the redundancy. The number of redundancies reported to the Manpower Services Commission as due to occur during 1981 is 529,875, including the provisional figure for December.

Both sets of figures relate to redundancies involving 10 or more employees.