§ Mr. Altonasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many redundancies have occurred between the introduction of containerisation in 1968 and December 1981 in the ports at Southampton, Tilbury, Felixstowe and Liverpool.
§ Mr. WaddingtonUnder the port transport industry's national voluntary severance scheme, which began in 1969, 15,348 registered dock workers had accepted severance in the port of London, including Tilbury, 957 in Southampton and 7,879 in Liverpool by the end of December 1981. In addition, 1,539 registered dock workers left the port of London in 1968 in response to private schemes run by port employers. I have no information about severance in Felixstowe which is not a port covered by the dock labour scheme.