§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Employment what was the cost of placing advertisements in the national press by his Department headed "Did a Closed Shop Cost You Your Job?"; what allocation of public funds has been made available for these and similar advertisements; and what response he has had to such publicity.
§ Mr. WaddingtonThe cost of the advertisements referred to was £39,200. Authority for this expenditure is to be found in section 2(2) of the Employment Act 1982 and relates to the sum of £¼ million set aside in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Employment Bill, as first published on 28 January 1982, for staff costs and administrative expenses in relation to these compensation arrangements. To date 408 coupons have been received in response to the advertisements. The need for expenditure of this nature would, of course, never have arisen but for the last Government's closed shop legislation.
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§ Mr. John Grantasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many jobs in Islington have been dependent on the temporary short-time working subsidy in each year since its introduction.
§ Mr. AlisonThe figures requested for the temporary short-time working compensation scheme are shown in the folowing table:
Islington Column 1 Column 2 Year Number of potentially redundant jobs covered by applications that were approved in column 1 April 1979 to March 1980 101 April 1980 to March 1981 265 April 1981 to March 1982 47 April 1982 to September 1982 —