§ Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for Energy what information is available to his Department about the number of National Union of Mineworkers' members who have (a) taken full-time employment elsewhere, (b) died or become permanently incapacitated, (c) reached National Coal Board retirement age and (d) applied for redundancy since the dispute began.
§ Mr. David HuntI understand from the National Coal Board that information is not recorded in the form requested. The available information is as follows:
Men taken off colliery books for reasons stated 12 March 1984 to 5 January 1985: Number Redundancy (all voluntarily accepted) 5,751 Retired for health reasons or deceased 873 Early and age retirement 426 The board has received over 20,000 other inquiries about redundancy benefits. The board also tells me that it has no reliable information about the total number of men who have taken full-time employment elsewhere, but that 2,362 men on colliery books (not included in the figures above) are no longer employed by the board for reasons other than those stated above.