§ Earl Russellasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are now in a position to say what arrangements they have made for monitoring the administration of the national insurance holiday for the long-term unemployed to ensure that employers do not benefit from it by dismissing other workers in order to earn its benefits.
§ The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish)The Government expect that the vast majority of employers taking advantage of the scheme will abide by its rules and that they will find it more worthwhile to retain employees than start afresh with new recruits simply to maximise the amount of national insurance holiday.
Nevertheless, we will monitor the scheme carefully to ensure that employers are operating it correctly. We intend to use the details of qualifying employees and their employers, which we propose to hold centrally on computer, as the basis to develop a number of checks. To complement these checks, national insurance inspectors will monitor the operation of the scheme as part of the routine examinations which they make of employers' records each year.