§ Mr. Charles ClarkeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, pursuant to his answer of 8 April 1998,Official Report, column 232, what estimate he has made of the redundancy costs which would be incurred by dismissal of the 55 non-mobile staff currently based at the Central Science Laboratory in Norwich if the Norwich Laboratory were to be closed. [41017]
§ Mr. RookerOnly 39 of the 55 non-mobile staff are permanent civil servants and therefore entitled to redundancy payments. If a decision is made to relocate the work undertaken at the Central Science Laboratory Norwich site to York, efforts will be made to resettle non-mobile staff either by relocating to York or through securing employment elsewhere. We would expect to avoid compulsory redundancy for the majority, if not all, of non-mobile staff.
However, should redundancy prove necessary, the total costs are estimated to be £215,173.