§ Mr. John Pageasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will initiate a study, with the intention of later publication, either by an outside academic organisation or within his Department, to examine in depth the whole subject of unemployment, with particular attention to the distribution of unemployment and job vacancies by areas, age groups, sex, travel-to-work distances and work categories; and the effect upon the attitudes to obtaining work resulting from redundancy pay, unemployment benefit and other social security benefits.
§ Mr. Dudley SmithMy right hon. Friend does not intend at present to initiate such a study. My Department is co-sponsoring with the Department of Health and Social Security a research project on chronic unemployment which is being undertaken by the Oxford University Department of Social and Administrative Studies. The report of a survey by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys on the effects of the Redundancy Payments Act was published last November.
A great deal of data about the distribution of unemployment and job vacancies is already collected by my Department and the regular examination and interpretation of this body of information provides a continuing study of the nature of unemployment. My right hon. Friend keeps under constant review the need for any additional information or research in this field.