§ Mr. Trotterasked the Secretary of State for Defence how many civilians are to be made redundant in Gan as a result of the closure of the RAF base; what compensation payments are to be made to them; and to what extent these payments are less than those to which they would have been entitled under the United Kingdom redundancy payments scheme.
§ Mr. JohnApproximately 980 locally entered Maldivian civilians will be made redundant and about 80 Pakistani workers will not have their contracts renewed Of the Maldivians about 420 work for the MOD and 460 for the Department of the Environment. A further 44 are employed by NAAFI and 53 privately. Redundancy compensation for locally entered civilians of Her Majesty's Government abroad is normally determined by local good employer practice or by local law. As neither of these standards exists in the area the level of redundancy compensation was agreed with the Government of the Republic of the Maldives and will amount to one week's pay for each completed year of service. This will be paid to MOD, DOE and NAAFI Maldivian employees.
Redundant locally entered civilian employees are not entitled to compensation awarded under the United Kingdom Redundancy Payments scheme which is funded by contributions from United Kingdom employers. Under this scheme compensation is assessed at rates rising from a half week's pay to 1½ weeks' pay for each reckonable year of service depending on the redundant employee's age. Since records of Maldivian employees' 374W birth dates are not available, it is not practicable to compare the two levels of compensation.