§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) how much is received from the EEC Social Fund to help promote anti-unemployment schemes;
(2) how much of the amount received from the EEC Social Fund to promote anti-unemployment schemes is being used to provide training for women.
§ Mr. John GrantThe major part of allocations from the EEC Social Fund is devoted to the prevention or relief of unemployment in the form of assistance for schemes of training, retraining rehabilitation and resettlement. It is estimated that for 1977 the United Kingdom has secured some £85 million for these purposes.
In so far as the special measures introduced by the Government during the past few years to combat unemployment are concerned, schemes of job creation and employment subsidy do not qualify for support from the fund. However, of 570W Manpower Services Commission that details are available of the number of employers that have notified redundancies as due to occur of more than 10 persons since March 1974 and these are in the following table. The information is often provided to the Commission in confidence and I therefore do not feel justified in publishing the names of the firms involved. Furthermore, to identify the number of these firms that have closed down would entail a disproportionate cost on public funds.
the £85 million allocated for 1977, some £25 million was for support for new and expanded Government training and work preparation schemes aimed at relieving unemployment, especially among young people. Most of the applications submitted by the United Kingdom are for schemes which are open to men and women equally. A precise analysis of the numbers of women beneficiaries of schemes assisted by the fund is not possible. By way of example, however, 55 per cent. of the participants in 1977 in the work experience scheme—one of the special measures introduced in 1976—were female.