§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment how redundancy pay is classified as a source of income in the family expenditure survey; and whether he will separately identify the average weekly amount received by households which were in receipt of such payments for each of the last five years.
§ Mr. Jim LesterI shall reply to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment what information he has on the total amount of redundancy money paid out to redundant employees both under the redundancy payment provision of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 and otherwise in each of the last five years.
§ Mr. Jim LesterInformation is held only on payments made in accordance with the statutory redundancy provisions. The amount paid in the last five years and in 1980 to date is as follows:
1975 £178,284,000 1976 £189,162,000 1977 £165,438,000 1978 £184,262,000 1979 £222,333,000 Jan.-Oct. 1980 £364,890,000
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has any information about the proportion of total redundancy payments that is saved and the proportion which is spent on goods and services; and, if not, whether he will institute a study to ascertain such information.
§ Mr. Jim LesterNo systematic information is held on the way employees spend their redundancy payments, and I do not think such a study would be justified.