§ Mr. Brothertonasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make an estimate of the cost to public funds in redundancy payments and unemployment benefit if no further public funds were made available to BL Ltd.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonThe cost to public funds in terms of redundancy payments and unemployment benefit of not providing further public funds to BL Ltd. would depend on the total number of jobs that would be lost to the United Kindgom economy as a result. Any estimate of the total number of jobs lost would depend on wide range of assumptions and would be subject to a great deal of uncertainty.
The average payment made under the Redundancy Payments Act to eligible workers made redundant in the vehicle industry in the quarter ending 31 December 1980 was £1,465. The employer normally receives a rebate of 41 per cent. of this amount from the redundancy fund. Without detailed information about the ages, lengths of service, and rates of pay of any workers who might be made redundant from BL Ltd, it would not be possible to provide a specific figure for BL Ltd, nor would it be possible to say what proportion of workers made redundant would receive a redundancy payment.
Without information on the earnings and family characteristics of the workers involved it is not possible to make precise estimates of the amount of unemployment benefits that would be paid.
If BL collapsed, there would, of course, be toher very substantial costs of the Exchequer beyond those mentioned in my hon. Friend's question.