§ Mr. Gryllsasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many small firms are automatically excluded from the scheme by setting the minimum number of redundancies necessary before an employer can benefit under the temporary short-time working compensation scheme at 10; and what would be the figure if number were to be set at five.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonThe only firms that are automatically excluded from the scheme are those whose90W total labour force is fewer than 10. The last census of employment suggested that there were 749,356 establishments with fewer than 10 employees. There are 530,871 establishments with fewer than five employees.