§ Dr. McDonaldasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report the number of factory closures in Essex for each year from 1978–79 to 1982–83, giving in each case the number of workers made redundant.
§ Mr. GummerThere are no statistics specifically on factory closures. The available information on closures of establishments and associated redundancies, involving ten or more employees, reported to the Manpower Services Commission, is given in the following table.
Closures confirmed as due to occur in Essex Year ending 31 March Number of establishments Number of redundancies 1978–79 1 152 1979–80 14 780 1980–81 14 1,978 1981–82 11 417 *1982–83 15 913 * This includes provisional figures for March 1983.