§ Q48. Mr. Kenneth Carlisleasked the Prime Minister how many employees are at present covered by profit-sharing schemes.
§ The Prime MinisterIn each of the two most recent years for which figures are available — 1980–81 and 1981–82—about 250,000 employees on average have been allocated shares under profit-sharing schemes approved for the purposes of tax relief under the Finance Act 1978. Over 100,000 employees are now participating in approved savings-related share option schemes for which we introduced a new tax relief in 1980. The Government do not keep records of the total number of employees involved in profit-sharing schemes of every kind, but an independent survey in 1981 estimated that companies employing about 1½ million employees had some form of employee share scheme.