§ Mr. Amessasked the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has to encourage the increase in the role of employees in the companies by which they are employed through the ownership of shares.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyThe Government are firmly committed to encouraging employee share ownership as a part of their wider policy of encouraging employee involvement on a voluntary basis. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his right hon. and learned predecessor have already taken major steps to improve the tax incentives for employee share schemes. Between them538W they have introduced new reliefs for two different types of share option schemes — in 1980 and this year— and made significant improvements to the profit sharing reliefs. The success of these initiatives is evident from the continuing increase in the number of approved employee share schemes, which has grown from 30 in 1979 to 775 by the end of September, this year. In addition a major benefit of our privatisation arrangements is that large numbers of employees are given a chance to own a stake in the company for which they work.