§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many redundancies in the textile industry have taken place in(a) Lancashire and (b) the north-west region for each year since 1979.
§ Mr. McLoughlinThe information requested is available only from the confirmed redundancies series that was discontinued from summer 1992. The number of confirmed redundancies recorded in the textile industry in Lancashire and the north-west region in each of the years 1979 to 1991 are given in the following table. Since spring 1992 the main source of data on redundancies has been the quarterly "Labour Force Survey" which provides a more reliable measure of the number of redundancies than the discontinued series, but does not provide the type of detailed analyses requested.
Year Lancashire North West Region 1979 2,061 5,124 1980 8,976 19,164 1981 2,630 9,003 1982 1,729 4,803 1983 782 2,837 1984 199 1,490 1985 26 1,134 1986 48 1,318 1987 231 952 1988 184 1,400 1989 938 1,959 1990 391 2,764 1991 942 2,482