§ Mrs. MahonTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans his Department has to assist in retraining and job creation in west Cumbria in the event of THORP being further delayed or cancelled.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythThe Employment Department, through the employment service (ES) and Cumbria training and enterprise council (TEC) are offering a wide range of employment, enterprise and training programmes to assist unemployed people in West Cumbria including those previously employed at THORP. The TEC is starting redundancy counselling sessions at THORP soon which will include job search counselling, financial advice and general redundancy counselling, ES and TEC programmes are designed to be flexible in order to take account of special local circumstances such as this to help people find the best and quickest route back to employment.
Both the employment service and Cumbria TEC are monitoring the situation at THORP closely and are 69W working in partnership with BNFL plc and the West Cumbria development agency to address the particular training and job search needs of THORP employees as they arise and to encourage new enterprise activity in the area.