asked the Secretary of State for Employment what are the estimated gross and net costs to public funds of (a) redundancy payments and (b) the guaranteed payments scheme for the financial years 1977–78, 1978–79 and 1979–80.

The total cost to the redundancy fund of rebates to employers meeting their liabilities under the Redundancy Payments Act 1965 and payments direct to employees under Section 32 of the Act where the employer has failed to make a payment is estimated to be:

	£ million		£ million
1977–78	82–1	Rebate	67·5
		Section 32	14·6
1978–79	75·5	Rebate	61·5
		Section 32	14·0
1979–80	68·5	Rebate	56·0
		Section 32	12·5

Guarantee payments due under Section 22 of the Employment Protection Act 1975 become a charge on public funds only where the employer is insolvent and the employee is entitled to be paid from the redundancy fund. The cost in 1977–78 is estimated to have been less than £6,000 and is not expected to be noticeably different in 1978–79 or 1979–80.The fund is maintained by contributions paid by employers as part of the national insurance contribution. Some part of the payments made direct to employees may subsequently be recovered from employers or their liquidators or receivers. Such recoveries amounted to about £1 million in 1977–78 and may be of the same order in the next two years.