The ongoing threat of redundancies among Manx government employees will feature prominently in Tynwald question time on Tuesday.

North Douglas MHK Bill Henderson has tabled no fewer than 17 items for oral answer, and a further six for written reply, the vast majority of which cover plans to lay off 22 staff from the MER and Steam Railway.

The questions, for Chief Minister Tony Brown and Leisure Minister David Cretney, will begin with Mr Henderson asking for a moratorium to be placed on government redundancies.

He says a proper redundancy policy should be put in place, following a full review involving the Council of Ministers, unions and the Industrial Relations Service.

The aim of the review would be to draw up a workable, cross-governmental redundancy policy, based on the first principle that any future lay offs would be as a last resort.

Mr Henderson is urging Mr Brown to intervene at the Leisure Division, and is asking Mr Cretney how he intends to run the heritage railways after around a quarter of the specialist maintenance staff have gone.

And he goes further, asking whether Mr Cretney plans to close down the MER and steam railways as part of his cost cutting measures.

Mr Henderson also wants to know about new management jobs created in the department in the past year, and overtime payments in the past two years.