Claiming someone is redundant and then hiring someone else to do essentially the same job, but on worse terms and probably with a different job title or other deceptions to try to disguise what you're really doing, is a trick as old as the sun. UK employment lawyers and tribunals are likely to laugh you out of the building with an expensive lesson if you try it.

Noone does that.

What large companies do is hold a large minority stake in their group companies. Then they shut down the 'programme' in one company and move it, modulo some cosmetic changes, to another group company.

Bitter experience.

Indeed. Larger businesses in the UK do have additional obligations when it comes to redundancies, but the system isn't perfect, for sure.