§ 27. Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many adult insured employees are currently earning less than £10 per week, how many between £10 and £15, and how many over £15.
§ Sir E. BoyleI regret that this information is not available.
§ Mr. HamiltonIs the hon. Gentleman quite sure that 'the information is not available? I put down a similar Question two years ago, I think, and got the information from the Treasury. I think that it would help us in ascertaining the relative degrees of hardship in the community if, in addition to knowing the numbers of people paying Surtax, we also had the numbers of those earning under £10 a week.
§ Sir E. BoyleNo, Sir. For reasons that I am perfectly ready to explain to the hon. Gentleman in correspondence, the information for which he has asked is not available, but I can say that the Ministry of Labour's half-yearly inquiry, held in October, 1960, into the earnings and hours of manual workers, did contain an additional question which enabled the distribution of earnings of men and women working full time to be calculated for the industries covered by the inquiry. The Ministry of Labour hopes to publish this information in the Ministry of Labour Gazette by the middle of this year.
§ Mr. RossCan the hon. Gentleman say how hon. Members can make an assessment of the effect of the new graduated pensions without that information?
§ Sir E. BoyleOf course, it is perfectly true that the Government Actuary did publish certain information in Table C of Appendix II to his Report on the National Insurance Bill, 1959, on the earnings of a number of persons in various workers' groups in an average week. That is not quite the same as the information now being asked for, but I will certainly see that as precise information as possible will be available to hon. Members.