§ Mrs. Chalkerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has yet made a decision to amend the tax coding for a single parent in work to that of a single man.
§ Mr. Robert Sheldon,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 17th March 1978; Vol. 946, c. 407], gave the following information:
The personal allowances to which a single parent is entitled are equivalent in amount to the married man's allowance, and, as my right hon. Friend explained in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson)—[Official Report, 16th May 1977; Vol. 932, c. 35–6]—the allocation of the same PAYE code suffix H to both groups for 1978–79 should ensure that single parents enjoy the effect of increases in allowances with the minimum of delay. The note which accompanied the notices of coding invited anybody who objected to the use of suffix H, presumably because the employer might be able to infer from it that the employee was a single parent, to get in touch with the tax office, which would replace it with suffix T. Single 623W parents with suffix T may not get the benefit of an increase in their allowances quite as quickly as those with suffix H, but they will get it at least as quickly as if they were given the code suffix appropriate to a single man. I see no good reason for any change in these arrangements.