§ Mr. Brothertonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what proportion of his income would be paid in tax if a miner was paid at a rate of £10,000 per annum; and how this compares with the position before the last Budget;
(2) what tax receipts would be paid to the Inland Revenue if miners were paid at a rate of £10,000 per annum; and how this would compare with the tax receipts payable before the last Budget.
§ Mr. Peter ReesA married man earning £10,000 per annum with no other income would pay 24.4 per cent. of his income in income tax in 1979–80 and 27.7 per cent. in 1978–79.
In 1978–79 a married man earning £5,860* (the estimated average earnings of full-time male manual workers in coal mining) would have paid 23.;3 per cent. of his earnings in tax.
It is not possible to give a precise estimate of the tax receipts from miners as a specific group, as they are not distinguished in the statistics. However, the figures above indicate that the total income tax payable by coal miners for 1979–80 would be of the order of £250 million more on earnings of £10,000 than that payable for 1978–79 on their average earnings in that year.
*This is the average at an annual rate of the figures in the new earnings survey of the weekly earnings in April 1978 and April 1979 of full-time male manual workers in coal mining.