§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, pursuant to the Chancellor's Budget Statement, Official Report, c. 770, the restoration to invalidity of the 5 per cent. reduction in 1980 will, when taxable, include the reduction in 1981 due to the uprating being based on the 1980 figure.
§ Mr. RossiThe effect of the abatement in invalidity benefit was to take its rate below the equivalent rate of retirement pension with which it had been previously aligned. The Government have given a firm commitment that, when invalidity benefit is brought into tax, its rate will be restored to the level it would have reached—namely, the rate of retirement pension current at that time. My right hon. Friend announced in his statement to the House on 11 March—[Vol. 1000, c. 891–903]—that, as a step towards this, the rate of invalidity allowance payment with invalidity pension will be raised this November to the rate of the allowance payable with retirement pension.