§ Mr. Rookerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, pursuant to the reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr, Oficial Report, 27 November 1981, column 497, he can now give the figure for the number of retirement pensioners who have been sent new or amended pay-asyou-earn codes following the uprating of social security benefits in November 1981.
§ Mr. RidleyI regret that the figure of 2,200,000 given in reply to the hon. Member's previous question relates to all recipients of social security benefits—not just to retirement pensioners—who were sent amended PAYE codes as a result of the November 1980 benefit uprating; the large majority of these recipients will have been retirement pensioners, but no precise figure for them is available. The equivalent overall figure for the November 1981 benefit uprating is just over 2,350,000.