§ Mr. Foxasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement in the review of the Pay As You Earn system.
§ Mr. Patrick JenkinYes. The work that has been done so far on possible changes in the P.A.Y.E. system has shown that changes may be both desirable and feasible. But further and more far-reaching studies will have to be undertaken before my right hon. Friend is in 121W a position to decide precisely what has to be done. These will include studies into the further simplification of the personal tax system itself. This review will be undertaken with the assistance of outside consultants and is likely to take a year or more.
In the meantime, enough work has been done to enable my right hon. Friend to conclude that we shall be unlikely to wish to proceed with the concentration of P.A.Y.E. work into the nine large computer centres hitherto proposed, and accordingly plans for the Schedule E centres at Shipley, Manchester, Washington, Edinburgh and Portsmouth are unlikely to be implemented. We realise that in some of these cases local authorities' development plans will be seriously affected by this announcement and the Inland Revenue will be in touch immediately with them to discuss the position.
When it was decided last December to suspend the automation programme, the work which had already started on Centre 2 at Bootle and Centre 3 at Cardiff, being already far advanced, was allowed to continue. My right hon. Friend now decided that while the building of the Schedule E Centre at Cardiff will continue, no further moves towards automating the work there should be made for the time being. The computer for Bootle is already installed and will be brought into use. There may, however, be some changes in the work taken on to the computer, which could mean a somewhat lower concentration of Inland Revenue staff at the centre than was previously expected. There will, however, be no question of any redundancy arising in the Merseyside area.