§ Mr. Lawsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, further to the Written Answer to the hon. Member for Blaby on 30th January, if he will provide a revised version of that answer, using estimated average earnings for December 1977, as soon as such estimates are available.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThe figures are as follows:
Real weekly take-home pay at December 1977 prices Real weekly net income at December 1977 prices £ £ December 1974 70.20 71.70 December 1975 65.00 66.90 December 1976 63.00 64.60 December 1977 63.10 65.60 "Take-home pay" is gross earnings less income tax and National Insurance contributions; "net income" is take-home pay plus family allowance for years up to 1976 and child benefits for 1977.
Average earnings have been taken from the April New Earnings Survey estimates of the average earnings of full time adult male workers in all occupations, manual and non-manual, updated by the index of average earnings to give estimates for the following December.
617WThe price index used is the General Index of Retail prices—all items.
For 1974 it has been assumed that the employee was not contracted out of the graduated pension scheme.