§ Mr. Wrigglesworthasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has received the Equal Opportunities document "Income Tax and Sex Discrimination", if he will estimate the cost of introducing the reforms proposed; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonI have received a copy of this document. The Commis520W sion has asked for comments from organisations and individuals, and I look forward to hearing in due course how people have reacted to it. The document is consultative and does not itself make specific recommendations, but sets out for discussion a number of different options for change. These options all contain a proposal that the married man's allowance should be replaced by a single person's allowance and the amount so saved reallocated in various ways—through tax allowances or cash benefits or a combination of both. They are intended, as I understand it, to be broadly neutral in terms of net Exchequer cost.