§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the estimated cost in 1978–79 of extending the right to unemployment benefit to the self-employed.
§ Mr. OrmeIt has never been found possible to extend unemployment benefit cover to the self-employed, as a class, because of the difficulty in deciding whether people who, to some extent at least, can control their own employment and working patterns are really unemployed.
Even if this difficulty could be overcome, we do not have sufficient data to enable us to forecast the consequent rise in the number of self-employed people registering for work. I regret therefore that no reliable estimate of the cost can be made.