§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, (1) in view of the fact that under Government proposals the Members of the European Assembly from the United Kingdom will receive in salaries and expenses, on either a gross or taxed basis, some three times as much as hon. Members, for about one-third of the periods of attendance in any given year, what action he proposes to take to rectify these anomalies;
(2) whether he will publish in the Official Report a detailed list of allowances on a comparability basis of hours, 655W days, weeks or months of sitting together with salaries as paid between Members of the European Assembly and hon. Members;
(3) whether the £53.76 per day attendance pay to Members of the European Parliament when meeting in countries of the Community, together with the 23p for the first 400 kilometres and 9p per kilometre thereafter travel allowance, plus the £94.08 per month on secretarial allowance, plus the further £376.32 per month on presentation of a contract, are on a tax free basis; and whether these amounts will be paid additional to the £12,000 per annum salary as proposed by the Government.
§ Mr. BrittanThe European Assembly (Salaries and Pensions) Bill now before this House proposes that those United Kingdom representatives to the European Assembly who qualify for a salary should receive the same basic salary as Members of the House of Commons. Representatives will not, however, receive any of the allowances payable to Members of this House—which are listed in annex A of report No. 12 of the Review Body on Top Salaries, Cmnd. 7598. The allowances paid to representatives are a matter for the European Assembly, but they will be subject to the normal rules of United Kingdom taxation, including the provision that any excess of allowance received over moneys actually expended is taxable.