§ Q25. Mr. Dudley Smithasked the Prime Minister how many items in the Government's promised programme have so far been implemented.
§ Mr. WhitelawI have been asked to reply.
We have implemented in full the recommendations of the Edmund Davies committee on police pay and brought the pay 618W of Service men up to full comparability with their civilian counterparts. Proposals have been made on a number of other matters including the reduction of waste and bureaucracy, cutting direct taxes at all levels, switching from tax on earnings to tax on spending and simplifying VAT, exempting war widows' pensions from income tax, increasing benefits for the old, the sick, the disabled, and for one-parent families, paying a Christmas bonus to pensioners and others, and ending the compulsory comprehensive re-organisation of schools.