§ Mr. Meacherasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what will be the total number of civil servants required for administering the taxation of each of the short-term benefits that Her Majesty's Government propose to tax.
§ Mr. Ridley[pursuant to his reply, 4 March 1982, c. 220]: Bringing into tax benefits paid to the unemployed and to strikers will require, when the proposals are fully implemented, about 3,500 staff in all, spread across the Inland Revenue, Department of Employment, Department of Health and Social Security and Department of Health and Social Services (Northern Ireland). No date is at present fixed for bringing into tax any further short-term benefits, and it would not be possible to provide an estimate of staff costs for this until detailed administrative procedures had been worked out.