§ Mr. Charles Irvingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether information held on computers by the 358W Department of Health and Social Security will be made available to the Inland Revenue to help set up its new computerised system for pay-as-you-earn.
§ Mr. RidleyThe Inland Revenue commonly uses national insurance numbers as reference numbers for individual taxpayers—for example, in the computerised PAYE system at East Kilbride. When the new nation-wide computerised system comes into operation, it too will use national insurance numbers.
When the new system is set up, the Inland Revenue would, in the normal way, transfer the basic information relating to each taxpayer from the existing paper files to the new computer records manually. This would be a substantial and expensive task and, given the use of the same series of national insurance numbers by both Departments, it would be more efficient and save a great deal of cost if this basic information were transferred direct from the DHSS computer records. The information in question would be restricted to name and address, date of birth and title. Most of this information is already in the possession of the Inland Revenue, although commonly the date of birth has not hitherto been recorded in every case. No other exchange of computer information for setting up the basic record for the PAYE system is contemplated and no further exchanges for this purpose would be made without public announcement.