§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish in the Official Report the letter sent by the Minister for Social Security to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr, dated 5 May, regarding the 5 per cent. cut in industrial injury benefit.
§ Mr. RossiFollowing is the text of the letter which I sent to the hon. Member on 5 May
During the debate on Clause 29 of the Finance Bill on 26 April you referred to my statement about the restoration of the five per cent. abatement on injury benefit, made during the Committee Stage of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Bill on 9 February, when I said that the position remained that ''the abatement will be restored as soon as the benefits are brought into tax".I do not think you can have been in any doubt, from all that Ministers have said on this matter, including my reply to your Parliamentary Question on 22 December 1981 and my speech at Report Stage of the Bill on 18 March last, that it is only in the case of invalidity benefit that the Government has given an undertaking to restore the abatement when the benefit is brought into tax. In the case of all other benefits, the commitment is to consider the restoration of the abatement when the benefit is brought into tax. I had in mind invalidity benefit when I said injury benefit and stated "the position remains as enunciated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer" which of itself made it clear I was not enunciating anything new.I should however have written to you before now to set the record straight; and for this oversight I apologise.