§ Mr. Eldon Griffithsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many civil servants are in receipt of clothes allowance; what this is designed to cover; when it was introduced; how much it costs to provide; and why it was recently increased by 30 per cent.
§ Mr. HayhoeThere is no clothes allowance as such in the Civil Service. A small number of civil servants do, however, receive clothing allowances, payable in recognition of the particular needs of their jobs, for example, TV weather forecasters. The amounts vary from one job to another and no central records are kept. Recent estimates indicate that fewer than 3,500 civil servants receive such allowances and that the total annual cost is in the region of £130,000. There has been no recent general increase in these allowances. However, those which have been identified by the Inland Revenue as being taxable were increased in 1983 by a factor of 100/70 in order to maintain the broad after-tax level of the allowances.