HC Deb 16 December 1988 vol 143 cc754-5W
Mr. Dunn

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he is planning any further changes in benefits for unemployed people.

Mr. Scott

In addition to the legislative measures that we introduced into the House yesterday, we propose to abolish the outdated and complicated rules applying to seasonal workers claiming unemployment benefit. At the same time, the income support rules for calculating notional earnings of seasonal workers will be removed. We also propose to amend the unemployment benefit earnings rules where they operate harshly on people earning very small amounts and yet leave the benefit of people in highly paid weekend jobs unaffected. Our proposals to add a de minimis provision to the so-called "full extent normal" rule and to introduce a cut-off point, at which those on high earnings from part-time work will lost all benefit in the week concerned, will remove these anomalies.

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