§ Ms. RichardsonTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people earn below the (i) tax threshold and (ii) lower earnings level of national insurance, broken down into women and men.
§ Mr. Norman LamontI apologise for the delay in replying. The following provisional estimates are based on projections to 1988–89 of weekly earnings (adjusted to disregard short-term factors at the time of interview) recorded in the 1986 family expenditure survey.
Some 2.8 million employees (including part-time workers) earn less than the weekly equivalent of the personal allowance to which they are entitled: of these 0.5 million are men and 2.3 million are women. These include 0.2 million men and 1.6 million women with earnings below the lower earnings limit for national insurance contributions. These estimates exclude people in receipt of statutory maternity pay or statutory sick pay.