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10 Feb 2004 : Column 1350W—continued

National Insurance

Norman Lamb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of those who are due to receive delayed deficiency notices from the National Insurance Contributions Office for each year since 2000 have received the notices; and if he will make a statement. [153285]

Dawn Primarolo: The Inland Revenue has started writing to people whose national insurance account shows shortfalls for the years 1996–97 to 2001–02. As

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the letters may cover any or all of those years, it is not possible to identify separately the letters which relate just to the years since 2000. In total, 10.2 million letters will be issued. As of 1 February 2004, £1.2 million had been sent out. It is anticipated that all letters will be sent out by September.

Norman Lamb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether investigations into the submission by employers of (a) incorrect and (b) invalid national insurance numbers have ever been suspended; and if he will make a statement. [153286]

Dawn Primarolo: Such investigations are carried out on a daily basis as part of the Inland Revenue's normal work procedures to ensure that, where possible, national insurance contributions sent in by employers are properly recorded on employees' individual national insurance accounts. There has not been any suspension of this activity.

Norman Lamb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many end of year returns which could not be linked to a national insurance account have been left unallocated at the end of each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [153287]

Dawn Primarolo: The Inland Revenue estimate that around 55 million end of year contribution returns are received each year. Around 4 per cent. of these contain incomplete or incorrect identifying details and cannot be allocated to an individual national insurance account without further information. Most of these non-matching items have no or little impact on people's benefit entitlements. The Inland Revenue works with employers to trace and match contributions, concentrating on cases where they are likely to have a significant impact on entitlement.

The number of end of year returns not linked to a national insurance account as at 31 March 2003 is given in the table. The numbers outstanding as at 31 March 2002 and earlier years are not available.

	Number
1997–98	1,776,278
1998–99	2,690,708
1999–2000	2,205,116
2000–01	2,312,424
2001–02	2,359,896

Norman Lamb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether there is a margin of error allowed by the National Insurance Contributions Office when calculating national insurance figures; and if he will make a statement. [153290]

Dawn Primarolo: In the vast majority of cases national insurance records are updated accurately. In some cases where the information received is inaccurate, the Inland Revenue takes all reasonable action to investigate and correct the records, but operates administrative tolerances where the costs of investigating would be excessive compared to the amounts involved. In these cases the amount recorded on the employee's national insurance account always reflects the higher value so that they do not lose out on future benefit entitlement.

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Norman Lamb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what backlogs there are in the handling of national insurance data in the National Insurance Contributions Office; and if he will make a statement. [153291]

Dawn Primarolo: The National Insurance Contributions Office is on track to meet all its targets for processing national insurance data in 2003–04.

Payroll Giving

Sue Doughty: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many employers provided Payroll Giving schemes in (a) July 1998 and (b) July 2003; [153447]

(2) how many FTSE 250 companies offered Payroll Giving schemes in (a) December 1998 and (b) December 2003. [153448]

John Healey: Payroll Giving schemes allow employees to make donations to charities directly from their pay packets. The Government introduced improvements to the Payroll Giving scheme in Budget 2000. At that time, a 10 per cent. supplement on all donations made through Payroll Giving schemes was introduced for a three-year period, until April 2003. This was extended until April 2004.

There are no centrally held figures for the number of employers (or FTSE 250 companies) providing Payroll Giving schemes. The Association of Payroll Giving Agencies provides data to the Inland Revenue on the number of new Payroll Giving contracts set up. From these figures, it is estimated that there were 8,947 Payroll Giving schemes at 30 June 1998, which had increased to 12,782 by 30 June 2000. A further 3,299 new schemes had been set up by 30 June 2003. However, this does not give an accurate figure for the number of employers offering schemes as some employers operate more than one scheme and some schemes may be dormant.

The Inland Revenue has measured employee access to Payroll Giving schemes through NOP surveys. In July 1999, this indicated that around one in five employees (5.75 million) had access to a Payroll Giving scheme. In July 2003, the proportion was about the same (one in five), but the growth in employment means that this equates to six million employees.

Research and Development Tax Credit

Mr. Beggs: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to introduce a research and development tax incentive in Northern Ireland. [154124]

Dawn Primarolo: The research and development tax credit is available to companies for qualifying expenditure on research and development, including those in Northern Ireland. As announced at the Pre-Budget Report, following consultation, the Government intend to simplify and extend the coverage of research and development tax credits.

Thalidomide Trust

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make it his policy to instruct the Inland Revenue to allow the Thalidomide Trust to make all distributions tax exempt under section 329 of the Finance Act 1996. [153527]

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Dawn Primarolo: The Inland Revenue applies the law as set down by Parliament. It would not be appropriate for Ministers to instruct the Inland Revenue to apply the law in a particular way. Discussions between the trustees of the Thalidomide Trust and officials of the Inland Revenue are currently taking place on this issue. While no conclusion has yet been reached the Government believe we should await the outcome of those discussions.

Unemployment

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the rate of unemployment in each (a) county and (b) Lancashire constituency was in each year since 1995; and if he will make a statement. [153510]

Ruth Kelly: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Lindsay Hoyle, dated 10 February 2004:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about unemployment rates in Lancashire. (153510)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics of unemployment from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) following the standard International Labour Organisation definitions. Table 1 gives unemployment rates for the administrative county of Lancashire for the twelve month period ending February of

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each year from 1997 to 2002. Comparable information is not available for earlier years. The LFS sample size is too small to give reliable information about unemployment in each constituency in Lancashire.

As with any sample survey, estimates from the LFS are subject to sampling variability.

ONS also compiles statistics of those claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) for local areas including Parliamentary Constituencies. Table 2 gives the annual average percentage of resident working age population who are ISA claimants in the administrative county of Lancashire and for each Constituency in Lancashire for the years 1996 to 2003. Comparable figures for Counties and Parliamentary Constituencies based on the 1995 boundaries are only available from 1996. The data are not seasonally adjusted.

Table 1—Unemployment rates⁽¹⁰⁾ in the administrative County of Lancashire

Twelve month period ending February	Per cent
1997	5.6
1998	4.9
1999	4.2
2000	5.4
2001	4.4
2002	3.8

⁽¹⁰⁾ Unemployed as a percentage of the economically active population

Note:

These LFS estimates have not been interim-adjusted to reflect the 2001 Census results

Source:

ONS Labour Force Survey

Table 2—Percentage of resident working age population claiming JSA annual averages⁽¹¹⁾

	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Administrative county
Lancashire	4.2	3.2	2.8	2.7	2.4	2.1	2.0	1.9
Parliamentary constituencies(12)
Blackpool North and Fleetwood(13)	5.9	4.7	3.9	3.6	3.4	3.2	2.8	2.6
Burnley	3.6	2.9	2.6	2.9	2.4	2.2	2.2	2.0
Chorley	3.8	2.6	2.1	2.1	1.9	1.7	1.6	1.4
Fylde	2.7	1.9	1.5	1.4	1.3	1.3	1.4	1.2
Hyndburn	3.6	2.9	2.7	2.5	2.1	1.9	2.0	2.0
Lancaster and Wyre	3.6	2.8	2.4	2.3	2.0	1.7	1.5	1.3
Pendle	3.8	2.8	2.6	2.9	2.7	2.4	2.2	2.1
Preston	7.1	5.5	4.6	4.3	3.9	3.4	3.3	3.1
Ribble Valley	2.2	1.5	1.1	1.1	1.0	0.9	0.8	0.8
Rossendale and Darwen(14)	3.3	2.4	2.3	2.5	2.2	2.0	1.9	1.7
South Ribble	3.2	2.2	1.8	1.8	1.6	1.3	1.3	1.3
West Lancashire	5.8	4.6	4.3	4.2	3.5	3.1	3.1	2.9

⁽¹¹⁾ The percentage of resident working age population of an area. The population denominators are based on output area data from the 2001 census.

⁽¹²⁾ Based on 1995 constituency boundaries available from January 1996

⁽¹³⁾ Part in Blackpool Unitary Authority

⁽¹⁴⁾ Part in Blackburn with Darwen Unitary Authority

Note:

The data are not seasonally adjusted

Source:

Jobcentre Plus administrative system

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