Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Statutory Sick Pay Scheme on 29th January 1986.
Mrs. Currie Asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the overall financial effects on employees of the operation over a complete financial year of the statutory sick pay scheme.
Mr. Major In 1983-84, the first year of the scheme, £431 million was paid in statutory sick pay. It is estimated that this would have attracted some £130 million in tax and national insurance contributions from employees. Information is not available that would enable precise estimates to be made of the amounts of sickness benefit that would otherwise have been payable to SSP recipients in 1983-84; but on the basis of the financial estimates made when SSP was introduced, it is estimated that about £280 million in sickness benefit would have been payable to them in that year.