asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether the Government will now raise the earnings limit for the long-term unemployed to £10.

One of the proposals in the recent Green Paper "Reform of Social Security" (Cmnd. 9518) is that for supplementary benefit claimants the earnings disregard for couples who have been unemployed for two years should be raised to £15. We hope to introduce these proposals from April 1987 and have no plans to raise the earnings limit in the meantime.