To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether sums of money paid by an employer to a person receiving invalidity benefit in respect of the cost of travelling to work are treated as earnings for the purposes of the therapeutic earnings rule; and whether the actual travelling costs are deductible.

The amount paid by an employer to reimburse a person for the cost of travelling to and from work is not taken into account as earnings in considering the application of the therapeutic earnings rule. Where the employee pays his own travelling costs these are generally deducted in full from his earnings before the therapeutic earnings test is applied.