To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he has any plans to change the threshold for small employers' relief under the statutory sick pay scheme; and if he will make a statement.

Employers whose total national insurance contributions liability is below a certain level, currently £15,000 are able to revert to 100 per cent. reimbursement of statutory sick pay paid after the employee has been sick for more than six weeks. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, has reviewed this figure and proposes, subject to parliamentary approval, that it should be increased to £16,000 from April.