To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what research has been conducted by his Department into the feasibility of schemes allowing employees to set their training costs against income tax.

We considered various schemes for tax relief for employees' training before introducing in 1991 a new income tax relief for vocational training. This vocational training relief is available to taxpayers and non-taxpayers and so benefits not just employees who pay income tax but also those outside the labour training to get back to work.