Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate the Government has made of the potential cost to the public purse of removing the lower earnings limit for qualification for statutory sick pay.

The consultation “Health is Everyone’s Business” (CP 134, published July 2019) sought views on the recommendation of the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices to extend Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to include those earning below the lower earnings limit. On its own, such a measure would present no direct cost to the exchequer as SSP is paid by employers. There may be an indirect cost to the government as an employer but this cannot be robustly estimated.