To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many independent advisers he has who are paid from public funds.

I have one, as does my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary.

Given that the Prime Minister is now adding to her economic advisers by hiring Professor Alan Walters from January, and as Professor Walters warned the Chancellor as far back as July that a 12 per cent. interest rate would be required to atone—his word—for the mistakes of the Budget, is the Chancellor looking forward to receiving the benefit of Professor Walters' foresight in future?

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make mischief, but he is wholly unlikely to succeed. As my right hon. Friend made perfectly clear in his Budget speech, the Government's policy remains what was set out in that speech, and it will remain so.

Have any members of the Labour Front Bench been parliamentary advisers, and can my right hon. Friend comment on their success rate?

Speaking from memory, several Opposition Members on both Front and Back Benches were special advisers during the last Labour Government. The fact that it was the last Labour Government amply demonstrates their success rate.

Have any of those advisers, who are currently employed from public funds, made any detailed studies of the poverty trap? Have they given the Chief Secretary, in particular, any advice that would have helped him to consider child benefit so that he might recognise that it is a form of benefit that produces no poverty trap? If he is able to claim victory later this afternoon over the Secretary of State for Social Security, will it not prove to be an own goal on which he should have had better advice?

The advice given by advisers to Ministers is for Ministers, and I have no intention of retailing it or saying whether it has been received.