HC Deb 06 March 1989 vol 148 cc588-9
5. Mr. McAvoy

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his calculation of the number of people who will receive no increase in their income support payments in April 1989 over April 1988, because they are in receipt of transitional payments or they have lost transitional payments during the past year.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

The precise information requested is not available but we estimate that of the 4.4 million people on income support 3.9 million will gain from this year's uprating.

Mr. McAvoy

Does the Minister accept that even these estimates show the suffering that will be experienced by many people this April? The estimate is a disgrace. Surely, the Government should allocate more money to such a needy sector.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

The estimates are encouraging in the sense that they will leave 14 per cent. of income support claimants still with transitional payments. The rest will be receiving a partial or complete increase. The hon. Gentleman should remember that transitional payments were designed to prevent a drop in the cash payments at the point of change. People who have them are being paid at a higher rate than is paid to people in the same circumstances who are coming on to income support.

Mr. Soames

Is my hon. Friend satisfied that those whose financial affairs will be altered by these arrangements have been warned sufficiently far in advance to allow them to make other arrangements?

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Local offices have certainly been informing people on income support of what their position will be after April, so those who will have no increase—the 14 per cent. that I have mentioned—will have been informed well in advance.

Mr. Robin Cook

Does the Minister accept that his answer to the original question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) was disingenuous? Does he accept that of the 3.9 million people that he mentioned more than 500,000 will not get the full increase because of transitional additions, and another 500,000 will get no increase at all? That is not a small minority: it is a quarter of all claimants of income support.

Does the Minister also recognise that by definition none of these one million people received any increase last April? How does he justify a two-year freeze on the most frail and disabled claimants merely because they used to get a little extra help? How does he square that freeze with the often-repeated claim by the Government that they are targeting help on those most in need3

Mr. Peter Lloyd

I told the hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) that 14 per cent. will still be subject to transitional payments after April. Secondly, I remind the hon. Gentleman that income support rates for the groups he referred to—the elderly and the frail—will be increased next October.