§ Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLEasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the cash value of the existing social services to a family of a man and his wife and three children all of school age when such family takes advantage of all of them?
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEOwing to the great variety of individual circumstances, I do not think it possible to give any average figure of the kind suggested which would be of any value and which would not indeed be misleading. I would, however, direct the attention of the hon. Member to the Return on Public Social Services last laid before the House on 29th April, 1929 (House of Commons Paper No. 101), from which it, will be seen that expenditure under all the services there included amounted to £376,000,000 in the latest available year, of which over £266,000,000 were met from Parliamentary Votes and Grants and local rates, the balance being provided from a variety of sources in which contributions by employers and workers under the national insurance schemes predominate. The number of persons benefiting by the expenditure under the several heads is given in column (15) of this return. I should, however, point out that even from these figures it is impossible to deduce a figure which could properly be regarded as representative of any average individual case.