§ Sir F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the current total amount of supplementary benefits paid to retirement pensioners.
§ Sir F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will give an estimate of the number of retirement pensioners living alone;
(2) what is the number of one-person retirement pensioner households and of two-person retirement pensioner households, respectively.
§ Mr. DeanI regret that the precise information for which my hon. Friend has asked is not available. However, at the time of the 1971 Census there were 2,127,000 persons over pensionable age in one-person households. There were 1,181,500 two-person households which included one person over pensionable age and 1,510,300 two-person households which included two persons over pensionable age.