§ Mr. Fieldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the numbers of (a) pensioners aged over 75 years and the numbers of families with children aged less than 5 years who received help from the electricity discount scheme last winter, (b) the numbers within these two groups who also gained extra weekly payments for heating from the Supplementary Benefits Commission and (c) the numbers in each group who will receive help under the Government's new scheme sub-dividing these last totals between those who already gained help from the Supplementary Benefits Commission and those who will gain help with their heating bills for the first time.
§ Mrs. Chalker[pursuant to her reply, 7 November 1979, c. 226]: Statistics do not exist to answer the first 754W part of the question; it is estimated that at the end of 1978 supplementary benefit heating additions were paid to 650,000 pensioners over 75 and 85,000 families with children under 5; and the proposal announced by my right hon. Friend on 22 October was that the lowest rate heating addition should be awarded to householder claimants who are, or who have a dependent, aged over 75, or who have a child under 5, if they are not already receiving an addition at that or at a higher rate.—[Vol. 972, c. 35–36.]