§ Mr. Freesonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many one-parent families there are in (a) the London borough of Brent and (b) Greater London as a whole; and what proportion of the total population of those areas they represent in each case.
§ Mr. John Patten[pursuant to his reply, 27 January 1984, c. 721]: The results from the 10 per cent. sample of census forms, published in the 1981 census county report for Greater London—part 2, table 48—show that there were approximately (a) 6,010 one-parent families with at least one dependent child, and 3,820 one-parent families with non-dependent children only in the London borough of Brent and (b) 142,260 one-parent families with at least one dependent child, and 104,530 one-parent families with non-dependent children only, in Greater London as a whole at the time of the census. In Greater London as a whole these figures account for 7 per cent. and 4 per cent. of the population respectively, but similar information is not routinely available for the London borough of Brent. These figures use the census definition of "family": they do not therefore include unmarried mothers who are living with their own parents. Nor do they include the small number of lone parents in households which comprise two or more families.