§ Mr. Ashdownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will identify the circumstances in which an individual's entitlement to a national pension is notified to the Inland Revenue;
(2) how many notifications of entitlement to national insurance pension have been supplied to the Inland Revenue in the last year;
(3) how many national insurance pensioners are now within the scope of the arrangement for annual uprating information being provided to the Inland Revenue.
§ Mr. NewtonNotification of entitlement to state widows' or retirement pension is supplied to the Inland Revenue for all new awards of pension except (i) in respect of the wives of men already in receipt of non-contributory retirement pension for the over 80s or (ii) where the amount of pension is 50p a week or less.
There were some 503,000 notifications of entitlement for new pensioners made to the Inland Revenue in 1983. For those pensioners for whom the Inland Revenue request continuing notification of the amount of pension in payment an annual notification of the revised amounts of pension is sent following each pensions' uprating. Some four million were sent in 1983.