§ Mr. Andrew Bowdenasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many retirement pensioners are in receipt of domestic assistance addition; and if he will give the figures for (a) the average weekly payments made, (b) the range of weekly payments made and (c) the total amount involved.
§ Mr. NewtonAt December 1984, it is provisionally estimated that some 2,000 retirement pensioners were in receipt of a supplementary benefit domestic assistance addition with an average weekly payment of around £2.70. This would be equivalent, using December 1984 numbers and rates, to total annual expenditure of around £300,000. These amounts take no account of the available scale margin. The available data are not sufficiently reliable to enable a breakdown by range of payment to retirement pensioners to be given, but I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) on 3 June at column531, which showed the range of payments to all recipients of the addition.