§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people currently receive (i) housing benefit and (ii) supplementary benefit broken down into client group and family status categories used in the technical annex to the White Paper, "Reform of Social Security"; and how many receive (i) rent rebate-allowance and (ii) rate rebate broken down into the categories of pensioners, working households with children and working households without children.
§ Mr. Newton[pursuant to his reply, 23 January 1986, c. 309–10]: Estimates of the numbers receiving supplementary benefit at December 1983, the latest date for which information is available, are given in the table. Similar estimates are not routinely available for housing benefit in the categories requested. The estimates given in the table for housing benefit, therefore, have been made on a similar basis to that described in paragraphs 2.6–2.10 of the technical annex to the White Paper (Cmnd. 9691).
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Table 1. Supplementary Benefit and Housing Benefit Caseloads Thousands, Great Britain Supplementary Benefit (December 1983) Housing Benefit (November 1985) Client Group All groups 4,349 6,580 Pensioners age 80+ 449 720
Thousands, Great Britain Supplementary Benefit (December 1983) Housing Benefit (November 1985) Pensioners age 60–79 1,382 3,190 Sick or disabled 204 210 Lone parents 466 570 Couples with children —in full-time work — 370 —not in full-time work 462 520 Others —in full-time work — 220 —not in full-time work 1,386 770 Family Status All families 4,349 6,580 Pensioners —single 1,446 2,610 —couples 385 1,310 Non-pensioners with children —lone parents 474 580 —couples 485 940 Non-pensioners without children —single age 25 and over 635 640 —single age under 25 774 210 —couples 151 290
Table 2. Housing Benefit Caseload by Rebate Type, November 1985 Thousands, Great Britain Rent rebate/allowance Rate rebate Pensioners 2,520 3,770
England Number of registered handicapped
Number of persons registered by age
Under 16 16–64 Type of registration Registration category 0–4 5–15 16–49 50–64 65–74 75+ Total As at 31 March 1982 Blind and Partially sighted* Blind 275 1,709 11,471 13,422 19,376 64,576 111,729 Partially sighted 165 2,062 8,662 5,635 9,417 32,062 58,003 Total 440 3,771 20,133 19,057 28,793 97,538 169,732 As at 31 March 1983 Deaf and Hard of hearing* Deaf with speech 1,663 6,345 2,421 2,079 3,605 16,113 Deaf without speech 1,663 7,887 2,733 1,848 1,591 15,722 Hard of hearing 1,648 5,032 4,950 11,044 24,505 47,179 Total 4,974 19,264 10,104 14,971 29,701 79,014 As at 31 March 1984 General classes*† Very severely handicapped 5,822 26,896 15,517 23,369 71,604 Severely handicapped 7,370 151,465 118,145 177,431 454,411 Other 7,442 190,025 150,078 228,990 576,535 Total 20,634 368,386 283,740 429,790 1,102,550 * Includes persons multiply handicapped and therefore on other registers. † But excludes persons on the Register of the Blind. The reliability of registration as a guide to the incidence of disability is affected by the fact that registration is voluntary and also by uncertainties about the regularity with which authorities review and update their records. Projections of future trends are not made centrally.
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Thousands, Great Britain Rent rebate/allowance Rate rebate Working households with children 240 400 Working households without children 160 150 Others 1,520 1,950 All households 4,430 6,260 Notes to tables
- (1) Estimates for supplementary benefit are derived from the 1983 Annual Statistical Enquiry.
- (2) Estimates for housing benefit are rounded to the nearest 10,000 and consequently totals may not equal exactly the sum of their component parts.
- (3) The housing benefit estimates are not adjusted for differential take-up.
- (4) The total housing benefit caseload implied by this methodology is somewhat different from that derived from local authority subsidy claims (as published in the Public Expenditure White Paper), which reflect local authorities' forward estimates for a full year.