§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if pursuant to his answer of 18 April,Official Report, column 346, he will break down the £4 billion increase in the social security budget due to the real 332W increase in the amount of benefits paid by each of the main benefits for which he is responsible; and what the real increase since 1978 has been on each benefit.
§ Mr. ScottI refer the hon. Member to my reply to the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) on 28 April 1988 at columns251–52.
§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the average time taken for processing a successful claim for each of the major benefits for which his Department is responsible.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe national average clearance times for processing all claims for each of the major benefits are listed as follows. Separate figures for successful and unsuccessful claims are not available.
Days Sickness Benefit/Invalidity Benefit 11 Maternity Benefit 16 Retirement Pension 24 Income Support 5 Family Credit 129.7 1 The family credit figure of 29.7 days is for September, a period when claims clarance was affected by the postal dispute. The average clearance time in August was just over the target time of 18 working days. Source: Management information statistics from the DSS Regional Organisation.
§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table showing the value of(a) child benefit and (b) invalidity benefit for a married couple as a proportion of average net earnings for all males and all manually employed males for each year between November 1978 and the latest date available.
§ Mr. Scott[pursuant to his reply, 29 July 1988, c. 822]: The information on child benefit is given in the following table from April 1979 when child tax allowances ceased. I regret that information is not available from which to calculate the average value of total invalidity benefit (including additional pension and invalidity allowance) received by married men. The following table therefore relates only to basic invalidity pension with an increase for an adult dependant. It takes no account of additional pension or invalidity allowance.
Value of Child Benefit (one child) Uprating dates Child Benefit (one child) as percentage of net average earnings1 All adult males All male manuals April 1979 5.5 6.0 November 1980 4.9 5.4 November 1981 5.0 5.6 November 1982 5.2 5.9 November 1983 5.4 6.1 November 1984 5.2 5.9 November 1985 4.9 5.7 July 1986 4.7 5.5 April 1987 4.4 5.2 April 19882 34.0 34.8 333W
Value of Basic Invalidity Pension Uprating dates Invalidity Pension (with adult dependant) no children as percentage of net average earnings1 All adult males All male manuals November 1978 45.3 48.9 April 1979 — — November 1979 44.6 48.4
Uprating dates Invalidity Pension (with adult dependant) no children as percentage of net average earnings1 All adult males All male manuals November 1980 42.5 47.6 November 1981 43.0 48.8 November 1982 44.7 50.9 November 1983 43.0 49.1 November 1984 41.4 47.4 November 1985 43.3 49.9 July 1986 41.1 47.8 April 1987 38.8 45.7 April 1988 336.6 343.2 1 Net average earnings are the estimated gross weekly earnings less tax and national insurance contributions at the non contracted-out rate. 2 Child benefit rate unchanged. 3 Provisional.