§ Mr. McCrindleTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will set up an inquiry to examine the extent of passive dependency on welfare by single-parent families; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe latest figures available (May 1987) show 629,000 women and 30,000 men claiming supplementary benefit as heads of one-parent families, excluding cases of temporary separation. Of these claimants, about 67,000 women and 1,000 men had earnings from part-time work. The general reduction of disincentives to independence was one of the key aims of the reforms in social security benefits which we introduced in April and we shall be monitoring the effects of these changes.
§ Mr. McCrindleTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate the number of single unmarried women, divorced women, widows, separated women/and men and the relative percentages of each group out of the total number of lone-parent families in Britain; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe latest available estimate of the number of lone-parent families in Great Btitain, published by the office of Population Censuses and Surveys using data from a variety of statistical sources, is 940,000 in 1984. Using information from general household surveys, OPCS estimates that that total is made up as follows:
Type of lone-parent family Estimated Number Percentage of total lone-parent families Lone Mothers: single 220,000 23 divorced 380,000 41 widowed 80,000 8 separated 170,000 18 Lone Fathers: 90,000 10 All lone parents 940,000 100