§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many pensioners aged over 75 years have been awarded the new additional pension introduced by the Government.
§ Mrs. Gillian ShephardAround 2.5 million pensioners who were already entitled to income support or housing benefit will have benefited automatically from the premium changes introduced in October 1989. This includes pensioners aged 75 or over and disabled pensioners aged 60 or over.
Information is not yet available on which to estimate the number of pensioners who newly qualified for benefit from October as a result of the changes. However, over the five months from the start of the publicity campaign in July 1989 until the end of November 1989 there were 232,000 successful income support claims from pensioners. This compares with 82,000 successful claims over the previous five months.
Information on new claims for housing benefit is not yet available.