§ Ms LynneTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is social security expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product and per capita in each European Union country in the current financial year. [39050]
§ Mr. BurtThe information is not available in the format requested. The latest available data are for 1993 and are restricted to member states at that time. This information conforms to the Eurostat definition of social protection which includes more than the usual UK definition of social security—for example, spending on health and local authority social services are included.
Current expenditure on social protection as percentage of GDP Country Per cent Belgium 27.6 Denmark 33.2 Germany 31.0 Greece 16.3 Spain 24.0 France 30.9 Ireland 21.4 Italy 25.8 Luxembourg 24.9 Netherlands 33.6 Portugal 18.3 United Kingdom 27.8
592W
Current expenditure on social protection per head in the purchasing power standard1 Country £ Belgium 4,903.7 Denmark 5,598.4 Germany 5,365.7 Greece 1,598.5 Spain 2,935.7 France 5,317.6 Ireland 2,680.9 Italy 4,291.4 Luxembourg 6,630.1 Netherlands 5,576.3
Current expenditure on social protection per head in the purchasing power standard1 Country £ Portugal 1,948.3 United Kingdom 4,323.4 1 The purchasing power standard specific to private consumption is used to equivalise the per capita expenditure between the EU countries in terms of national mice levels. 1. The information is reproduced from the Eurostat publication "Social protection expenditure and receipts 1980–1993".
2. The data are provisional for all countries except Denmark.
3. UK data are for the British financial year, all other data are for the calendar year.