HC Deb 24 May 1999 vol 332 cc53-4W
Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the minimum pension guarantee. [84028]

Mr. Timms

The Minimum Income Guarantee, delivered through Income Support, provides an income threshold below which most pensioners with no savings, or only a small amount saved, should not fall.

The increase in the Income Support rates for pensioners this April represents an increase above the normal prices-linked uprating, of £160 over the year for a single pensioner. Our undertaking to increase the Minimum Income Guarantee in line with earnings next April further underlines our intention that the least well-off pensioners should share in rising national prosperity.

Mr. Paul Marsden

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate how many pensioners in Shrewsbury and Atcham will benefit from the introduction of the Minimum Income Guarantee; and if he will make a statement. [84866]

Mr. Timms

We estimate that around 2,500 pensioners were in receipt of Income Support in the constituency of Shrewsbury and Atcham in November 1998, the latest date for which this data are available. We are unable to forecast with any reliability how many will be in receipt from April this year in the same area, because the sample size on which the estimates are based is too small. However, we estimate that nationally, an additional 65,000 pensioners will become eligible for the Minimum Income Guarantee, through Income Support, as a result of the above-inflation increases this year, and a further 20,000 next year as a result of uprating the Guarantee in line with earnings.

Notes:

  1. 1. "Pensioners" refers to pensioner benefit units, which are single people aged 60 or over or couples where one or partners is 60 or over.
  2. 2. Figures exclude cases in residential care and nursing homes.
  3. 3. The estimate of 2,500 cases is rounded to the nearest 100 cases, and is subject to a degree of sampling error due to the small numbers involved.
  4. 4. The Parliamentary constituency data are based on constituency boundaries as of 1 May 1999.

Source:

  1. 1. Income Support Quarterly Statistical Enquiry November 1998.
  2. 2. Family Resources Survey 1996–97.