§ Mr. FlightTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what the estimated take-up of the minimum income guarantee in 2002–03 is; and if he will make a statement; [99148]
(2) what estimate he has made of the numbers of people eligible for minimum income guarantee in 2002–03. [99149]
§ Mr. McCartneyThe latest available estimate of take-up of Minimum Income Guarantee relates to financial year 1999–2000 and is presented in the DWP report "Income Related Benefits Estimates of Take-up in 1999–2000". A copy of the publication is available in the Library. The next edition of the report containing statistics for 2000–01 will be released on 27 March 2003.
Information on the number of people eligible for Minimum Income Guarantee in 2002–03 is not available. The latest published number of recipients of Minimum Income Guarantee as at November 2002 is 1,768,000. This estimate is taken from a 5 per cent. sample of administrative data and may be subject to a small degree of sampling error.