§ Mr. ROWNTREEasked the President of the Board of Trade the number of old age pensioners resident in the county of Yorkshire and the yearly cost of the pensions paid to them during the last administrative year; what decrease there has been in the number of persons over seventy years of age receiving indoor and outdoor relief in the county of Yorkshire since the Old Age Pensions Act came into operation; and what has been the consequent saving in expenditure to the county?
§ Mr. BURNSMy right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. There were 62,611 old age pensioners in Yorkshire (including the nine county boroughs) on the last Friday in March, 1912, and the cost of their pensions in 1911–12 is estimated at approximately £785,000. The number of paupers over seventy years of age, in the unions in the county of Yorkshire, on the 1st January, 1909, when the Old Age Pensions Act came into operation, was not ascertained, but between the 1st 277W January, 1910, and the 1st January, 1912, the numbers decreased as follows:—Indoor paupers, 500; outdoor paupers, 10,000. Between the financial years 1909–10 and 1911–12 the actual expenditure on out-relief in these unions fell by £76,000, but there was an increase in the expenditure on the maintenance of indoor paupers.
§ Mr. ROWNTREEasked the number of old age pensioners in the city of York and the yearly cost of the pensions paid to them during the last administrative year; what decrease there has been in the number of persons over seventy years of age receiving indoor and outdoor relief in the city since the Old Age Pensions Act came into operation; and what has been the consequent saving in expenditure to the city?
§ Mr. BURNSThe answer to the first part of the question is 1,324 as on the last Friday in March, 1912, and approximately £16,400. The Local Government Board have been in communication with the clerk to the guardians of the York Union, and they are informed that the number of persons over seventy years of age who were in receipt of outdoor relief in the City of York on the 31st December, 1908, was 188, and on 7th December, 1912, was two; and that the amount of relief paid weekly in respect of such persons between the two dates has decreased from £41 11s. 6d. to 7s. The decrease in the number of persons over seventy years of age in receipt of indoor relief in the City of York since the date when the Old Age Pensions Act came into operation is not stated.