§ Mr. RHYS DAVIESasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will state for each year since contributory pensions became payable, what is the approximate additional amount which would have been payable by the Treasury if the provisions of the original old age pension scheme had continued to be applicable to persons receiving contributory pensions?
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHAThe whole cost of old age pensions to persons over 70, whether payable by virtue of the Contributory Pensions Acts or otherwise, falls on the Exchequer, and those Acts have involved a substantial increase in the Exchequer charge for old age pensions. I am not clear, therefore, to what the hon. Member is referring when he speaks of "an additional amount which would have been payable," but if he refers to the amount which has been paid by way of old age pensions additional to what would have been paid had the contributory pensions scheme not been introduced, I would refer him to the estimates in column (4) of table VIII of the Government Actuary's report on the Bill of 1925 (Command Paper 2406) of which I am sending him a copy. No figures are available to show what extra cost has actually emerged.