§ Mr. Pardoeasked the Minister of Social Security what estimate she has made of the nett increase in real terms in April, 1968, of family allowances less the price of school meals for a family with two children at school since family allowances were first introduced.
§ Mrs. HartI regret that the information on which to make this comparison is not available. A uniform national charge for school meals was first introduced in 1950. The weekly charge for two children was then equal to the family allowance for a 2-child family (5s.). From April, 1968, both the family allowance and the weekly charge to those families not entitled to remission will be 15s.
§ Mr. Pardoeasked the Minister of Social Security how many families there will be with less than four children whose incomes resources will be below requirements between October, 1967, and April, 1968.
§ Mrs. HartI assume the hon. Member is referring to families whose resources cannot be brought up to their requirements by Supplementary Benefit. On the basis of the findings of the family circumstances inquiry, there were about 160,000 families whose resources were below requirements on the supplementary benefit scale and could not be brought up to requirements because the fathers were in full-time work or, in a minority of cases, because of the wage stop. About two-thirds of these families had less than four children each, but rather less than half of all the children in the 160,000 families were in families of this size.
§ Mr. Pardoeasked the Minister of Social Security how much of the proposed in- 282W crease in family allowances was needed to compensate for the rise in the cost of living since the present levels of family allowances were last fixed.