93. Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what, 364W from information available to him from international sources, are the current basic retirement pensions paid to single persons and married couples in France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark, respectively; and what other benefits are made available to retirement pensioners in these countries.
§ Mr. EnnalsNone of these countries has a contributory scheme of flat-rate pensions. Some of them have no basic pension. The others have pension systems so unlike ours that a list of basic rates would be misleading. The Library already holds copies of comparative tables of social security benefits in the United Kingdom and the six Common Market countries, and I hope shortly to add tables on Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries.