§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) whether he has received the Communication from the hon. Member for West Ham, North, regarding increasing retirement pensions, reducing the retirement age, increasing production, and reducing unemployment; and what was the nature of his reply;
(2) what, at the latest convenient date, were the weekly, monthly or annual payments being made in unemployment and supplementary benefits; and to what extent an increase of £1 per week to retirement pensioners and one, two, three, four and five-year reductions in the age for claiming retirement pensions would reduce unemployment and reduce the outflow of unemployment insurance benefits and the costs of administration.
§ Mr. DeanThe average weekly amount of benefit including supplementary benefit paid to people registering for work during the months of July, August and September was £5.6 million.
For the reasons which I have explained in my reply to the hon. Member's letter it is impossible to predict the effect which the changes he suggests would have on the numbers of unemployed. But if retirement pensions were increased by £1 a week and the pension age for men were reduced by five years, the extra cost could be of the order of £1,200 million a year (£23 million a week), assuming that the present pattern of actual retirement were maintained.