§ Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the gross cost of granting all very severely, severely and appreciably handicapped persons in Great Britain a disability allowance of, respectively, £7.75, £8.75 and £10 per week; and, in each case, what would be the net cost after savings from, respectively, supplementary benefits and the existing attendance allowance.
§ Mr. DeanTaking account of the 1968–69 Office of Population Censuses and Surveys' Survey ("Handicapped and Impaired in Great Britain", HMSO 1971), and adding very broad estimates for groups not covered by that survey, the total number of very severely, severely and appreciably handicapped people of all ages in Great Britain might be of the order of 1½ million. On this basis, the annual gross cost of a £7.75 benefit for every handicapped person would be about £600 million; of an £8.75 benefit about 353W £680 million; and of a £10 benefit about £780 million.
These gross costs assume that the allowance postulated would be available to all such handicapped people whether they were working or not and would not replace invalidity or retirement pension or any other social security benefit. If it were fully taken into account for supplementary benefit there would be a saving of about £60 million a year for a £7.75 allowance or of about £70 million a year for the other rates mentioned. The net annual cost would, on this basis, be
England and Wales Neonatal mortality rate Infant mortality rate Deaths under four weeks of age per 1,000 live births Deaths under one weeks of age per 1,000 live births Legitimate Illegitimate Legitimate Illegitimate 1965 … … 13 18 19 25 1966 … … 12 18 19 25 1967 … … 12 18 18 24 1968 … … 12 17 18 23 1969 … … 12 17 17 26 1970 … … 12 17 17 26 1971 … … 11 16 17 25 1972 (provisional) … 11 15 17 23 From 1969 legitimacy has been determined by the birth record instead of being based on information recorded at the time of death; this change will have contributed to the increase in the number of recorded deaths of illegitimate infants in that year.