§ Mr. Georgeasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the number of recipients of supplementary benefit, plus the estimated number of their dependants, who were, respectively, retirement pensioners, sick or disabled, unemployed, single-parent families, widowed, divorced or separated women, for each year since 1948; and if she will express the growth in each group of claimants in percentage terms, taking 1948 figures as 100.
§ Mr. Alec JonesInformation about numbers of national assistance/supplementary benefit recipients and dependants by category is not available for the years before 1951 and only on a limited basis from that year onwards. The assembly of data for each year from 1951 would require a disproportionate amount of staff time, and the table below gives such information as is available at five-yearly intervals to 1967 and for each year since that time.