§ Sir B. Rhys Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will publish an estimate of the eventual annual cost of offering increments to national insurance pensions for deferred retirement which would bear a fair actuarial relationship to the amount of pension forfeited, bearing in mind the current level of interest rates.
§ Mr. O'MalleyIt is estimated that by the end of this century the annual cost of these increments, at current values, would be of the order of £25 million more than the cost of the increments provided for in the Social Security Act 1973. This estimate assumes that pensions will be increased in future in line with national average earnings.