§ Mrs. Winifred Ewingasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what inquiries she has made into the spending patterns of retirement pensioners; and what evidence she has of the extent to which pensioners' spending is on essential non-luxury goods.
§ Mr. MaclennanPatterns of expenditure by pensioner households are given quarterly by the Family Expenditure Survey and the National Food Survey. For example, FES data on expenditure during the year ended June 1975 were published in theDE Gazette for January 1976. However, any division of the items covered into essential and other goods and services would be arbitrary.