§ Mrs. Wiseasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what is his estimate of the number of families who would be eligible for family income supplement were it not for the fact that the wife, not the husband, is the full-time worker;
(2) what is his estimate of the cost of extending eligibility for family income supplement to families where the wife works full-time and the husband does not.
§ Mr. Orme, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 21st November 1977; Vol. 939, c. 463], gave the following information
It is estimated from a Department of Health and Social Security analysis of information recorded by respondents to the Family Expenditure Survey that, at the end of 1975, there were in Great Britain about 10,000 families in which the wife was normally in full-time work or was self-employed, the husband was not working and the family income was less than the appropriate prescribed amount for family income supplement (FIS). This estimate is subject to considerable sampling error. It is not known how many of the self-employed wives worked at least 30 hours a week, but, assuming that FIS were payable to all these families, the estimated cost would 536W be about £2.5 million, excluding administration costs. Estimates based on the 1976 Family Expenditure Survey are not yet available.