§ Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table showing for each region of the United Kingdom the numbers and percentage of the working population in receipt of family income supplement.
§ Mr. Orme, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 6th December 1977; Vol. 940, c. 650], gave the following information:
FAMILIES RECEIVING FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT (FIS) AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE WORKING POPULATION*—JUNE 1976 Region† Number of families receiving FIS‡ As a percentage of working population North 3,100 0.21 Yorkshire and Humberside 6,000 0.26 East Midlands 5,900 0.23 East Anglia South East 13,000 0.16 South West 5,500 0.30 West Midlands 4,900 0.20 North West 9,500 0.31 England 47,800 0.22 Scotland 7,500 0.32 Wales 3,400 0.29 Great Britain 58,700 0.23 Northern Ireland 7,000 1.12 United Kingdom 65,700 0.25 *The working population is made up of employees in employment, the self-employed and employers, Her Majesty's Forces stationed in the United Kingdom, and the registered unemployed. The latest available figures are for June 1976—see also note ‡ Source: Department of Employment. †The regions shown are the standard statistical regions. FIS figures are for the corresponding social security administrative regions. The differences between the two sets of regions are not significant for the purposes of this analysis. ‡ FIS is payable only to low-income families with at least one dependent child and only if the head of the family is in full-time work. The figures are given for June 1976 to correspond with those used for the working population. Each figure is rounded to the nearest 100 and, therefore, the sum of the components does not always equal the total.