§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how much money will be available for redistribution as a result of the changes proposed in the White Paper on the reform of the supplementary benefit scheme; which categories of benefit recipients will be worse off, and which will be better of, as a result of the proposed changes; and by how much in each case, disregarding the proposed general increase in benefits in November 1980.
§ Mr. Patrick JenkinAs recorded in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Social Security Bill, the proposals which result in savings will make about £60 million available for redistribution through the proposals which result in extra expenditure.
The category with the largest number of claimants who will lose will be supplementary pensioners, as a result of the 40p reduction in the long-term scale rate (35p for a couple) under the proposal to align the main supplementary benefit and national insurance rates. The categories with the largest numbers of claimants who will gain are lone parents and the unemployed.
It is proposed to introduce the changes in November 1980 and it will not be possible to estimate firmly the impact then of the overall package of changes until more up-to-date information becomes available about the numbers of claimants in the various categories, and the levels of their resources and rents. The most recent information about claimants relates to November 1978. On that basis, the effect of the changes on different categories of claimants is shown in the following table:
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OVERALL PACKAGE (RENT SHARE £3.80 LONG-TERM SCALE RATE OFFSET DROPPED) Thousands Losers Gainers Category £3.00 and over £1.46-£3.00 £1.01-£1.45 0.41p-£1.00 0.01p-0.40p Total number losers No change 0.01p-0.50p 0.51p-£1.40 £1.41-£3.10 over £3.10 Total number of gainers Total number of cases Cases without children: All supplementary pensioners … … 8 84 162 158 1,176 1,587 81 19 23 19 3 63 1,731 Sick and disabled … … … … 1 5 3 8 47 64 97 19 2 4 18 43 204 Unemployed … … … … 5 5 3 9 7 29 227 149 4 6 6 165 421 Other supplementary allowance … … 1 1 2 2 11 17 7 5 * 1 10 16 41 Total without children … … 15 95 169 177 1,242 1,697 412 191 29 31 36 288 2,397 Cases with children: All supplementary pensioners … … — 1 1 1 3 5 * * 1 — * 1 6 Sick and disabled … … … … 1 1 1 1 2 4 * 3 4 4 5 15 20 Unemployed … … … … 2 7 4 5 4 21 * 39 51 60 5 155 176 Lone parent families† … … … 2 6 7 9 48 72 12 48 76 44 70 238 322 Other supplementary allowance … … * 1 1 1 3 5 * 1 2 2 2 7 11 Total with children … … 4 15 12 16 60 107 13 90 134 109 82 416 536 Grand Total … … … 19 109 182 193 1,302 1,805 424 282 163 140 118 703 2,932 * Less than 500. † Excludes 17,000 lone parent family cases in other categories.