§ Dr. McDonaldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the cost of paying the long-term supplementary benefit rate to all supplementary allowance claimants after one year at 1979–80 benefit rates.
§ Mr. PrenticeAbout £85 million.
§ Dr. McDonaldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the cost of paying the long-term supplementary benefit rate to the unemployed at 1979–80 benefit rates.
§ Mr. PrenticeAbout £42 million on the same basis as for other people under pension age.
§ Dr. McDonaldasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the cost at 1979–80 benefit rates of (a) the proposals in "Social Assistance" for a free choice scheme under which wives or husbands could claim supplementary benefit and (b) of treating married couples as two individuals for supplementary benefit purposes.
§ Mr. Prentice"Social Assistance" discussed three possibilities, one of which was free choice, for introducing equal treatment in supplementary benefit. There would be no direct benefit cost attached to any of these methods because they provide for an alternative, rather than a new, claimant; but consequential changes as envisaged in "Social Assistance" in the age at which a couple qualified for the long-term scale rate would produce a cost of about £2.4 million at November 1979 benefit rates.
It is not possible to estimate the precise costs of treating married couples as individuals.