Mr. J. Enoch Powellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what saving to public funds would have resulted if he had included in his Department's supplementary benefits handbook an appendix relating to Northern Ireland as he included an appendix relating to Scotland and Wales and thus obviated a completely separate issue of an otherwise identical handbook by his Department in Belfast.
§ Mr. AlisonI have been asked to reply since supplementary benefits in Northern Ireland are administered by the Department of Health and Social Services for Northern Ireland under separate legislation and the Northern Ireland handbook takes account of differences in legislative and administrative structure.
459WThe additional cost of producing the separate handbook, £6,000, is more than covered by the resulting savings in time and convenience to the local public. The inclusion of the differences in the schemes in an appendix to the Great Britain handbook would result in a complex document which would not meet the needs of the layman for a simple and straightforward explanation of their operation.