§ Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will give his best estimate overall for England and Wales, and for each district, overall national factors to be applied when specific details for each district are not known, of the numbers and percentages of (a) ratepayers and spouses of ratepayers who are also council tenants, (b) ratepayers who are either council employees or spouses of council employees, (c) persons, ratepayers and spouses, who benefit from rent rebates and (d) the electorate who do not have a direct interest or are unaffected by increased council spending, namely, ratepayers and spouses, less tenants and spouses, employees and spouses and rate rebate recipients and spouses;
(2) if he will give his best estimate overall for England and Wales, and for each district, applying overall national factors when specific details for each district are not known, of (a) the number of electors, (b) the number of ratepayers, (c) the number of householders affected by the payment of rates, namely, husbands and wives, based on national or local factors, whichever are available, for the number of adults normally sharing the responsibility for the financial maintenance of the home and (d), (c) as a percentage of (a).
§ Mr. KingThe information for England and Wales as a whole, as far as it is available, is set out below. All figures are for 1979–80 unless otherwise stated. The information requested by district is not available in all cases; in some it can be found in published documents which are mentioned, and in others published documents are mentioned that may be of help.
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(a) (b) 13.0 million 2.8 million 2.0 million (d)(c(i) as percentage of (a)=35) (c(ii) as percentage of (a)=8) (c(iii) as percentage of (a)=5) (c(i) as percentage of (b)=73) (c(ii) as percentage of (b)=18) (c(iii) as percentage of (b)=11) Notes (i) A detailed breakdown of the electorate is available in the OPCS Monitor E.L 80/1 (Published 20 May 1980). (ii) The make-up of "households" of the ratepayers at (a) (b) and (c) above is not known. (iii) Further information can be obtained from figures showing the percentage of households receiving rate rebates by district, which are contained in the DOE/Welsh Office publication "Rate Rebates 1979–80", copies of which have been placed in the Library.
B. (a) (b) Council tenants paying rates 1979–80 Ratepayers who are council employees or spouses of council employees 5.4 million not available (c) (i) (ii) (d) Rent rebate recipients Recipients of Supplementary Benefit assistance with rents Electorate without direct interest in or unaffected by increased council spending 1.0 million 1.3 million not available Notes (i) The make-up of "households" of council tenants who are ratepayers at B (a) above is not known. (ii) The number of ratepayers and spouses who are council employees or spouses of council employees is not known. The total number of council employees—that is full-time equivalents—as at 13 September 1980 was 2,056,013. A detailed breakdown by authority is contained in the September 1980 report of the Joint Manpower Watch published on 16 December 1980, copies of which are available in the Library. (iii) The figure of 1 million rent rebate recipients at B(c)(i) comprises ½ million single recipients and ½ million married recipients. A similar breakdown of those recipients of supplementary benefit assistance with rent at B(c)(ii) is not available. Virtually all of those in both categories are ratepayers. In addition, there were about 200,000 rent allowance recipients—that is non-public sector tenants—in 1979. Details of how many rent allowance recipients had a spouse or were ratepayers are not available. Further information in respect of rent rebate and rent allowance recipients by district is available in "Housing Rents Statistics at April 1979"—Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy SIS ref. 72.80. (iv) It is not possible to provide precise number of electors, either nationally or by district, who do not have a direct interest in, or are unaffected by, increased council spending.