§ Mr. John Browneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will provide an estimate of the cost to the State of broken marriages in terms of supplementary benefit paid to one-parent families resulting from marriage breakdown and the cost of children in care resulting from broken marriages.
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§ Mrs. ChalkerThe net annual cost of supplementary benefits paid to divorced and separated one-parent families is estimated to be about £425 million at December 1980 rates. It could, however, be expected that some of these would have been supported by supplementary benefit in any case—for example, as part of an unemployed family unit. The figure takes into account maintenance payments made direct to the Department by liable relatives. It also includes about £20 million administration costs.
The figure does not, however, include the cost of single payments of supplementary benefit to meet an exceptional need, nor does it take account of recoveries from local authorities for rent rebates and allowances and rates rebates. This information is not available.
It is not possible to estimate what proportion of the total cost of maintaining children in care can be attributed to children who may be in care as a result of broken marriages.