Child Benefit (Hansard, 23 July 1981)

§ Mr. Squire
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether his estimate of the net cost of each l0p increase in child benefit has been affected by the increase in the numbers of families out of work; and if he will publish any revised estimate.

§ Mrs. Chalker
No. The current estimate is still £55 million a year based on the numbers used in the public expenditure White Paper, Cmnd. 8175.

§ Mr. Squire
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his estimate of the average number of 215W children and the average number of families who will receive child benefit at any time in the benefit year 1981–82; how many of these children will be aged under 5 years; and how many of the families will contain a child aged under 5 years.

§ Mrs. Chalker
The estimated, average numbers requested for the financial year 1981–82 are:

million

i. Children for whom child benefit will be paid 13.1

ii. Families receiving child benefit 7.1

iii. Children aged under five years for whom child benefit will be paid 3.4

iv. Families containing one or more children aged under five years 2.5

§ Mr. Squire
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many children attracting child benefit are living in families in receipt of neither supplementary benefit nor a national insurance child dependency addition; how many families in receipt of child benefit are in this position; and what are his estimates for the benefit year 1981–82.

§ Mrs. Chalker
Up-to-date actual figures are not available. The estimates for the current financial year 1981–82, is that child benefit will be paid for about 10,700,000 children in about 6 million families where the family does not receive supplementary benefit or a national insurance child dependency addition.

§ Mr. Squire
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if child benefit were increased to a level which (a) subsumed the short-term national insurance child dependency additions and (b) subsumed the under-11 years supplementary benefit children's rate what, in each case, would be the effect on the net cost of each l0p increase in child benefit.

§ Mrs. Chalker
(a) About £60 million (b) Supplementary benefit children's scale rates are not reduced following an increase on child benefit. When child benefit is increased, that increase is taken into account when assessing a claimant's total resources. Unless the increase in child benefit was very substantial, there would be little additional net expenditure to that in (a) above.

	million
i. Children for whom child benefit will be paid	13.1
ii. Families receiving child benefit	7.1
iii. Children aged under five years for whom child benefit will be paid	3.4
iv. Families containing one or more children aged under five years	2.5