HEATING COSTS: HELP WITH PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

HL Deb 28 October 1982 vol 435 c607WA

Lord Orr-Ewing

asked Her Majesty's Government:

By how much public expenditure on help with heating costs, including supplementary benefit heating additions and the electricity discount scheme and help through family income supplement, has risen between 1978–79 and the latest year for which figures are available both in current prices and at constant prices.

Lord Trefgarne

The available information is as follows:

Public expenditure as help with heating costs (£million).

NOTE: Figures exclude administrative costs.

	1978/9		1981/82
	At current prices	At 1981/82 prices(*)
Supplementary benefit: heating additions	91	137	264
Supplementary benefit: single payments on account of exceptionally severe weather	N/A	N/A	4
Family Income Supplement	—	—	15
Electricity Discount Scheme	34	51	—
	125	188	283
(*) The figures for expenditure in 1978/79 have been converted to 1981/82 prices in line with the increase in the Retail Price Index over that period.