§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to the reply of 26 January, Official Report, c. 699–700, if he will give details of how his figures of increased benefit expenditure are arrived at and of how many extra persons are expected (a) to claim and (b) to qualify for supplementary benefit; and what the average supplementary benefit payment is expected to be.
§ Dr. BoysonThe increased benefit expenditure arises in three areas: adult dependency additions and child dependency additions payable to married women receiving national insurance or non contributory benefits; family income supplement; and supplementary benefit.
The extra costs of adult dependency additions are based on the estimated number of married women who would be entitled to non-means-tested benefit and whose husbands are neither earning nor receiving benefits in their own night (for example because they are students or occupational pensioners). In the case of child dependency additions the costs are based on the number of married women with children who it is estimated will receive a long term benefit, such as invalidity pension, from November 1984 and whose husbands do not have a long term benefit themselves, earnings, or occupational pensions above the threshold for child dependency additions proposed in clause 6 of the Health and Social Security Bill.
The extra costs of family income supplement are based on the estimated number of couples who will become eligible for benefit because the wife can become the claimant where she is in full time work and the husband is not.
The estimate of the extra cost of supplementary benefit is based on two factors. The first is the estimated number of couples who are already receiving supplementary benefit at the ordinary rate, usually because the husband is unemployed, but who are now able to move onto the long-term rate. This will arise where a wife who is sick, disabled or aged 60 or over chooses to claim instead of the husband.
The second is the estimated number of couples who would not be entitled to supplementary benefit at all under the former rule whereby only the husband could be the claimant, either because his resources were more than the ordinary rate or he was excluded by being in full-time 95W work, but who will now be entitled under the new rules whereby the wife can become the claimant. It is expected that about 50,000 claims will be received from this second group and that, of these, about 20,000 extra couples will qualify for supplementary benefit at an average rate of about £10 a week.