§ Mrs. Currieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if the Minister of State the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) has anything to add to his statement to the House of 17 December regarding the number of board and lodging claimants who have been paid arrears of benefit in respect of the suspension of time limits following the High Court judgment in the Cotton case in July and regarding the costs of those payments.
§ Mr. NewtonI would like to correct one point I made in reply to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on 17 December 1985 at column 170. While I correctly indicated that, folio wing the original Cotton judgment by the High Court on 31 July 1985, arrears of benefit have been paid to some 8,500 claimants, the total amount of money involved was about £750,000, not £250,000 as I inadvertently said.