HC Deb 06 February 1986 vol 91 c217W
Mr. Meacher

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the annual cost of providing (a) unemployment benefit, (b) sickness and invalidity benefit, (c) retirement pensions and (d) widows' benefit at a level equivalent to the current adult supplementary benefit scale rate, excluding housing costs, for all adults currently claiming these benefits whose income is below the supplementary benefit scale rate level but who are not currently claiming supplementary benefit; how many individuals are involved in each case; and what would be the annual cost in respect of unemployment benefit if unemployment fell to, respectively, 3, 2½, 2, 1½ and 1 million.

Mr. Newton

The information is not available to provide detailed costings, and even the production of illustrative figures would take substantial time and be disproportionately costly.