§ Mr. Berminghamasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how much money is currently being spent on research into the area of transcultural psychiatry; and on what projects this money is spent.
750Wincluded in the family credit payment under his proposal in Cmnd. 9691 is lost through reduced housing benefit entitlement for a married couple with one, two and three children and a lone parent with one, two and three children at gross earnings levels of (a) £60 a week, (b) £70, (c) £80, (d) £90 and (e) £100 and so on until entitlement to family credit is extinguished in each case.
§ Mr. Newton[pursuant to his reply, 25 April 1986, c. 264]: Entitlement to housing benefit under the reformed social security structure will be affected by a number of factors, including receipt of any family credit. On the illustrative assumptions in the technical annex to the White Paper "Reform of Social Security" (Cmnd. 9691) something less than 25 per cent. of family credit recipients would also be in receipt of housing benefit. Of these, most would be receiving only rate rebate, a smaller number only rent rebate, leaving only about 3 per cent. of total family credit recipients receiving both rent and rate rebates. Around two-thirds of families receiving both family credit and housing benefit would still be better off overall as a result of the changes, many of them by more than £5 a week. The cash compensation included in the family credit rates in respect of school meals would be paid irrespective of the housing benefit position and would represent an integral part of the total family's credit payable. Although this makes it somewhat artificial to treat it in isolation in the manner requested, the table sets out the extent to which, on the illustrative figures, the housing benefit payable would be less than it would otherwise be if the family credit were reduced by £2.20 a week per child.
§ Mr. Whitney[pursuant to his reply, 6 May 1986, c 80]: In addition to the care which is taken to provide services to suit the needs of differing groups of patients, the Department is currently supporting one 3 year descriptive research study. This will cover those patients who have been referred to an inter-cultural therapy centre 751W in north London which provides a specialised service to people from ethnic minority groups. The total cost is £39,800; £13,100 of which has been allocated in the current financial year.
This work will describe the circumstances in which a group of people from ethnic minorities suffering from psychiatric disorder presents for treatment and the effectiveness of the interventions used. The aim is to help to improve the efficiency of mental illness services for people from ethnic minorities.