HC Deb 21 January 1988 vol 125 cc845-7W
Miss Mowlam

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many leaflets his Department publishes concerning benefits and benefit entitlement; how many of these are available in minority languages; what are those languages; when such minority language leaflets were published; and how many changes in the benefit system have occurred since that date.

Mr. Portillo

The Department currently publishes about 120 leaflets on social security benefits. Only one leaflet is translated into the main ethnic minority languages. This is FB22, a version of the English language leaflet FB 2 "Which benefit?", translated into Chinese, Urdu, Hindi, Gujerati, Bengali and Punjabi.

Parliamentary constituency 1987 Electorate
Horsham 87,229
Huntingdon 87,195
Devizes 87,145
Swindon 87,140
Wokingham 86,587
Westbury 85,708
South Colchester and Maldon 85,302
Peterborough 85,244
Cirencester and Tewkesbury 85,181
Crosby 85,099
North West Surrey 84,295
Ryedale 84,205
The Wrekin 83,796
Chelmsford 83,696
Woking 83,453
Average Constituency Electorate
(i) United Kingdom 67,178
(ii) England 69,585

Mr. Simon Coombs

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the 20 English non-metropolitan counties which have shown the greatest percentage growth in electorate since 1982; and what has been the percentage growth and actual figures in each case.

Mrs. Currie

The information requested is as follows:

Five translations were made in March 1985. The Chinese version was translated in November 1984 and revised in July 1985. There have been several reprints of these translations.

Because leaflet FB 22 was worded in broader terms than the English version of the leaflet, the numerous changes in the benefit system since the translations have not dated the leaflets. However, following this April's social security reforms, it is intended to publish revised editions of FB 22 as soon as possible.

Miss Mowlam

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what measures are taken to assist ethnic minority claimants who cannot speak English in his Department's offices where there are no officers who can communicate with these claimants.

Mr. Portillo

In offices where there are no staff who can communicate with a claimant who has little or no English, his family, friends, and supporters in the community will act for him. In practice this works well.