§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security why he has reduced his estimate of the number of families eligible for family credit to 500,000.
§ Mrs. Gillian ShephardThe figure of 500,000 was announced on 17 March 1989 in a reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), at column 391–92, as the estimate of the eligible population during 1988, and was obtained from a special examination of family expenditure survey returns for April to December 1988. It relates to employees only. A technical note setting out the basis of the estimates was placed in the Library on 24 April 1989.
Estimates of the number of eligible families for any period since 1988 will be possible only when information from the 1989 family expenditure survey becomes available.