§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the categories of statistics which his Department collects on pensioners' income and give in each case the smallest geographical unit covered by each group.
§ Mr. Peter Lloyd[holding answer 20 February 1989]: Statistics on pensioners' income from benefits collected by this Department are published in "Retirement Pension and Widow's Benefit". Further information may be found in "Social Security Statistics 1988". These statistics are collected on a national basis and analysed by country of residence. Both these publications are in the Library. Information on pensioners' total income is obtained from the family expenditure survey, which is collected by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys on behalf of the Department of Employment. The extent to which information on pensioners' total income can be subdivided geographically depends on the sample sizes involved in answering particular questions.