§ Earl Russellasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many people in receipt of Family Credit are:
and what is the cost to public funds under each heading.
- (a) registered unemployed;
- (b) neither disabled, nor of retiring age, nor registered unemployed, but not in full-time employment;
- (c) also in receipt of an invalidity pension or severe disablement allowance;
- (d) of pensionable age;
- (e) in part-time employment;
- (f) in full-time employment;
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley)Family credit can be awarded only where the claimant (or the claimant's partner in two-parent families) is in remunerative work, which for this purpose is defined as 24 hours or more a week. All families awarded family credit would therefore fall into category (f) at the time the claim was made. Awards of family credit continue for six months regardless of changes of circumstances, but information is not available to show how many families move into other categories whilst they are still in receipt of family credit. At the end of July 1989 the family credit caseload was 320,000, and based on the average amount payable in a statistical sample of cases at that date the total annual cost of the benefit would be about £440 million.