Income Support (Pensioners) (Hansard, 21 March 1997)

§ Mr. Roger Evans

The administration of income support is a matter for Peter Mathison, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Peter Mathison to Mr. Archy Kirkwood, dated 21 March 1997 The Secretary of State for Social Security has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many pensioners in the constituencies of Roxburgh and Berwickshire and Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale have been claiming (a) pensioners, (b) enhanced pensioner and (c) higher pensioner income support premiums at (i) higher and (ii) lower levels for each of the past five years for which figures are available. The information requested is not available in the format requested. The Benefits Agency (BA) collates statistics by BA Districts and not by Parliamentary constituencies. Information for East Lowlands District which includes offices at Edinburgh South, Edinburgh East and Galashiels is shown in the attached table. I hope you find this reply helpful.

Income support customers in receipt of pensioner premiums for the Benefit Agency District of East Lowlands
Income support	Higher pensioner premium	Enhanced pensioner premium	Pensioner premium
February 1993	3,257	1,394	3,185
February 1994	3,685	1,354	3,223
February 1995	4,267	1,247	3,318
February 1996	4,660	1,175	3,285
November 1996¹	4,834	1,121	3,211
Date has been provided by the Benefits Agency Central Data Unit and is subject to change.
Data relates to the actual number of people in receipt of each of the Income Support pensioner premiums as at the last working day of each month for the BA District of East Lowlands. This District includes the BA's offices of Edinburgh East, Edinburgh South and Galashiels.
¹ Validated data is not available for February 1997.