HC Deb 07 May 1998 vol 311 cc465-6W
Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will estimate the cost of applying the lender's interest rate to all income support mortgage interest claim. [40656]

Mr. Keith Bradley

The information requested is not available.

Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to revise the current system of assessing income support mortgage interest claims. [40655]

Mr. Keith Bradley

We have no plans to change the current arrangement of applying a standard interest rate to the calculation of Income Support mortgage interest claims which will continue to reflect average undiscounted building society rates.

The standard interest rate will increase from 7.97 per cent. to 8.34 per cent. from 31 May, following the most recent average rate published by the Office for National Statistics in table 7.1L of Financial Statistics.

Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are currently in receipt of income support mortgage interest in(a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) the United Kingdom; and what proportion of these claims are calculated on the basis of the standardised interest rate. [40654]

Mr. Keith Bradley

The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is set out in the tables.

Income support cases with mortgage interest, November 1996
All income support mortgage interest cases
West Midland 31,000
Great Britain 313,000
United Kingdom 325,000

Income support cases with mortgage interest, August 1997
All income support mortage interest cases Income support mortage interest cases with the standard rate of interest1
West Midlands 29,000 28,000
Great Britain 298,000 289,000
1Numbers of claims based on the standard rate of interest refers to claimants with one or more loan based on this rate. A claimant shown in this category with more than one loan based on this rate. A claimant shown in this category with more than one loan may therefore have additional loans based on different rates of interest

Notes:

  1. 1. Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand
  2. 2. Excludes cases who transferred to Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance with effect from October 1996
  3. 3. Sample size 5 per cent.
  4. 4. The standard rate of interest at August 1997 was 7.2 per cent.
  5. 5. Information on cases paid at the standard rate of interest is not available. prior to May 1997 as only information on actual rates appropriate to an individual loan rather than the interest rate applied in the assessment calculation were collected before this date
  6. 6. United Kingdom information (including Northern Ireland) on numbers of cases calculated on the standard rate is not available

Sources:

  1. 1. Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, November 1996 and August 1997
  2. 2. Income Support Statistics (NI) Quarterly Enquiry, November 1996