§ Mrs. MayTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list those disability benefits on which there was an underspend in 1997–98 and the sums involved. [70120]
§ Mr. BayleyThe information is in the table.
Over this Parliament, expenditure on the four principal disability benefits—Attendance Allowance (AA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Incapacity Benefit (IB) and Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA)—is forecast to grow in real terms by 7.0 per cent. This is equivalent to a real increase in annual spending of over £1 billion. Within this wider trend, in 1997–98 there were small differences between forecast and outtum spending for these benefits.
£ million (1) (2) (3) (4) Benefit Published forecast for spending in 1997–98 Outturn spending Difference, column (3) minus column (2) AA 2,704 2,521 -183 DLA 4,959 4,953 -6 IB 7,617 7,412 -205 SDA 991 999 7 Note:
Forecasts in column (2) are the figures that were published in the 1997 Departmental Report, Cmd 3613.