HC Deb 14 November 2000 vol 356 cc613-4W
Mr. Mitchell

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many applications resulted from his Department's most recent campaign to improve the take-up of the Minimum Income Guarantee for pensioners; and how many were successful. [136533]

Mr. Rooker

The campaign is still in progress and the final mailshots out of a total of 2.3 million were sent out on Friday 10 November. Given the scale of the campaign, the numbers of inquiries, applications and decisions change daily. It will be January before we can provide comprehensive figures on the results of the campaign. Approximately half of actual claims made are proving successful

Mr. Davidson

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list, by category, the reasons for which applications for the Minimum Income Guarantee have been rejected(a) in total and (b) in each Benefits Agency area. [137875]

Mr. Rooker

The information requested is not available. Separate figures as a result of the take up campaign will be available in due course on a national basis. However, preliminary indications are that of those applications that fail, they do so because of excess capital and income. Both of these issues are dealt with in the proposals for the new pension credit, details of which are published in Cm 4900.

Mr. Davidson

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have applied to date for information packs for the Minimum Income Guarantee; how many applications have been returned; how many are receiving the Minimum Income Guarantee in(a) Glasgow, Pollok (b) Glasgow and (c) Scotland; and what this figure is as a percentage of the eligible population. [137766]

Mr. Rooker

Not all the information requested is available.

The current Minimum Income Guarantee take-up campaign is still in progress, so as yet we do not have comprehensive details of the total number of successful claims. However, we have had over 600,000 responses and around half of those claims already processed have been successful.

The table gives numbers of pensioners receiving the Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland, Glasgow and Pollok.

Pensioners receiving the MIG in Scotland, Glasgow and Pollok, May 2000
Thousand
Number of claimants
Scotland1 164.4
City of Glasgow Unitary Authority1 32.4
Glasgow Pollok Parliamentary Constituency1 3.5
1 All aged 60 and over

Notes:

  1. 1. Pensioners are defined as where the claimant and/or partner are aged 60 or over. The figures may therefore include some claimants aged under 60.
  2. 2. Based on 5 per cent. sample therefore subject to sampling error.
  3. 3. Caseloads have been rounded to the nearest hundred and are expressed in thousands; percentages are given to one decimal place.
  4. 4. Cases are allocated to each Unitary Authority/Parliamentary Constituency by matching the postcode against the 2000 version 1 ONS Postcode Directory.
  5. 5. Constituency information represents Constituency boundaries as at May 1997.

Sources:

  1. 1. Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, May 2000.
  2. 2. Population estimates unit—ONS mid-term estimates for 1999. Information on the eligible population in Scotland, Glasgow and Pollok is not available. The Department's statisticians do not judge it possible to produce reliable estimates, of the amount by which benefit is under-claimed, for different parts of Great Britain.

The next annual statistics on the take-up of income-related benefits in Great Britain will be published on 8 December 2000. These will cover the financial year 1998–99.

Mr. Matthew Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's oral statement of 8 November 2000,Official Report, columns 315-27, on the Pre-Budget Statement, if he will estimate the number of pensioners eligible for the Minimum Income Guarantee in (a) 1999–2000, (b) 2000–01 and (c) 2001–02; and if he will make a statement. [138281]

Mr. Rooker

As a result of the measures outlined in the pre-Budget report, an estimated 2 million pensioners and their families will benefit in 2000–01; this will increase to 2.2 million in 2001–02.

Note:

Based on 1.6 million current claims to the Minimum Income Guarantee, 1.7 million in 2000–01 and 1.9 million in 2001–02.

Sources:

  • Income Support Quarterly Statistical Enquiry, May 2000.
  • DSS case load forecasts.