HC Deb 22 November 2000 vol 357 cc232-3W
Mr. Levitt

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are claiming(a) Working Families Tax Credit, (b) pensioner's Minimum Income Guarantee, (c) winter fuel allowance and (d) free television licences for the over 75s in High Peak; and how many are eligible in each case. [138812]

Mr. Rooker

The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is as follows.

I refer my hon. Friend to the written answer given by my hon. Friend the Paymaster General to my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) on 8 November 2000, Official Report, column 274W, for the information on the Working Families Tax Credit.

Number of pensioners in High Peak claiming the Minimum Income Guarantee and number of pensioners over 75 at May 2000
Thousand
High Peak parliamentary constituency Number
MIG Pensioners May 20001 2.5
Pensioners over 752,3 7.5
1 Source—Income Support Statistics Quarterly Enquiry, May 2000.
2 Source—Statistical samples held by ASD Information Centre—May 2000.
3 Source—Number of pensioner households who will receive free TV licences is not directly known, but from the Statistical Samples it is possible to produce data on the number of pensioners receiving one or a combination of RP, IS, AA, DLA, IB or SDA by parliamentary constituency and are aged 75 or over.

Notes:

1. All except Winter Fuel Payment Data are based on 5 per cent. samples, therefore subject to sampling error.

2. Figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and expressed in thousands.

3. Cases are allocated to each parliamentary constituency by matching the postcode against the 2000 Version 1 of the Postcode Directory supplied by ONS. Constituency boundaries are represented as at May 1997.

4. MIG Pensioners are defined as Income Support Benefit units where either the claimant and/or the partner is aged 60 or over.

Regarding Winter Fuel Payments' currently being made for this winter, provisional information shows that around 17,500 payments will be made to people eligible. These payments will be made before Christmas.

1Source—Matching Intelligence Data Analysis Service Winter Fuel Payment 2000–01 initial exercise.