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Family Credit

Mr. Ian McCartney: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list, by region, for 1995-96 (a) the total amount paid out in family credit, (b) the number of family credit recipients, (c) the average number of child dependants of each recipient and (d) the average weekly amount paid out to each recipient. [28223]

Mr. Roger Evans: The available information is set out in the table.

	Total amount of family credit paid 1995-96 £ million	Number of recipients	Average number of children	Average weekly family credit £
Northern Eastern	313	114,000	2.0	52.40
Midlands	308	115,000	2.1	51.05
London North	199	76,000	2.1	50.10
London South	171	66,000	2.1	49.53
Wales and South Western	233	87,000	2.0	50.84
North Western	276	100,000	2.0	52.54
Scotland	182	70,000	1.9	49.52
Total for Great Britain	1,682	627,000	2.0	51.06

Notes:

1. The expenditure figures have been derived by apportioning the estimate of total family credit expenditure published in the 1995-96 departmental report, and must therefore be treated with caution.

2. Numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand.

3. Regions used are Department of Social Security administrative regions.

4. The number of recipients are for families in receipt of family credit at July 1995, this being the most recent information currently available.

Source:

Family credit 5 per cent. sample of awards.

Suspension of Benefits

Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what statutory powers he has under social security regulations to suspend or amend the payments of benefits awarded to claimants. [28629]

Mr. Roger Evans: Payment of an award of benefit made by the independent adjudicating authorities may be suspended or withheld, in whole or in part, by the Secretary of State for Social Security under the provisions of regulations 37, 37A or 37AA of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987. The Secretary of State has no other powers which enable him to amend an award of benefit, however independent adjudication officers do have a power to review an award.

Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security on how many occasions he has used powers to suspend or amend payments of benefits to claimants

10 May 1996 : Column: 278

already in receipt of them; how many applicants were affected by these changes; and what was the total amount that these actions saved his Department in the payment of benefits in each of the last three years. [28631]

Mr. Evans: The information is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

Child Support Agency

Ms Lynne: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many official complaints have been received by the Child Support Agency in each month since the agency started to operate. [28056]

Mr. Andrew Mitchell: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the chief executive, Miss Ann Chant. She will write to the hon. Member.

Letter from Ann Chant to Ms Liz Lynne, dated 9 May 1996.

I am replying to your Parliamentary Question to the Secretary of State for Social Security as to the number of official complaints received by the Child Support Agency.
We have not separately identified 'official' complaints to the Agency, but have taken the broadest view as to what constitutes a complaint whether it be against the policy, the administration or some other aspect of Child Support legislation.'
So what we record as complaints will cover things like policy issues; concerns about the imposition of deduction from earnings orders; the level of assessed maintenance; requests for assessments to be rechecked; the time taken to process a case; general administrative concerns and suggestions that the other client's affairs have not been properly taken into account. We also include complaints and queries from people who are not clients of the Agency.
The table attached shows a monthly breakdown of all such complaints received in 1994/95 and 1995/96; we did not keep monthly totals in 1993/94.
I hope this is helpful.
Number of complaints received by Child Support Agency

	Number
1993-94	10,886
1994-95
April	1,465
May	1,984
June	1,881
July	1,992
August	1,131
September	2,536
October	2,579
November	3,070
December	2,458
January	1,483
February	3,121
March	3,948
1995-96
April	3,025
May	2,501
June	3,113
July	2,281
August	3,160
September	2,645
October	3,004
November	2,813
December	1,792
January	1,922
February	2,373
March	1,962

10 May 1996 : Column: 279

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

Competitiveness

Mr. Alfred Morris: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the competitiveness of the United Kingdom economy relative to (a) other EU states and (b) the rest of the world. [28342]

The Deputy Prime Minister: The Government's plans for improving the competitiveness of the United Kingdom were set out in the 1994 and 1995 White Papers on competitiveness. Progress on those plans will be reported in a third Competitiveness White Paper in the summer.

The UK has had the strongest recovery since 1992 of any major EU country. Over the last international cycle, 1982 to 1993, Japan was the only G7 country to outpace the UK in terms of gross domestic product per capita growth. The UK significantly outpaced France, Italy, Canada and the European average.

HEALTH

Midwives

Mrs. Bridget Prentice: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to hold an inquiry into the reasons for the acute shortage of midwives in the South Thames area; and if he will make a statement. [28262]

Mr. Malone: None. This is a matter for local employers who since 1992 have been responsible for planning and training the number of midwives they need. The Inner London Education Consortium has increased the number of commissions for registered midwifery training by 35 per cent.

Mental Health (Prescription Charges)

Mrs. Ray Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what plans he has to extend the list of eligible people with mental illnesses exempt from paying for prescribed treatment; and if he will make a statement; [28200]

(2) what representations he has received from (a) organisations and (b) individuals about the extra financial costs imposed by prescription charges on people suffering from mental illnesses; [28202]

(3) what plans he has to introduce free medication for people with mental illnesses who are treated in the community; and if he will make a statement. [28201]

Mr. Malone: None. Many people who are mentally ill benefit from our extensive exemption arrangements, which are among the most generous in Europe. In 1996-97 we expect 85 per cent. of prescriptions to be dispensed free.

We receive approximately two letters per month on this subject, mainly from individuals.

Alzheimer's Disease

Mr. Barry Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much cash has been spent on Alzheimer's disease research by his Department in each year since 1989; and if he will make a statement. [28212]

10 May 1996 : Column: 280

Mr. Bowis: The main agency through which the Government support bio-medical and clinical research is the Medical Research Council which receives its grant-in-aid from the office of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. My Department's policy research programme is contributing £750,000 to the MRC cognitive and ageing study between October 1990 and June 1996. Another study, "Husbands and wives who care for elderly people with dementia and functional psychiatric disorder", was undertaken at the Institute of Psychiatry and ended in December 1995; the total cost was £134,331.

Private Finance Initiative

Ms Harman: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the pay-back period under the proposed PFI contracts for new hospitals at (a) Norwich, (b) Swindon and (c) Royal London. [28348]

Mr. Horam: The national health service trusts are currently negotiating their private finance initiative contracts with private sector partners or potential private sector partners. The dates of the payments under the contracts are part of these negotiations.

Oral Contraceptives

Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations the Medicines Commission has received relating to oral contraceptives containing desogestrel and gestodene; and what response the commission has made to those representations. [28136]

Mr. Malone: The chairman of the Medicines Commission has received requests from one individual for the commission to examine issues relating to these oral contraceptives. The chairman responded that it was not appropriate at this time for the commission to consider the matter.

Mr. Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) of 2 April, Official Report, column 186, what steps the Medicines Control Agency and the Committee on Safety of Medicines took to exclude a false low estimate of the risk of venous thromboembolism with oral contraceptives containing levonorgestrel. [28289]

Mr. Malone: Recent studies have indicated that oral contraceptives containing desogestrel or gestodene are associated with greater risk of venous thromboembolism than oral contraceptives containing levonorgestrel. A number of factors, including various forms of bias, confounding and chance can potentially influence the findings of such studies, leading to estimates of risk being falsely high or low. The Medicines Control Agency and Committee on Safety of Medicines carefully considered detailed analyses examining the possible effects of these factors and concluded that the observed differences in risk could not be fully explained by them.

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