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National Minimum Wage
Mr. Swinney: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if she will estimate the impact of increasing the minimum wage (a) in line with average earnings, (b) to £4 per hour and (c) to £4.20 per hour on the cost of salaries of the Civil Service (i) in total and (ii) for each nation of the United Kingdom in the next financial year. [108654]
Mr. Stringer: This information is not held centrally. The effect of an increase in the National Minimum Wage would need to be calculated against an individual's precise working hours and contractual terms. This is therefore a matter for individual Departments.
Departmental Expenditure Limit
Mr. Patrick Hall: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what proposals she has to change the 1999-2000 Departmental Expenditure Limit of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Health Service Commissioners; and for what reasons. [109356]
Mr. Stringer: The total Departmental Expenditure Limited for the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Health Service Commissioners on Class XVIII, Vote 4 will be reduced by £570,000, falling from £14,971,000 to £14,401,000.
The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Health Service Commissioners is currently meeting the cost of complaints in respect of services which, following devolution, now fall within the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. The cost of these services will in future be moved to a repayment basis. The proposed reduction in the Departmental Expenditure Limit will allow for this. Of the reduction £300,000 will be transferred to the Welsh Assembly Ombudsman and Welsh Health Service Commissioner and £270,000 will be transferred to the Scottish Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Scottish Health Service Commissioner.
These changes will not add to the planned total of public expenditure.
Mr. Goggins:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what proposals she has to change the 1999-2000 Departmental Expenditure Limit or running costs limit for the Cabinet Office. [109355]
Mr. Stringer:
Subject to parliamentary approval of the necessary Supplementary Estimates:
8 Feb 2000 : Column: 128W
The Departmental Expenditure Limit for Cabinet Office will be decreased by £4,163,000 from £318,701,000 and the running costs limit will be decreased by £156,000 from £115,018,000 to £114,862,000.
This is mainly to take account of the following changes:
Transfer payments in
A transfer towards the project review of Better Government for Older People from Department of Social Security (Class XII, Vote 3) (£20,000).
Transfer payments out
A transfer in respect of staff transferring from Security Facilities Division to Police Scientific Development Branch to the Home Office (Class XVIII, Vote 3) (£25,000). A transfer payment to the Privy Council Office (Class XVIII, Vote 3) (£89,000) and to the Countryside Agency (Class III, Vote 1) (£64,000) to provide for accommodation costs. Provision for ownership of St. Christopher House has transferred from the Property Advisers to the Civil Estate to the Ministry of Defence (Class VI, Vote 1) (£1,075,000). Provision for ownership of 83 Piccadilly has been transferred to Department for Education and Employment (Class I, Vote 1) (£32,000).
Civil Superannuation
The scheme for the central funding of early departures as announced in the White Paper: The Civil Service: Continuity and Change (Cm 2627) ended on 31 March 1997. The amount of central funding required has decreased by £2,900,000.
Fraud
Mr. Dobbin: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps his Department is taking to reduce benefit fraud; and if he will make a statement. [108576]
Mr. Rooker: We set out our strategy for combating fraud and reducing error in "Safeguarding Social Security", published on 23 March 1999. We are putting this strategy into practice with strong and sensible safeguards to ensure the right money goes to the right people. Among the new initiatives that carry this forward are the following:
- New more robust powers for fraud inspectors in The Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill published on 1 December. These provisions give greater clarity and allow all benefit fraud investigations to proceed on the basis of common powers.
All payments will move to automated credit transfer (ACT) from 2003 as a modern, more secure and efficient method of paying benefits. This will virtually eliminate "instrument of payment" fraud and enhance security over the life of a claim. This is expected to yield fraud savings in the region of £140 million--£240 million.
A regional radio campaign, costing some £500,000, with supporting adverts in local newspapers, to advertise the Benefit Fraud Hotline. This has led to thousands of extra calls to the Hotline. Later this year the public will be able to contact the Hotline via the internet.
Pensioners' Incomes
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will update his estimates based on the Family Resources Survey 1997-98 of (a) median pensioner incomes, excluding means-tested benefits, by age, sex and marital status, consistent with his answer of 18 January 1999, Official Report, column 372W, on pensions, and (b) the size of each group. [108493]
Mr. Rooker:
The information is in the tables.
8 Feb 2000 : Column: 129W
| Age | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60-64 | 65-69 | 70-74 | 75-79 | 80+ | |
| Single male pensioners | n/a | 125 | 107 | 104 | 106 |
| Single female pensioner | 130 | 106 | 101 | 88 | 90 |
| Pensioner couples | n/a | 254 | 202 | 197 | 187 |
Notes:
1. All amounts are in £ per week at July 1997 prices. They are rounded to the nearest £1, although estimates are not necessarily accurate to this level.
2. Estimates are for pensioner units. A pensioner unit is defined as a single (non-cohabiting) person over State Pension Age (65 years or above for men and 60 years or above for women), or a couple
(married or cohabiting) where the man, defined as the head, is over State Pension Age. Estimates for pensioner couples are broken down by the age of the man.
3. Estimates marked "n/a" are not applicable. Single men and couples are only defined as pensioner units if the man is aged 65 years or above.
4. Means-tested benefits are defined as Income Support, Family Credit, Council Tax Benefit and Housing Benefit.
5. Levels of means-tested benefit may be particularly affected by mis-reporting by survey respondents, as receipt of State Retirement Pension and receipt of Income Support are often confused in the FRS.
6. All estimates, and in particular those for single male pensioners, should be treated with caution since they are based on small sample sizes.
7. Figures are for GB only.
Source:
The Pensioners' Incomes Series dataset, based on the Family Resources Survey (FRS) 1997-98
8 Feb 2000 : Column: 130W
| Age | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60-64 | 65-69 | 70-74 | 75-79 | 80+ | ||
| Single male pensioners | n/a | 250,000 | 210,000 | 220,000 | 260,000 | |
| Single female pensioner | 380,000 | 540,000 | 640,000 | 700,000 | 1,010,000 | |
| Pensioner couples | n/a | 1,020,000 | 780,000 | 490,000 | 360,000 | |
Notes:
1. Figures are for GB only and rounded to the nearest 10,000 pensioner units.
2. Estimates are for pensioner units. A pensioner unit is defined as a single (non-cohabiting) person over State Pension Age (65 years or above for men and 60 years or above for women), or a couple (married or cohabiting) where the man, defined as the head, is over State Pension Age. Estimates for pensioner couples are broken down by the age of the man.
3. Estimates marked "n/a" are not applicable. Single men and couples are only defined as pensioner units if the man is aged 65 years or above.
4. Estimates are not controlled to independent population estimates by the age bands used in this analysis and therefore may be affected by variation by age in survey response rates.
5. All estimates, and in particular those for single male pensioners, should be treated with caution since they are based on small sample sizes.
Source:
The Pensioners' Incomes Series dataset, based on the Family Resources Survey (FRS) 1997-98.
8 Feb 2000 : Column: 129W
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide separate analyses for pensioners aged 80 years or above as part of the core analyses contained in the Pensioners Income Series. [108432]
Mr. Rooker: The age groupings used in the Pensioners' Incomes Series will be reviewed before the publication of the 1998-99 edition, as part of the publication's ongoing development.
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