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UK Poverty

Mr. Lloyd: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress is being made by the Government in meeting their poverty reduction targets for the UK. [60339]

Mr. Gordon Brown: This Government are committed to reducing child poverty by one quarter by 2004, halving it by 2010 on the road to eradicating child poverty in a generation.

Central to this is the new child tax credit, which together with child benefit, will ensure that benefits for the poorest families—worth £28 a week for the first child in 1997—will be £54.25 from next April.

A meeting of the Joint Ministerial Group on Poverty with the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland Administrations will take place next month to examine not just benefits but services to children.

Financial Services Authority

Barbara Follett: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the annual report of the Financial Services Authority to be published. [63946]

Ruth Kelly: The FSA annual report is being published today. Copies are available in the Libraries of both Houses. The report forms a key part of the accountability mechanism for the FSA under Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, and this report is the first to assess the performance of the FSA against its statutory objectives.

Timber

Ms Walley: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the refurbishment projects that (a) are in progress and (b) will start within the next six months; and what action is being taken to ensure that these will procure certified timber. [59763]

Ruth Kelly: We are awaiting full details of the procurement of timber for the refurbishment of the Treasury building from the contractors concerned, and I will write to the hon. Member as soon as it is made available.

Self-assessment Tax Returns

Matthew Taylor: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what penalties have been paid under the strategic partnership contract with EDS as a result of recent problems with the facilities for submitting self- assessment tax returns over the internet; and if he will make a statement. [63207]

20 Jun 2002 : Column 455W

Dawn Primarolo: No penalties have been paid under the strategic partnership with EDS as a result of recent problems with the facilities for submitting self-assessment tax returns over the internet.

Matthew Taylor: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will update his answer of 27 February

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2002, Official Report, column 1330W, on self-assessment tax returns; and if he will make a statement. [63209]

Dawn Primarolo: The statistical data requested are as detailed in the table.

Tax Year	Date	SA ITRs issued	SA ITRs received	SA ITRs processed	SA ITRs waiting to be processed
2000–01	3 March 2002	9,607,600	8,729,200	6,889,791	1,839,409
	31 March 2002	9,641,240	8,803,111	8,006,918	796,193
2001–02	14 April 2002	6,354,061	26,919	0	26,919
	5 May 2002	8,879,206	283,553	73,251	210,302
	2 June 2002	9,079,836	751,446	323,245	428,201

Matthew Taylor: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will update his answer of 19 July 2001, Official Report, column 382W, on the cost of internet tax returns; and if he will make a statement. [63206]

Dawn Primarolo: The cost of providing self- assessment tax returns on the internet is:

Fixed Cost

The estimated cost of implementing the internet service for self-assessment for years one to three is about £17 million.

Marginal Cost

The on-going support costs, including maintenance, help desk support and on-going improvements to the system is between £3 to £4 million per annum.

Family Statistics

Mr. Laws: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is for the latest year for which information is available of (a) the percentage of children living in one parent families, (b) the number of live births per 1,000 teenage women and (c) the percentage of children born outside marriage, broken down by (i) social class, (ii) income, (iii) race and (iv) geographic location; and if he will make a statement. [62406]

Ruth Kelly [holding answer 19 June 2002]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Laws, dated 20 June 2002:

As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your request for estimates for the latest year for which information is available of (a) the percentage of children living in one parent families, (b) the number of live births per 1,000 teenage women and (c) the percentage of children born outside marriage, broken down by (i) social class, (ii) income, (iii) race and (iv) geographic location. (62406)

There is only limited information available for some of these topics. No information is available for lone parents by the divisions requested and no information is available for births by income. The information I am able to provide is found in the attached annexes. Annex A contains information by social class. Annex B contains information by ethnic group and Annex C contains information by geographic location. All data relate to the year 2000, the latest year for which data are available, unless otherwise stated.

Annex A—Data by Social Class

(i) The number of live births to teenage women

It is not possible to present the number of live births per 1,000 teenage women by social class as population estimates by social class are not available. Also social class is only available in England and Wales and Northern Ireland by father's social class, so it is not possible to derive social class for registrations where only the mother's name is recorded. In England and Wales a 10 per cent. sample of the fathers' occupation and employment status is used to determine social class. For Scotland births within marriage are categorised to social class of the father; social class of the mother is used to categorise births outside marriage.

The number of live births to teenage women are given in the following tables for 2000, the latest year for which information is available for the United Kingdom. Data for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are presented separately because of differences between the constituent countries in the way social class is allocated (see above). The key for the social classifications is at the end of this annex.

The number of live births to women aged under 20 by social class of father, England and Wales, 2000thousands

Social class	Within marriage	Jointly registered outside marriage	Sole registrations
I and II	0.7	2.4	Not available
IIIN	0.5	2.1	Not available
IIIM	1.4	9.6	Not available
IV and V	1.3	10.7	Not available
Non-manual	1.3	4.5	Not available
Manual	2.7	20.3	Not available
Other	0.8	3.8	Not available
Total	4.7	28.6	12.5

Source:

Birth Statistics 2000 FMI No. 29, England and Wales

The number of live births to women aged under 20, by social class of father if inside marriage and mother if outside marriage, Scotland, 2000thousands

Social class	Births
I and II	0.1
IIIN	0.9
IIIM	0.4
IV and V	0.8
Non-manual	1.0
Manual	1.2
Other	2.4
Total	4.6

Source:

General Register Office for Scotland

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The number of live births to women aged under 20, by social classof father, Northern Ireland, 2000 thousands

Social class	Births
I and II	0.1
IIIN	0.2
IIIM	0.6
IV and V	0.4
Non-manual	0.2
Manual	0.9
Armed forces, inadequately described and sole registrations	0.5
Total	1.6

Source:

Registrar General Northern Ireland Annual Report 2000

(ii) The percentage of children born outside marriage

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The numbers and percentages of children born inside and outside marriage by social class are given in the following tables for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland separately. The key for the social classifications is at the end of this annex.
The number of live births to women inside and outside marriage by social class of father, England and Wales, 2000

Social class	Within marriage (thousands)	Jointly registered outside marriage (thousands)	Sole registrations (thousands)	Percentage outside marriage, where information on father is available
I and II	161.5	44.3	(1)—	22
IIIN	37.8	15.0	(1)—	28
IIIM	91.6	68.3	(1)—	43
IV and V	56.7	53.8	(1)—	49
Non-manual	199.3	59.3	(1)—	23
Manual	148.3	122.1	(1)—	45
Other	18.2	11.4	(1)—	39
Total	365.8	192.8	45.8	(2)39




⁽¹⁾ Not available

⁽²⁾ Percentage outside marriage includes sole registrations

Source:

Birth Statistics 2000 FMI No. 29, England and Wales




The number of live births to women inside and outside marriage, by social class of father if inside marriage and mother if outside marriage, Scotland, 2000

Social class	Within marriage (thousands)	Outside marriage (thousands)	Percentage outside marriage
I and II	13.1	3.3	20
IIIN	3.3	5.3	62
IIIM	8.1	1.9	19
IV and V	5.4	4.4	4.5
Non-manual	16.4	8.6	34
Manual	13.6	6.3	32
Other	0.5	7.7	94
Total	30.5	22.6	43




Source:

General Register Office for Scotland

The number of live births inside and outside marriage, by social class of father, Northern Ireland, 2000

Social class	Within marriage (thousands)	Outside marriage (thousands)	Percentage outside marriage
I and II	5.1	0.7	12
IIIN	2.0	0.7	28
IIIM	4.9	2.2	31
IV and V	2.5	1.8	42
Non-manual	7.0	1.4	17
Manual	7.4	4.0	35
Armed forces, inadequately described and sole registrations	0.2	1.4	87
Total	14.7	6.8	32

Source:

Registrar General Northern Ireland Annual Report 2000

The key for social classification codes is as follows:

Non-manual


I Professional


II Managerial and technical


IIIN Skilled occupations (non-manual)


Manual


IIIM Skilled occupations (manual)


IV Partly skilled occupations


V Unskilled occupations


Other—Residential groups including the unemployed, armed forces and students and those whose occupation was inadequately described.


Annex B—Data by Ethnicity

Information is not collected at registration on ethnicity, only on country of birth of parents. In a recent article in Population Trends ¹ data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) were used to estimate average fertility rates for births to teenage mothers by ethnic group in Great Britain. Part of Table 3 of that article is presented below, giving data for the period 1990–96. It should be noted that the results are based on very small sample numbers. No information is available from the LFS on marital status at the time of birth so it is not possible to look at ethnic fertility rates inside and outside marriage.

¹ Berthoud R. Teenage births to ethnic minority women Population Trends No. 104 TSO(2001) pp 12–17

Teenage birth rates per 1,000 for the years 1990–96 derived fromthe Labour Force Survey, Great Britain

Ethnic group	Births per 1,000
White	31
Caribbean	47
Indian	7
Pakistani	30
Bangladeshi	53
Other	23

Annex C—Data by Geography

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(i) The number of live births per 1,000 teenage women
Teenage birth rates by geographic location are shown in the following table.
Teenage birth rates by country and region, United Kingdom, 2000

Country	Rate per 1,000
England	28.8
Wales	35.2
Scotland	29.1
Northern Ireland	26.1
Government office regions
North East	37.2
North West	33.4
Yorkshire and the Humber	34.5
East Midlands	29.4
West Midlands	32.6
East	23.9
London	27.8
South East	22.2
South West	23.7




Sources:

Birth Statistics 2000 FMI No. 29 England and Wales

Registrar General for Scotland Annual Report 2000,

Registrar General Northern Ireland Report 2000

(ii) The percentage of children born outside marriage
The percentages of children born outside marriage by geographic location are given in the following table.
Percentage of births outside marriage by country and region, United Kingdom, 2000

Country	Percentage
England	39.1
Wales	47.2
Scotland	42.6
Northern Ireland	31.8
Government office regions
North East	50.5
North West	46.3
Yorkshire and the Humber	42.9
East Midlands	41.2
West Midlands	39.9
East	35.3
London	34.5
South East	34.1
South West	37.8




Sources:

Birth Statistics 2000 FMI No. 29, England and Wales

Registrar General for Scotland Annual Report 2000

Registrar General Northern Ireland Annual Report 2000

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