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22 Mar 2004 : Column 567W—continued

Disability Living Allowance

Mr. Frank Field: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many households had more than one person claiming disability living allowance on the latest date for which figures are available. [162611]

Maria Eagle: At April 2003, there were an estimated 100,000 households in Great Britain in which two or more people were receiving DLA.

Incapacity Benefit Payments

Mr. Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) men and (b) women received incapacity benefit payments made on mental health grounds in each year since 1997 in relation to (i) depression and (ii) stress; and if he will break down these payments by region. [163051]

Maria Eagle: The information has been placed in the Library.

Industrial Injuries Report

Mrs. Liz Blackman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he has received the report from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Committee on its review of Prescribed Disease A11. [162310]

Mr. Browne: The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council report on Prescribed Disease A11 has now been received by Ministers and we will be considering its recommendations.

Maternity Allowance

Mr. Goodman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many families are eligible to receive maternity allowance. [158057]

Maria Eagle: The information is not available.

22 Mar 2004 : Column 568W

National Insurance Contributions (Women)

Mr. Laurence Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what legislation prevents women who paid reduced National Insurance contributions before 1986 from making up those payments; and if he will make a statement. [162200]

Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 18 March 2004]: I have been asked to reply. A woman who had a valid reduced rate election in force before 1986 cannot pay voluntary Class 3 contributions to make up those payments. The relevant legislation is Regulation 132 of the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No. 1004). This regulation mirrored exactly Regulation 105 of Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 1979.

Parkinson's Disease

Mr. Baron: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people with Parkinson's disease who are of working age are in receipt of disability living allowance; and how many of this number are in receipt of the higher allowance. [162567]

Maria Eagle: As at 30 November 2003, some 5,700 people of working age whose main disabling condition is recorded as Parkinson's disease were receiving disability living allowance and, of these, around 4,100 were receiving either a higher rate care component or higher rate mobility component or both.

Note:

Figures taken from a 5 per cent. sample at 30 November 2003

Figures are in thousands and rounded to the nearest hundred.

Source:

IAD Information Centre

Mr. Baron: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people with Parkinson's disease received support from the Jobcentre Plus Disability Employment Advisory Service in (a) 2001, (b) 2002 and (c) 2003. [162568]

Maria Eagle: Jobcentre Plus Disability Employment Advisers and Work Psychologists work with disabled jobseekers to help them overcome disability-related obstacles to work. They support people with a broad range of disabilities including Parkinson's Disease.

The information requested is not collected centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

Pension Credit

Annabelle Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the estimated cost is of administering the pension credit in each of the first five years of its operation. [162683]

Malcolm Wicks: Information on the cost of administering Pension Credit is not currently available in the format requested. In accordance with the requirements of Resource Accounting and Budgeting the Department now accounts for its administration

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and benefit expenditure by strategic objective, as set out in its Public Service Agreements (PSA), and by individual Requests for Resources (RfRs), as set out in the Departmental Estimates and Accounts.

Pension Service (Telephone Calls)

Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what percentage of telephone calls to (a) the pension credit application line and (b) the Pension Service which were not classed as

22 Mar 2004 : Column 570W

engaged or abandoned were answered within 20 seconds in each month since it was established; how many and what percentage of attempted telephone calls to each reached an engaged tone in each month since it was established; and how many and what percentage of telephone calls to each were abandoned in each month since it was established. [160352]

Malcolm Wicks: The information is not available in precisely the form requested. Such information as is available is shown in the tables 1–3.

Table 1: Calls to pension credit application line: April 2003–February 2004

	Calls answered within 30 seconds		Calls receiving engaged tone orrecorded message that all agentsare busy		Calls abandoned
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
April 2003	17,675	94.29	0	0.00	975	4.69
May 2003	32,733	99.94	10	0.03	18	0.05
June 2003	57,731	99.95	1,790	2.88	386	0.64
July 2003	112,014	95.34	3,047	2.78	948	0.80
August 2003	177,338	97.51	7,255	3.87	313	0.17
September 2003	352,283	92.60	18,540	4.01	15,794	3.69
October 2003	429,954	95.20	2,854	0.62	13,370	2.77
November 2003	302,399	99.68	990	0.31	2,831	0.89
December 2003	183,646	99.78	32	0.02	1,165	0.60
January 2004	429,668	93.79	123	0.02	12,079	2.44
February 2004	372,932	92.71	185	0.04	11,839	2.73

Table 2: Calls to the Pension Service: September 2002–March 2003

	Calls answered		Calls abandoned		Calls engaged
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
September 2002	403,784	92.1	35,357	8.0	3, 946	0.9
October 2002	460,373	92.1	40,091	7.9	5,394	1.1
November 2002	688,659	92.1	68,410	5.7	444,083	37.3
December 2002	522,656	89.1	67,391	7.2	344,485	37.0
January 2003	673,753	86.9	109,601	13.6	33,057	4.1
February 2003	607,083	89.3	74,174	6.2	514,357	43.1
March 2003	734,955	90.4	76,882	4.4	920,733	53.1

Table 3: Calls to the Pension Service: April 2003–January 2004

	Calls answered		Calls answered within30 seconds		Calls abandoned		Calls engaged
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
April 2003	567,101	91.1	n/a	n/a	71,947	7.8	303,825	32.8
May 2003	610,728	83.3	n/a	n/a	122,771	9.4	572,388	43.8
June 2003	750,360	86.6	n/a	n/a	116,575	10.2	278,937	24.3
July 2003	792,427	87.8	n/a	n/a	110,083	8.9	329,937	26.8
August 2003	704, 052	89.1	444,135	69.9	90,325	9.1	182,213	1.2
September 2003	882,761	90.1	535,341	68.2	97,195	9.0	99,611	1 .5
October 2003	1,043,354	94.5	664,233	78.1	58,062	5.2	5,961	0.1
November 2003	1,178,443	92.2	581,373	67.6	100,239	7.7	7,568	0.4
December 2004	1,097,450	93.0	519,152	70.1	78,984	6.6	1,283	0.1
January 2004	1,235,864	92.2	584,810	63.8	103,342	7.7	3,471	0.3

Notes:

1. In Table 1, the number of calls receiving the engaged tone or a recorded message was unusually high in September due to technical problems with the telephony at one particular site. The number of calls affected by these problems cannot be separated out.

2. The figures in Tables 2 and 3 do not include calls to the pension credit application line

3. For The pension service, numbers of calls answered within 30 seconds are only available from August 2003

4. In all three tables, the numbers of calls answered, abandoned and engaged are not calculated on precisely the same basis and in some cases the columns will add up to more than 100 per cent.

22 Mar 2004 : Column 571W

Pensions

Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the annual cost to public funds from April, net of savings in mean-tested benefits and additional income tax revenue, (a) of paying state pensions in full at the rate of a Category A pension to every UK pensioner aged between 65 and 74, regardless of their contribution record and (b) of paying a full basic state pension to each individual at the rate of the guarantee credit, regardless of contribution record, from the age of 75; and if he will estimate for (b) the cost in each of the following four years on the assumption that the pension was then indexed to earnings. [162682]

Malcolm Wicks: The annual additional cost to the Exchequer, net of additional income tax and savings in income related benefits of paying the full basic pension at the rate of a Category A pension to every GB pensioner aged between 65 and 74 is £2.1 billion.

The additional cost to the Exchequer of paying the basic state pension at the rate of the guarantee credit, regardless of contribution history, to all aged 75 and over is in the following table:

£ billion

	Net Cost
2004	4.4
2005	4.6
2006	4.9
2007	5.3
2008	5.6

Notes:

1. Figures are for Great Britain and in 2003–04 price terms rounded to the nearest £100 million. It is assumed the change comes into effect from April 2004 and payment is uprated in line with earnings thereafter.

2. Gross costs are estimated by the Government Actuary's Department and are consistent with Budget 2004 assumptions and use 2002 based population projections.

3. The costs take into account income related benefit offsets, which are calculated using the DWP policy simulation model and April 2004 benefit rates.

4. Additional income tax revenue is estimated by the Inland Revenue using 2004 tax rates.

Dr. Iddon: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what percentage of average male earnings the state retirement pension for a single person represented in each year from 1994 to 2004. [162177]

Malcolm Wicks: The information is not available in the format requested. However, such information as is available is set out in the table.

	Percentage
1995	19.8
1996	19.7
1997	19.9
1998	19.8
1999	19.3
2000	19.0
2001	18.9
2002	18.8
2003	18.9

1. All figures are provided from a 5 per cent. sample of DWP administrative data taken at March in each year, except March 1995 which is a 10 per cent. sample. We are only able to provide figures from March 1995 as the administrative data is not available before this point.

2. Neither administrative data nor earnings data for 2004 is available.

3. State pension is calculated as the maximum rate of basic state pension plus the average amount of additional pension in payment based on March administrative data for recently retired men aged 65.

4. Average earnings is the mean weekly earnings at April in each year, found in the Annual Abstract of Statistics published by the Department for Work and Pensions.

5. The figures have been rounded to the nearest 0.1 of a percentage point.

22 Mar 2004 : Column 572W

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