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8 Sept 2004 : Column 1287W—continued
West Suffolk NHS Hospitals Trust
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many operations were carried out by the West Suffolk NHS Hospitals Trust in each year since 1997. [187195]
Dr. Ladyman: The information is not held in the format requested. However, the number of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) for each year since 1997 for West Suffolk Hospitals National Health Service Trust is shown in the table.
| FCEs | |
|---|---|
| 1996–97 | 22,282 |
| 1997–98 | 24,286 |
| 1998–99 | 27,336 |
| 1999–2000 | 28,068 |
| 2000–01 | 29,095 |
| 2001–02 | 29,085 |
| 2002–03 | 30,878 |
Notes:
1. A FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year.
2. All operations count of episodes: these figures represent a count of all FCE's where the procedure was mentioned in any of the 12 (four prior to 2002–03) operation fields in a HES record. A record is only included once in each count, even if an operation is mentioned in more than one operation field of the record.
3. Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).
Source:
Hospital episode statistics, Department of Health.
WORK AND PENSIONS
Bereavement Grant
Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the cost of providing a bereavement grant of £200 to surviving pensioner partners. [186566]
Mr. Pond: The information is in the table.
| Gainers (Thousand) | Costs (£ million) | |
|---|---|---|
| Bereavement grant, no offsetting savings | 175 | 35 |
| Bereavement grant, offset against funeral payments | 160 | 32 |
Notes:
1. Estimated gainers to the nearest five thousand, costs to the nearest million pounds
2. Numbers of widowed pensioners estimated from GAD projections for England and Wales. Number of cohabiting bereaved estimated from household survey information.
3. Social Fund Funeral Payment information from Social Fund Policy, Budget and Management Information System. It is assumed that 60 per cent. of pensioner claims are with respect to deceased partners.
4. No impact on income related benefits has been estimated. If the amount of the grant was regarded as capital there would be some offsetting reduction in expenditure on these benefits.
5. Take-up of entitlement is assumed to be 100 per cent.
8 Sept 2004 : Column 1288W
Pension Protection
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether protected rights accrued prior to April 1997 by members of a contracted out occupational pension scheme are underwritten by the Government in the event of a sponsoring employer becoming insolvent and unable to meet those rights; whether any shortfall in those rights will be met by the Pension Protection Fund from April 2005 onwards; and if he will make a statement. [187829]
Malcolm Wicks: The Government do not underwrite protected rights. However, unless an offence has been committed, when a scheme winds-up it should have sufficient funds to pay the protected rights.
The Pension Protection Fund is designed to protect members of defined benefit schemes and defined benefit elements of hybrid schemes. Only in the case of pension scheme fraud will the PPF consider compensating members of defined contribution schemes. Such protection has been provided by the Pensions Compensation Board since April 1997 and the PPF will assume this role when it is up and running in April 2005.
Pensioner Benefits
Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the cost of (a) raising the annual Christmas bonus to £79.60, (b) giving a winter fuel payment of £300 to every household with a member over 60 years and (c) giving a free television licence to every household with a member over 60 years. [187831]
Malcolm Wicks: The information is in the table.
| Proposal | Estimated cost in 2004–05 (£ million) |
|---|---|
| Raising the Christmas Bonus to £79.60 | 1,010 |
| Giving a Winter Fuel Payment of £300 to every household with a member over 60 years | 860 |
| Giving a free television licence to every household with a member over 60 years | 710 |
Notes:
1. All figures relate to GB payments only, are in 2004–05 price terms and are rounded to the nearest 10 million.
2. The Christmas Bonus is currently paid to people in receipt of a number of qualifying benefits, some of whom are of working age. These people are assumed to receive the Christmas Bonus at the new rate.
3. Estimated costs for giving Winter Fuel Payments of £300 to every household with a member over 60 years are based on the 2003–04 Pensioner Household data set which is derived from the 2003–04 Winter Fuel Payment administrative data set.
4. Estimated costs for free TV licences are based on the 2002–03 Family Resources and expenditure forecasts produced by the Department's Benefit and Forecasting Model Development Division.
8 Sept 2004 : Column 1289W
Pensioners (Tax Payments)
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners paid (a) income tax and (b) council tax in the latest year for which figures are available. [187355]
Ruth Kelly: I have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. David Willets, dated 8 September 2004:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking, for the latest year for which figures are available, for the total amount of (a) income tax and (b) council tax. paid by pensioners and the average tax per pensioner who paid each tax (187351), and how many pensioners paid each tax (187355).
For estimates relating to income tax please see table 3.12 "Income and tax for individuals aged 65 and above, by region and country, 2001–02" on the Inland Revenue website: www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/stats/income distribution/table-312–2001 -02.pdf. The information in this table relates to individual taxpayers, not households, who are aged 65 and above. This table does not include female taxpaying pensioners aged between 60 and 65. It shows there were about 4.1 million pensioners taxpayers aged 65 or over in the UK in 2001–02, with income tax liability of £8.2 billion. This gives an average tax of about £2,000 per pensioner taxpayer (aged 65 or over).
Estimates for council tax paid by pensioner households have been produced from the Office for National Statistics' analysis "The effects of taxes and benefits on household income" published on the National Statistics website on 6 May 2004 at: www.statistics.gov.uk/taxesbenefits
The analysis includes measures of income inequality for households in the United Kingdom as a whole based on data from the Expenditure and Food Survey. This is a sample survey covering about 7,000 households in the UK and sample sizes for pensioner households are only sufficient to give very approximate estimates.
Estimates for 2002–03 suggest that that single and couple pensioner households in GB paid about £3.6 billion in council tax net of benefits and discounts. The average council tax paid by the approximately five million pensioner households (single and couples) who paid council tax (i.e. their council tax was greater than zero) was about £700 per year. Council tax is not paid in Northern Ireland. Net council tax is defined as gross council tax less benefits and discounts, where a household reports taking up a council tax benefit entitlement.
These estimates of numbers of pensioners and payments of council tax may not match population data or administrative payments data because of sample size and weighting issues, as well as possible inaccurate reporting by respondents.
Pensioner households have been defined as those where the Household Reference Person is retired or unoccupied and aged 65 or more and male, or 60 years of age or more and female, and economically inactive.
Detailed information on the definition of the Household Reference Person can be found in Appendix D of the document at the following address: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme social/Family Spending 2002–03/Family Spending 2002–03 revised.pdf
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