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4 Jun 2007 : Column 34W—continued

Occupational Pensions

Mrs. Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what percentage of (a) full-time, (b) part-time and (c) all workers contributed to an occupational pension in each of the last 10 years, broken down by gender. [140439]

James Purnell: The information requested is not available. Such information as is available is shown in the following table.

Percentage of employees aged 16 and over who are members of current employer’s occupational pension scheme by sex( 1,2,3)
Percentage
	Unweighted				Weighted
	1993	1995	1996	1998	1998	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Men full-time	60	58	58	57	55	54	54	55	55	53
Weighted base (000)	—	—	—	—	11,009	11,323	11,220	10,82 0	10,708	10,422
Unweighted sample (000)	3,976	4,062	3,937	3,697	—	3,558	3,881	3,709	4,427	3,649
Women full-time	54	55	53	56	55	58	58	60	56	56
Weighted base (000)	—	—	—	—	6,429	6,353	6,465	6,362	6,554	6,601
Unweighted sample (000)	2,239	2,331	2,143	2,244	—	2,089	2,384	2,236	2,685	2,345
Women part-time	19	24	26	27	26	31	33	33	33	34
Weighted base (000)	—	—	—	—	4,628	5,05 9	4,990	4,963	5,044	5,182
Unweighted sample (000)	1,938	2,038	1,908	1,674	—	1,732	1,878	1,795	2,179	1,897
(1) Includes employees temporarily away from a job or on a Government scheme, but excluding unpaid family workers. (2) Includes a few people who were not sure if they were in a scheme but thought it possible. (3) Table shows unweighted and weighted figures for 1998 to give an indication of the effect of the weighting. For the weighted data (1998 and 2000 to 2004) the weighted base (000) is the base for percentages. Unweighted data (up to 1998) are based on the unweighted sample. Source: General Household Survey, Office for National Statistics

Pension Credit

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many claimants sold their domestic dwelling during the assessment period for the continued payment of pension credit in the last 12 months. [138995]

James Purnell: The information requested is not available.

Pensioners: Overseas Residence

Mr. MacDougall: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what plans he has in respect of provision for the pension entitlement of British citizens who move to reside in (a) Canada, (b) Australia and (c) New Zealand. [139774]

James Purnell: We have no plans to change the current exportability arrangements for the UK state pension for people who are living in these countries.

Hywel Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made on removing the differential between fully indexed pensions and those pensions frozen because their recipients reside in certain overseas countries. [140484]

4 Jun 2007 : Column 35W

James Purnell: We have no plans to change the way we uprate the UK state pension paid to recipients living overseas.

Pensions: Insolvency

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what Government funding has been made available for pensioners whose pension funds have been wound up in the last 10 years. [137053]

James Purnell: The Pensions Act 2004 put in place the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) which provides support to members of defined benefit occupational pension schemes which started to wind up, underfunded, between 1 January 1997 and 5 April 2005. At that time the Government committed the equivalent of £400 million cash of taxpayers’ money spread over 20 years.

On 25 May 2006, as part of the White Paper, “Security in Retirement: towards a new pension system”, a further £1.9 billion cash was allocated, bringing the total funding to £2.3 billion.

In his Budget speech on 21 March 2007 the Chancellor announced that we now intend to increase total long-term expenditure on the FAS to £8 billion. This equates to more than doubling funding for the scheme in ‘present value’ terms, from £830 million to £1.9 billion and will allow us to further increase the scope of the payments.

Poverty

Mr. Iain Wright: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of (a) children and (b) pensioners in (i) Hartlepool constituency, (ii) Tees Valley sub-region, (iii) the North East region and (iv) the UK were recorded as living in poverty in each year since 1992. [130892]

Mr. Jim Murphy: Specific information regarding low income is available in “Households Below Average Income 1994-95 to 2005-06 (revised)”. The threshold of below 60 per cent. contemporary median income is the most commonly used in reporting trends in low income.

The data source does not allow us to provide robust estimates below the level of Government Office Region.

The numbers and proportions of children and percentages in households with low incomes, in the North East and Great Britain/United Kingdom for the period 1994-95 to 2005-06, are presented in the following tables 1 to 4 . Estimates are shown Before and After Housing Costs.

The data shown here are for Great Britain from 1994-95 to 1996-97 and for the United Kingdom from 1998-99 onwards.

Please note that the results are based on OECD equivalisation factors, and therefore may differ from previously published statistics which were based on McClements equivalisation factors.

4 Jun 2007 : Column 36W

Table 1: Children in the North East 1994- 95 to 2005- 0 6
	Before housing costs	After housing costs
Number of children living in low income households (millions) :
1994-95 to 1996-97	0.19	0.22
1995-96 to 1997-98	0.20	0.22
1996-97 to 1998-99	0.20	0.23
1997-98 to 1999-2000	0.20	0.23
1998-99 to 2000-01	0.19	0.22
1999-2000 to 2001-02	0.17	0.20
2000-01 to 2002-03	0.18	0.20
2001-02 to 2003-04	0.17	0.18
2002-03 to 2004-05	0.17	0.19
2003-04 to 2005-06	0.15	0.17
Percentage of c hildren living in low income households:
1994-95 to 1996-97	32	37
1995-96 to 1997-98	33	38
1996-97 to 1998-99	35	40
1997-98 to 1999-2000	34	40
1998-99 to 2000-01	34	39
1999-2000 to 2001-02	30	35
2000-01 to 2002-03	32	36
2001-02 to 2003-04	30	33
2002-03 to 2004-05	31	34
2003-04 to 2005-06	28	32
Notes: 1. Numbers, for the North East region, are presented using a three-year moving average, as single-year estimates do not provide a robust guide to year-on-year changes. Hence, figures are not consistent with any previously published single-year estimates and there may be differences in changes over time. In circumstances such as a change in trend, moving averages will show less variation than single-year estimates. 2. The table shows number of children in millions—rounded to the nearest 10 thousand. 3. In this answer low income is determined for children as living in households with incomes below 60 per cent. of the national median. Source: Family Resources Survey

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Table 2: Children in Great Britain/United Kingdom 1994-95 to 2005-06
	Before housing costs	After housing costs
Number of c hildren living in low inc ome household (millions) :
1994-95	3.2	4.1
1995-96	3.0	4.2
1996-97	3.4	4.3
1997-98	3.4	4.2
1998-99	3.4	4.4
1999-2000	3.4	4.3
2000-01	3.1	4.1
2001-02	3.0	4.0
2002-03	2.9	3.9
2003-04	2.9	3.7
2004-05	2.7	3.6
2005-06	2.8	3.8
Percentage of c hildren living in low income households:
1994-95	25	33
1995-96	24	33
1996-97	27	34
1997-98	27	33
1998-99	26	34
1999-2000	26	33
2000-01	23	31
2001-02	23	31
2002-03	23	30
2003-04	22	29
2004-05	21	28
2005-06	22	30
Notes: 1. The table shows number of children in millions. 2. In this answer low income is determined for children as living in households with incomes below 60 per cent. of the national median. 3. Figures from 1998-99 onwards are for the United Kingdom, figures prior to 1998-99 are for Great Britain. Source: Family Resources Survey

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