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4 Jun 2007 : Column 79W—continued
Social Security Benefits: Take-up
Mr. Byers: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the assumed percentage take up rate is for (a) working tax credit, (b) pension credit, (c) council tax benefit by (i) pensioners and (ii) all recipients, (d) housing benefit and (e) child tax credit in the public expenditure plans. [133042]
Mr. Timms [holding answer 20 April 2007]: Forecasts of expenditure on tax credits are based on case load rather than take-up forecasts.
Forecasts of pension credit expenditure are based on forecast increases in the pension credit case load, driven primarily by growth in the estimated entitled population.
Forecasts of housing benefit and council tax benefit expenditure are based on forecast changes in housing benefit case load and average awards. The case load forecasts are driven primarily by changes in the estimated recipient populations for other benefits to which entitlement to housing benefits is related. There are no direct assumptions made for changes in the take-up of housing benefits. If necessary, off-model case load adjustments are used to reflect the impact on take-up of future policy changes.
Taxation: Fuels
Mr. Paul Goodman:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the consultation on the
implementation of the EU leisure tax on marine fuel to report. [140485]
Mr. Timms: Officials are in the process of discussing with various representative organisations ways of implementing the new regime which will both minimise the impact and ensure that any additional compliance burden is as small as possible. These discussions will inform a consultation to be held later this year and we aim to report on this at the 2007 pre-Budget report.
As announced at Budget 2007, private pleasure craft owners will continue to be able to use red diesel at the rebated duty rate until 1 November 2008.
Unemployment: Greater London
Robert Neill: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people aged 24 years of age or under were considered to be economically inactive in each London borough in each of the last 10 years. [138907]
Mr. Timms: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 4 June 2007:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about economic inactivity. (138907)
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics of inactivity for local areas from the annual local area Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Annual Population Survey (APS) following International Labour Organisation definitions.
Table 1, attached, shows the number of economically inactive persons aged 16 to 24, resident in the London boroughs, from the annual local area LFS for the 12-month periods ending in February from 1997 to 2004 and from the APS for the 12-month periods ending in March from 2005 to 2006. Table 2 shows these numbers expressed as a percentage of the resident population of the same age.
As these estimates are for a subset of the population in a small geographical area, they are based on small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty. Changes in the estimates over time should be treated with caution.
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