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21 Feb 2008 : Column 1022W—continued
Pensions: Edinburgh
John Barrett: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people were in receipt of (a) the state pension and (b) pension credit in (i) Edinburgh East, (ii) Edinburgh North and Leith, (iii) Edinburgh South, (iv) Edinburgh South West and (v) Edinburgh West parliamentary constituencies in the latest period for which figures are available. [187436]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The information is in the following table.
| Parliamentary constituency | State pension individual recipients | Pension credit household recipients |
| Notes: 1. Figures are as at May 2007 and are rounded to the nearest 10. 2. Pension credit household recipients are those people who claim either for themselves only or on behalf of a household. Source: DWP Information Directorate: Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study. | ||
Poverty
Matthew Taylor:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of people in (a) Cornwall, (b)
the south-west and (c) England who live below the poverty level. [186625]
Mr. Timms: Specific information regarding low income for the United Kingdom is available in ‘Households Below Average Income 1994-95 to 2005-06’. The threshold of below 60 per cent. contemporary median income is the most commonly used in reporting trends in low income.
Available information is shown in the following table. Information below the level of Government office region is not available.
| Number and proportion of individuals in the south-west and England living in households with below 60 per cent. of median income based on three year averages, 2003-04 to 2005-06 | ||||
| Geographical area | Number of individuals, before housing costs (million) | Proportion of individuals (percentage) | Number of individuals, after housing costs (million) | Proportion of individuals (percentage) |
| Notes: 1. Three survey year averages are given for the south-west and England, as robust single year estimates cannot be produced because of the sample sizes for individual regions. 2. The income measures used to derive the estimates shown employ the same methodology as the Department for Work and Pensions publication ‘Households Below Average Income’ (HBAI) series, which uses disposable household income, adjusted for household size and composition, as an income measure as a proxy for standard of living. 3. The figures are based on OECD equalisation factors. 4. Tables show numbers in millions rounded to the nearest 100,000. | ||||
Social Security Benefits
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the administrative cost is to his Department of paying benefits claims by means other than post office card accounts and bank accounts; and how many and what proportion of benefit claims are paid in this way. [185595]
Mr. Plaskitt: The total cost of paying benefit claims by cheque is currently around £1.79 per transaction. This is made up of various components including stationery, postage and costs incurred by the Alliance and Leicester Commercial Bank plc. Around 300,000 (less than 2 per cent.) of customers are paid solely by cheque. The vast majority (98 per cent.) are paid by Direct Payment into an account.
Social Security Benefits: Foreigners
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people from (a) Cyprus, (b) the Czech Republic, (c) Estonia, (d) Hungary, (e) Latvia, (f) Lithuania, (g) Malta, (h) Poland, (i) Slovakia and (j) Slovenia claimed benefits for the first time in each month since 1 May 2004. [185112]
Mr. Plaskitt: The information is not available in the format requested.
No information is available for Cypriot and Maltese nationals; people from these countries are not subject to the same labour market restrictions as the A8 nationals.
Limited information on the number of applications, by A8 nationals, for income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance and pension credit is available in the “Accession Monitoring Report; May 2004 to September 2007”, a joint online report by the Border and Immigration Agency, Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and Department for Communities and Local Government; copies of which have been placed in the Library.
The report is available online at:
Social Security Benefits: Post Office Card Account
Danny Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the administrative cost to his Department of paying benefits into Post Office card accounts was in each year since April 2003; and how many and what proportion of benefits claims were paid into Post Office card accounts in each of the last 10 years. [185594]
Mr. Plaskitt: The following table shows (a) the cost of paying benefits into Post Office card accounts, (b) the number of benefit accounts paid into a POCA, and (c) the proportion of benefit accounts paid into a POCA, and for each year since the Post Office card account was introduced in April 2003.
State Retirement Pensions
Mr. Hepburn:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the north-east
and (d) the UK have received the basic state pension in each of the last 30 years. [186669]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The available information is in the following table.
| Numbers in receipt of any basic state pension | ||||
| Jarrow parliamentary constituency | South Tyneside local authority | North-east Government office region | GB | |
| Notes: 1. Data are taken from 5 per cent. extract of Pensions Strategy Computer System. Therefore, figures are subject to a degree of sampling variation. They are also adjusted to be consistent with the overall caseload from the Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS). 2. Figures are rounded to the nearest 100. 3. Figures are based on the live caseload as at March each year where any basic state pension is in payment. 4. Geographical breakdowns by parliamentary constituency, local authority and Government office region are not available prior to September 1999 5. Electronic data is only held from 1995 therefore basic state pension cases cannot be separately identified prior to this. Source: DWP Information Directorate 5 per cent. sample and WPLS 100 per cent. data. | ||||
Sunbeds: Young People
Mrs. James: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment the Health and Safety Executive has made of the levels of use of (a) sunbed salons and (b) unsupervised sunbed salons by under 18-year-olds since 1990. [185447]
Mrs. McGuire: The Health and Safety Executive has made no such assessments. There is a commitment in the Government’s Cancer Reform Strategy that the Department of Health will gather more information about the number and distribution of sunbeds and the scale of sunbed use by minors.
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