asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether she will make available statistics showing how family expenditure varies according to the age of the children.

Family expenditure patterns are influenced by factors such as household income and numbers of children as well as to the ages of the children. Some preliminary results of a study in this field are contained in a paper "Equivalence Scales for Children" which was presented to the conference on the Economics of Consumer Behaviour sponsored by the Social Science Research Council at the University of Sussex in April 1975, and I am placing a copy in the Library.