asked the Secretary of State for Scotland, what is his latest estimate of the total number of children in Scotland in one-parent families; and what proportion this represents of all children and of all families.

The latest information available, based on a 10 per cent. sample of 1971 Census returns, is that in Scotland there were 117,650 dependent children in the 63,730 one-parent families which contained dependent children. These represented repectively 8 per cent. of all dependent children and 9 per cent. of all families containing dependent children. The census definition of a dependent child includes any child aged under 15 in the family and any single full-time student aged 15 to 24 in the family.