asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will now as a matter of urgency extend payment of family allowances to the first child.

Child benefit, which will replace family allowances and extend to first and only children, will be paid from the earliest practicable date, April 1977. This is a very big task which includes, as would extension of the present family allowances scheme, taking claims from 3 million one-child families. However, from April 1976 one-parent families may qualify for child interim benefit, which in effect extends family allowances to the first child in such families.