asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list any situations where pensioners claiming normal State pension and child benefit for a single child aged under 18 years, and with earnings of less than £1,000 per annum will be worse off after April 1977.

As far as national insurance and tax arrangements are concerned, no one receiving a retirement pension or widow's benefit and child benefit for a single child under 18, and whose other income, including a spouse's income, is under £1,000 a year, will be worse off after April 1977. It is possible that such a person could fall into one of the two small groups wo could lose a few pence a week under the arrangements for meanstested benefit which I described in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham on 28th January.—[Vol. 924, c. 788–790.]