asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people were found guilty of making false claims for social security benefits in the following years (a) March 1974 to March 1975, (b) March 1975 to March 1976, and (c) March 1976 to March 1977.

The records kept centrally by my Department are by calendar years, and it would not be possible to provide statistics for the periods requested without a great deal of extra work. In any case, of course, the figures for the first quarter of 1977 cannot yet be available. However, we can provide figures for 1974, 1975 and 1976, showing the number of cases prosecuted, and of those in which guilty verdicts were returned; these are as follows: