asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what would be the gross and net costs of raising retirement pensions to the equivalent of supplementary benefit plus an average rent payment.

If retirement pensions were raised to the level of the supplementary benefit long-term householder scale rates plus an average rent addition, assumed to be £5·35 for pensioners, the standard rates would become £23·25 for a single person and £33·70 for a married couple, increasing to £25·25 and £36·90 respectively from November 1978. The additional cost to the national insurance fund in 1978–79 would be about £2,000 million. The net cost, after allowing for savings in supplementary benefit, would be about £1,650 million.