asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will rectify the anomaly in the family income supplement scheme whereby maintenance payments paid to a child do not affect his family's eligibility but maintenance payments made to a parent are taken into account.
My right hon. Friend has today laid regulations making a number of minor changes to the family income supplements scheme—FIS. Among these is an amendment to the FIS (General) Regulations which provides for any maintenance paid to a child by or on behalf of a parent or any person with a legal obligation to maintain that child to be treated as part of the family's income in the assessment of their eligibility for FIS. The change will bring FIS into line with the approach of the Supplementary Benefits Commission in the treatment of maintenance
| 1974 | 1978 | ||||||
| Units | Cots | Units | Cots | ||||
| England | … | … | … | 254 | 3,932 | 243 | 3,972 |
| Wales | … | … | … | 15 | 234 | 15 | 237 |
| Scotland | … | … | … | 27* | 567* | 25 | 640 |
| Northern Ireland | … | … | 14 | N.A. | 14 | 206 | |
| * 1975 figures: 1974 figures not available. | |||||||
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) over what percentage of the United Kingdom he estimates that no special child care units are available within a 20-mile radius;(2) how many premature babies he estimates died during the past year who would have been saved had special child care units been readily accessible.
I have written to the hon. and learned Member.
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) how many,
payments made to children. This was explained in the reply my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave) on 11 June 1979.—[Vol. 968, c. 112.].