asked the Secretary of State for Social Services, further to his reply to the hon. Member for Norfolk North, Official Report, 29 January, column 606, how he measures the gap between supplementary entitlement levels and the net earnings of the lower paid; and if he will publish figures showing how this gap has altered during the past five years.

[pursuant to the reply, 12 February 1980, c. 630]: My right hon. Friend has available to him information such as that in chapter 3 of the Supplementary Benefits Commission's annual report for 1978 and the regular illustrative calculations of income in and out of work from which a number of answers to my hon. Friend's questions have been prepared for example on 30 November 1978 and 7 November 1979. It includes the accompanying table comparing total income support on supplementary benefit and that obtainable by men with earnings at the lowest decile, using assumptions as to housing costs, work expenses, etc., with which my hon. Friend will be familiar. As I regularly remind him, illustrative examples such as these need using with caution.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the value of child support for a family of two adults and two children under 11 years paying tax at the standard rate in 1980 money after the Budget proposals, as a percentage of the married couple's retirement pension, and as an index number using 1980 as 100 for each year since the family allowance was introduced.

[pursuant to his reply, 31 March, 1980]; On the assumption that for past years child support is taken as the value to a basic rate taxpayer of child tax allowances and family allowance/child benefit and on the hypothesis that in asking for the value to be expressed in 1980 prices my hon. Friend has November 1980 prices in mind, the following is the information:—