asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many claims for cold weather payments have been received by each local office of his Department i respect of the week commencing 19 January.

Statistics on the number of exceptionally cold weather claims processed are being maintained but these have not yet been collated. Details will be provide in due course.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people were receiving supplementary benefit in each of the categories eligible, subject to the £500 capital limit, for cold weather payments (a) in Great Britain and (b) from each of the Derby social security offices, at the latest date for which information i available.

It is estimated that in Great Britain there are about 1 million pensioners, 200,000 claimants with sic and disabled members of the family and 175,000 families with a child under 2 in the groups eligible to claim exceptionally cold weather payments. Information i respect of individual offices is not available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.