To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish tables using the assumptions used in his answer to the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) on 19 February, Official Report, columns 560–64, but using expenditure and benefit figures appropriate for families in Great Britain, together with a column showing the extent of the differences resulting from the April 1988 social security changes.
The tax-benefit model tables which show the financial position of hypothetical local authority tenants with the head in full-time work or unemployed in April and October 1990 are available in the Library.The passage of time, and subsequent changes in the benefit system, have rendered increasingly meaningless any attempt to make hypothetical comparisons between what people get now and what they might have got under a system which was almost universally recognised as being riddled with anomalies and failing to target help sensibly. With this in mind, the Government no longer publish tables making such comparisons.