To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if will update the figures provided for the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) on 7 February 1985, Official Report, columns 685–86, on the level of state old age pensions as a percentage of current gross average earnings.

There are no meaningful, updated comparable statistics available on average earnings in the member states of the European Community, and I refer the hon. Member to my reply to him on 14 January at column 552.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will update his answers to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) of 27 March 1990, Official Report, column 161–62, using the 1989 family expenditure survey on pensioner incomes.

The information requested for 1989 is not yet available. In 1988, 16 per cent. of pensioner units received all their income from state benefits compared with 23 per cent. in 1979. The original tables have been updated (a) to include details of the information held using the 1988 family expenditure survey and (b) with medians rather than means used to calculate the average incomes in each quintile and decile. The updated tables are as follows:

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many additional pensioners will be brought into means testing by becoming eligible for income support as a result of the proposed addition to the income support pensioner premium.

It is estimated that up to half a million pensioners on low incomes will become newly entitled to claim income-related benefits from October. Around three quarters of these will qualify for income support, and the remainder for housing benefit and or community charge benefit.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of the real-terms increase in benefit expenditure on the elderly is attributable to the commencement and growth of spending on additional pensions with contributory benefit between 1978–79 and the latest available date.

Benefit expenditure on the elderly rose by 32·6 per cent, in real terms between 1978–79 and 1991–92. Additional pensions account for4·4 percent, real terms growth between those years, and all other benefits account for 28·2 per cent, real terms growth.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will update his answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) of 3 July 1990, Official Report, columns 513–16 concerning the income of retired households, using the 1989 family expenditure survey.

I will write to the hon. Member.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will update his answer to the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour) of 2 December 1991, Official Report, column 51, on pensioner incomes, using the information in the 1989 family expenditure survey.

The information requested is not yet available.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion and number of pensioners will benefit from the addition to the income support pensioner premium.

It is estimated that some 5 million people aged over 60 will stand to gain from the increases announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 10 March. About half these will gain from income support and about half from housing benefit and community charge benefit. Nearly half of all those over pension age will be entitled to extra benefit as a result of the increase.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will update his answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) of 18 October 1991, Official Report, columns 273–74, regarding pensioners' living standards, to take account of the 1989 family expenditure survey results.

The information requested is not yet available.