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Pensions

Volume 463: debated on Tuesday 24 July 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners in (a) Eastbourne, (b) East Sussex, (c) England and (d) the UK are (i) eligible for and (ii) receive pension credits. (151411)

Estimates of pension credit eligibility are not available below the level of Great Britain. Latest estimates of the number of pensioners eligible for pension credit in Great Britain can be found in ‘Pension Credit Estimates of Take-Up in 2005-06’. A copy of the report is available in the Library.

The following table shows the number of households in Eastbourne, the local authorities that make up East Sussex, England and Great Britain receiving pension credit at February 2007.

In Northern Ireland pension credit administration is a matter for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Region

Pension credit household recipients

Eastbourne parliamentary constituency

5,410

East Sussex

Eastbourne local authority

5,130

Hastings local authority

5,060

Lewes local authority

4,020

Rother local authority

4,630

Wealden local authority

5,330

England

2,283,630

Great Britain

2,729,490

Notes:

1. The figures provided are early estimates. The preferred data source for figures supplied by DWP is the Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS). However, the figures provided are the latest available figures, which are taken from the GMS scan at 2 March 2007. These are adjusted using the historical relationship between WPLS and GMS data to give an estimate of the final WPLS figure.

2. Caseloads are rounded to the nearest 10.

3. Households are those people who claim pension credit either for themselves only or on behalf of a household.

4. Parliamentary constituencies are based on the 2005 parliamentary boundaries.

5. Figures at county level are not available from the early estimates, so we have provided the local authority figures that make up East Sussex county.

Source:

DWP 100 per cent. data from the Generalised Matching Service (GMS) pension credit scan taken as at 2nd March 2007.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the rates of basic state pension payable to (a) single pensioners and (b) couples were in (i) 1996-97 and (ii) 2006-07; and what the rates would have been in 2006-07 if they had been uprated in line with prices between 1996-97 and 2006-07. (151623)

The information requested is as follows:

£

Single

Couple

1996-97

61.15

97.75

2006-07 (actual)

84.25

134.75

2006-07 (price uprated)

79.68

127.37

Notes:

1. All figures in cash terms.

2. Uprating calculations employ historic RPI series.

3. There is no such thing as a ‘singles rate’ though the maximum rate of the Category A pension is commonly referred to as the ‘singles rate’. Similarly the sum of the Category A and Category B(L) pension is often referred to as the ‘couples rate’.

3. Category B(L) pension is about 60 per cent. of the full-rate basic Category A pension. It is payable by virtue of a spouse's qualifying years or earnings.