(2) what his latest estimate is of the number of people who are eligible for the digital switchover targeted assistance scheme who will receive help (a) for free and (b) on payment of a £40 charge, broken down by constituency.
The information is not available in the form requested. A table giving details of the number of households eligible to receive assistance from the Digital Switchover Help Scheme, broken down by parliamentary constituency, has been deposited in the House Libraries.
The previous estimates have now been updated to reflect benefits statistics as of May 2007 and revised forecasts of benefit growth provided by DWP. The DWP benefits statistics used to produce these and previous estimates are publicly accessible through either the National Statistics Nomis portal or the DWP National Statistics tabulation tool.
Details of the number of households eligible to receive assistance from the Digital Switchover Help Scheme broken down by ITV region are in the table. The table also shows current estimates of projected take up for each ITV region.
ITV region Number of eligible households Projected to take up assistance Border (excluding Isle of Man and Copeland) 73,000 53,000 West Country 246,000 171,000 Wales 420,000 298,000 Granada 817,000 586,000 West 203,000 137,000 Grampian 136,000 94,000 Scottish 458,000 321,000 Yorkshire 631,000 435,000 Anglia 577,000 388,000 Central 1,030,000 685,000 Meridian 719,000 457,000 London 953,000 607,000 Tyne Tees 374,000 241,000 Total—Great Britain 6,640,000 4,480,000 1. The estimate of the number of households eligible for assistance from the Digital Switchover Help Scheme covers ITV regions covering England, Wales and Scotland. Information on Northern Ireland constituencies is held separately by the Department of Social Development. Revised estimates for Northern Ireland will be made available as soon as possible. 2. The figures do not include those living in the Copeland constituency who were outside the switchover area for the recent Copeland switchover or residents of the Isle of Man. 3. The figures do not include households where the person qualifying for help under the scheme is registered blind or registered partially sighted who qualify on grounds of registration rather than on grounds of age or entitlement to disability benefits. 4. Eligibility for help from the Digital Switchover Help Scheme will be by benefit unit rather than the whole household definition used by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Office to forecast future household growth. The scheme definition of eligible households mirrors Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) definition of a benefit unit: a couple (which from December 2005 includes gay couples) and any dependent children. It excludes adults deemed to be non-dependents who, if eligible, will be able to claim assistance from the help scheme in their own right. 5. These revised estimates use data from the Department for Work and Pensions Client Group Analysis for May 2007 adjusted by changes in future household and benefits growth for the period from May 2007 until the date switchover takes place in the relevant area. 6. Totals for ITV regions are rounded to the nearest 1,000. Totals for Great Britain are rounded to the nearest 10,000. Totals may not sum due to rounding.