Social Security Benefits: Children

(asked on 19th December 2019) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was their total spending, in constant prices, on (1) child benefit, and (2) income-related benefits, for children for each year since 2000.


Answered by
Earl of Courtown Portrait
Earl of Courtown
Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
This question was answered on 7th January 2020
  1. Child Benefit

Total Child Benefit payments, in real terms at 2019/20 prices, since 2000 can be found in the Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2019 published by the Department for Work and Pensions. This information has been presented below (Table 1) for the years for which outturn data is available.

Table 1 - Child Benefit expenditure, real terms (2019/20 prices),

£billions

2000-01

12.6

2001-02

12.6

2002-03

12.5

2003-04

12.9

2004-05

12.8

2005-06

12.7

2006-07

12.8

2007-08

13.1

2008-09

13.5

2009-10

14

2010-11

14.1

2011-12

14

2012-13

13.7

2013-14

12.6

2014-15

12.6

2015-16

12.6

2016-17

12.3

2017-18

12

Notes:

- Real terms, 2019/20 prices

- Figures presented are based on outturn data

Source:

- Benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2019

2. Income-related benefits

The information requested relating to Universal Credit is not held and can only be made available at a disproportionate cost.

Expenditure in real terms is available in respect of Income Support and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance on child elements in DWP Benefit expenditure and caseload tables. Again, to be helpful, this information has been presented below (Table 2) for the years for which outturn data is available.

Table 2 - Income Support and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance on child elements, real terms (2019-20 prices),

Income Support (£millions)

Jobseeker's Allowance (£millions)

2000-01

4,270

442

2001-02

4,774

408

2002-03

5,121

406

2003-04*

5,151

351

2004-05

4,381

191

2005-06

3,290

31

2006-07

2,593

15

2007-08

2,144

-

2008-09

1,749

-

2009-10

1,039

-

2010-11

737

-

2011-12

518

-

2012-13

329

-

2013-14

190

-

2014-15

130

-

2015-16

87

-

2016-17

63

-

2017-18

44

-

Notes:

- Real terms, 2019/20 prices

- Figures presented are based on outturn data

- *since Apr 2004, financial support for children is normally provided through Child Tax Credit

Source:

- Benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2019

Annual expenditure on tax credits cannot be broken down between Child Tax Credits and Working Tax Credits. However, this breakdown is available for the closely related measure of annual tax credits entitlement, and provided in Table 3 below. The main difference between tax credits entitlement and tax credits payments is that entitlement figures are based on the amounts households are entitled to once awards have been finalised, whereas payments are based on provisional awards which may differ from final awards, and can include payments and repayments in respect of earlier years.

Table 3 - Annual entitlement to Child Tax Credit (introduced 2003-04), real terms (2019-20 prices),

£millions

2003-04

n/a

2004-05

18,128

2005-06

18,255

2006-07

18,874

2007-08

19,351

2008-09

21,653

2009-10

23,336

2010-11

23,815

2011-12

24,648

2012-13

24,405

2013-14

23,902

2014-15

23,519

2015-16

23,112

2016-17

21,935

2017-18

20,494

Notes:

- Figures for 2003-04 are not readily available and can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Source:

- Nominal figures taken from Table 1.1 of HMRC’s Child and Working Tax Credits Statistics

- Real terms 2019-20 prices. To convert the nominal figures into real terms, the GDP deflators published in March 2019 were used.

- The estimates for 2016-17 and 2017-18 are affected by the introduction of Universal Credit.

- This table does not include entitlement to Working Tax Credit or Working Families Tax Credit as they are not considered income related benefits for children, although they do contain some child related elements.

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