asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what additional steps he is taking to check abuses of the Supplementary Benefits Scheme.

Various methods are employed to check abuse of the Supplementary Benefits Scheme and they have been extended and intensified over the last year or so. The Commission and I are satisfied that generally speaking these measures are working well. I am, however, still discussing with the Commission whether there are any additional measures which would be appropriate, effective and practicable.

I welcome that rather vague reply, so far as it goes, but have not recent Press articles by an official of the Supplementary Benefits Commission revealed a most alarming degree of fraud and deception? Is the Minister satisfied that the steps he now contemplates will be rigorous enough to discover and to stamp out these abuses, which are of concern to the great majority of ordinary, decent, hard-working people?

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, if he is referring to the article in the Spectator, it did not indicate the extent of the abuse. It merely illustrated the abuses which we all know. The difficult question is the extent of the abuse and how much effect we have against it. We have done a lot. To take one figure, on enforcement of maintenance allowances our rate of recovery is £6 million as compared with £5 million last year. In the four-week control of single men under 45, last year we were successful in seeing that 80,000 went back to work. These are solid achievements.

Is not the principal abuse of the scheme the inadequacy of the claims made, in that far too many people are ignorant of what they are entitled to? Should not an attempt be made to inform people of their entitlement under the scheme?

I should not have thought that the cause of abuse was properly analysed in that way. It may well be said that more people should know accurately what they are entitled to, and we are publishing more information on that subject next spring. I think that the abuse, which is serious and which is very limited, is done by people who know only too well what they are entitled to and who try to get something more. That, of course, we want to eradicate.