HC Deb 09 November 1908 vol 195 c1655
MR. BARNES (Glasgow, Blackfriars)

To ask the President of the Local Government Board if it is within his knowledge that total incomes of married couples of £33 16s. per annum or over have been held to be incomes of one or the other of such married couples, thus barring the husband or wife, as the case may be, from receiving a pension; and, if so, whether this is a correct interpretation of the Old-Age Pensions Act.

(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) No case has been brought to my knowledge in which the Act has been interpreted in the manner indicated in the Question. As I am advised, although a husband and wife may live together, the means of each must, for the purposes of the Act, be considered separately, except that the means of either of them must not be taken to be less than half of the total means of the two together.