HC Deb 28 October 1908 vol 195 cc270-1
MR. DUNDAS WHITE (Dumbartonshire)

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether steps will be taken to issue instructions that, for the purposes of the Old-Age Pensions Act, 1908, allowances made voluntarily to parents over seventy years of age by their children shall not be taken into account in calculating the means of such parents, and that allowances made voluntarily to parents by their children shall, for the purposes of that Act, be placed on the same basis as allowances made to them by persons who are under no Poor Law obligation to contribute to their support.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

The instructions to pension officers are that all money income received by claimants to old-age pensions, whether from voluntary allowances or otherwise, is to be taken into account in estimating their means for the purposes of the Act; and, as at present advised, I see no reason for modifying those instructions or discriminating between different kinds of allowances.

MR. COURTHOPE

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate has beer, made of the saving which is expected to accrue, by reason of old-age pensions, to rural and urban, unions, and how such estimate has been arrived at; whether such saving is likely to be equal in amount to the cost of obtaining information; and whether his attention has been called to the calculations which have been made in certain of the Metropolitan unions, showing that the saving which will be effected in these unions owing to the old-age pensions scheme will be very small.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

I have no information at the present moment which would enable me to answer the hon. Member's Question.