HC Deb 17 April 1913 vol 51 cc2111-3
52. Mr. SHEEHAN

asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that Mrs. Johanna Murphy made an application at the Aherla post office last September for an old age pension, filling up the usual form and showing her certificate of birth that she was seventy years of age on 1st January, 1913; whether she was informed in the first week of February, 1913, by the clerk of the Bandon (No. 1) Pension Sub-committee that the committee did not meet until the last Monday in January and that she was granted pension allowance from that date; will Mrs. Murphy be deprived of her pension for four weeks from 1st January owing to the failure of the committee to meet; and, if not, what steps must be taken to recover the amount properly due to her?

Mr. ROBERTSON

I understand that the officer's report in this case was sent to the sub-committee in due time for the usual meeting in December, but that the sub-committee did not meet until the end of January. Under the provisions of the Old Age Pension Act a pension only commences to accrue as from the Friday following its allowance by a committee, and I fear that Mrs. Murphy therefore only became entitled to a pension as from that date.

Mr. SHEEHAN

Is Mr. Murphy to suffer because of the fact that the committee did not have the usual meeting?

Mr. ROBERTSON

I admit there is a hardship but we have no statutory power to remedy it. The blame must lie on the committee.

40. Mr. GINNELL

asked whether the general Order issued to old age pension officers in September, 1908, or any substituted Order, on the value of maintenance has been communicated to every pension officer in Ireland and is now used by them for their guidance; if so, what scale the Order fixes in normal cases in urban and rural districts in Great Britain and in Ireland, respectively; whether it leaves each officer discretion to increase or reduce the pension according to circumstances within the limits of the Act; what is the authority or scale whereby this discretion is always used to reduce or extinguish pensions in Ireland but not in Great Britain; whether the opinion of the medical officer is obtained in all such cases before the reduction is made; if the rent or valuation of the home where the claimant resides affects the pension, what is the practice on that point in the two countries, respectively; and in what percentage of the claims for old age pensions has the pension been reduced or disallowed on account of the value of maintenance in Great Britain and in Ireland, respectively?

Mr. ROBERTSON

No scale is in force under either the Order of September, 1908, or any subsequent Order, for general application by pension officers in framing their estimates of the value of maintenance, and the general rule governing the officers' practice is as stated in my reply to the hon. Member's previous question of the 11th instant. Pension officers have no discretion to increase or reduce a pension. This discretion rests with the local committee or the Local Government Board on appeal. So far as I am aware, it is not the practice of pension officers to obtain medical opinion on questions affecting the value of means. The rent or valuation of the house in which a claimant resides is one of several factors which a pension officer might take into account in framing an estimate in either country. The information asked for in the last paragraph of the question is not available.

Mr. GINNELL

Is is not a fact that the circular issued in September, 1908, contained a scale; is that circular, or any one corresponding to it, still in force; and is the circular of 1908, which exempted £30 of furniture, clothes, and personal effects from the estimate, still in force?

Mr. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member is mistaken. The so-called circular of which he speaks was not a scale, but simply a set of a few suggestions to officers. They never constituted a scale. The suggestions have been modified as a result of the experience acquired.

Mr. GINNELL

Is the earlier circular exempting £30 of personal effects still in force?

Mr. ROBERTSON

Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice of that special point. I cannot answer it at the moment.