§ 99 and 100. Mr. GROVESasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1) whether old age pensions are paid to persons who may be in receipt of medical treatment extending over a month in a Poor Law institution; and whether such pension, if payable, should be collected by the next legally responsible person to the ordinary recipient;
(2) whether he is aware that during the week ended 6th July, 1917, 117 old age pensioners, who were inmates of various institutions under the West Ham Board of Guardians, had their pensions collected by the said board and applied toward the cost of their maintenance whilst in receipt of medical treatment; and whether, in view of the provisions of the Old Age Pensions Acts, he will prohibit this practice?
Mr. SAMUELA person who enters a Poor Law institution for the purpose of obtaining medical or surgical treatment is not thereby disqualified for the receipt of an old age pension until three months from the date of his entry into the institution, if he continues to receive such treatment during that period. It it is the fact that the West Ham Board of Guardians, in common with some other boards of guardians, collect the pensions of inmates of their institutions; but in every such case the pensioner has signed a form appointing an officer of the guardians as his agent to collect the pension, and there is no authority in the law under which such a practice could be prohibited.
§ Mr. GROVESIs the hon. Gentleman aware that in West Ham they collect this money in the first week that the patients enter. May I tell him, they do not sign—[Interruption.]