HC Deb 02 April 1962 vol 657 cc23-4
29. Mr. Spriggs

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, in view of the effect recent local authority rate increases will have on those in receipt of widowed mothers, widows, sickness benefit, and people in receipt of National Assistance, whether he will increase the benefit for those people.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

So far as National Insurance benefits are concerned, I have nothing to add to what I said during the debate on 13th March. As the National Assistance Board normally takes full account of rates in assessing the needs of householder recipients of National Assistance, these people are in general unaffected by rate changes.

Mr. Spriggs

Is the Minister aware that there are many recipients, such as those drawing sickness benefit, widowed mothers, widows drawing widow's benefit and the unemployed, who just do not reach the subsistence level to entitle them to get an allowance from the National Assistance Board to help them to meet this extra increase? Will the Minister consider what is happening throughout the country concerning rate increases and the large number of people who cannot draw this money by way of the National Assistance Board? What will he do about it?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The hon. Member mentioned widowed mothers among those he listed. He will be glad to know that the real value of the widowed mother's allowance for a widowed mother with three children is 57s. 6d., or 75 per cent. greater than when the present Government came in.

Mr. Manuel

Try to live on it.

Dr. King

Is the Minister aware that while National Assistance takes care of the poorest people and meets the rent and rate increases, recent rent and rate increases have wiped out all the benefits that he as Minister has given to those who are just above the poverty line which qualifies them for National Assistance? Will he look into this?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

It is a considerable exaggeration to say that rent and rate increases, which are, of course, taken into account in the Index of Retail Prices, have done anything of the sort. But they are certainly one of the factors which one follows in keeping rates under review.

31. Mr. Frank Allaun

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance the total of National Assistance granted in the last 12 months to cover rent; to how many recipients it was granted: and how this compares with 1956.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

As I have several times explained to the House, there is no such figure as that asked for in the first part of the Question. At the end of 1961 the number of recipients of weekly National Assistance allowances who were householders for whom an allowance for rent and rates would be added to the appropriate scale rates was 1,439,000, and the average amount paid by them was 21s. 10d. per week. The comparable figures for 1956 were 1,276,000 and 14s. 2d.

Mr. Allaun

Does not the increase in rents under the Rent Act account very largely for this increase in National Assistance payment? In other words, does it not mean that a very large sum of public money is going not to National Assistance recipients but into the pockets of the landlords?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

That hypothesis does not stand up when one recalls that the average amount in respect of local authority tenants is 24s. 6d week as compared with the general figure of 21s. 10d. and that the figure in respect of local authority tenants has risen more in the last year than the other.