§ 22. Mr. Worsleyasked the Minister of Social Security whether she will make arrangements for retirement pensions to be paid during the first week of entitlement irrespective of the pension pay day.
§ 1. Mr. Moyleasked the Minister of Social Security whether she will consider amending the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Regulations (S.I. 1948, No. 1041) to provide more flexibility in the payment of the first instalment of a widow's pension.
§ Mr. LoughlinThe present system of weekly payments normally provides a payment of a week's benefit within at most a week of death or retirement, as the case may be, and links naturally with the customary methods of paying wages.
§ Mr. WorsleyWill not the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the present rules have the curious effect in some cases of depriving a person at a very difficult time of nearly a week's benefit? Would it not be worth looking at this again?
Mr. LoaghlinThat is news to me. I had not seen that aspect. There is a week's delay in payment of benefit, but there is no depriving of the applicant of the benefit to which he or she is entitled.