MEANS TESTS (Hansard, 29 June 1971)

§ Q2. Mr. Meacher
asked the Prime Minister how many persons he estimates in a full year will be subject to means tests following the implementation of all those means-tested schemes currently planned by various Departments.

§ The Prime Minister
As so many variable factors affect the numbers eligible, no reliable estimates are possible. The largest single category of means-tested beneficiaries are those covered by the supplementary benefit scheme introduced by our predecessors; and the total numbers benefiting from schemes for giving help selectively where it is needed will be higher than under the previous Administration because of the introduction of the family income supplement and increases in income limits.

§ Mr. Meacher
The right hon. Gentleman is being coy again. Will he not acknowledge that the new housing allowance scheme which the Government will announce shortly, together with the family income supplement, will for the first time in the case of families where the head is in full-time work bring more than 10 million people—or at least one-fifth of the population—within the ambit of the means test? Will he explain how by yet another of his electoral dishonesties last June he failed to admit to the nation his intentions as the purveyor of a new poor law?

§ The Prime Minister
I will ignore the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question and answer the first part. One can identify 43 major means-tested benefits provided by central and local government. Sixteen of these are statutory assessments and 27 are discretionary assessments. The Government have added one more—for the family income supplement. The great majority of local authorities already have rent rebate schemes for their housing, which they operate themselves. We are extending this facility to privately-rented accommodation. This does not seem to me to be something which the hon. Gentleman should criticise. If he wants to say that the lower-paid workers should not get the family income supplement, that is a debatable question of policy, but we have concluded that this is the best 198 way to help them, and it means an increase of one means test over the 43 operated under the last Government.

§ Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg
Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the introduction of rent rebates to local government was a process which was much encouraged by the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman)?

§ The Prime Minister
Yes. As I understand it, the previous Administration did not in the least disagree that local authorities, many of the Labour-controlled authorities, should operate rent rebate schemes. My hon. Friend is quite right; the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) when he was Minister of Housing greatly encouraged this, and I believe that at one stage he contemplated making it compulsory for local authorities.

§ Mr. William Hamilton
Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that the more means tests there are the tendency is for fewer people to apply for the benefits as of right, either through ignorance or because of personal dignity or whatever? Despite the increased publicity which the Government have given to these schemes, is he aware that the number of applicants has been fewer than expected? Will he reconsider the entire question of means tests, and particularly the family income supplement, which is a means of subsidising mean private industrialists?

§ The Prime Minister
As far as I am aware, there is no evidence to support the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. Obviously, if this were proved to be the case, then any government must consider the situation. I must ask the hon. Member to keep this in perspective. What I have told the House is that to the 43 major forms of means tests which existed under the previous Conservative and Labour Administrations one more has been added. That is all. When it comes to the numbers of people who take advantage of the benefits, the Government have carried out what is generally agreed to be the biggest ever programme to provide information about these benefits to citizens. If the hon. Gentleman then complains that more people take advantage of them, 199 what he is really saying is that he wants the benefits to go to people irrespective of their wealth. In view of the well-known interest of the hon. Gentleman——

§ Mr. William Hamilton
Too long.

§ The Prime Minister
I know that the hon. Gentleman does not like this. I would not have thought that he wanted all benefits to go to people irrespective of their wealth, knowing his well-known interest in other people's wealth.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
Do not the Government's housing proposals to which hon. Gentlemen opposite refer apply on a wide scale what used to be the Socialist principle of "to each according to his need"?

§ The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.