Attendance Allowance (Hansard, 19 June 1973)

§ 8. Greville Janner
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many and what proportion of applications for full attendance allowances in respect of children have been refused during the last 12-month period for which records are available.

§ Mr. Dean
It is estimated that in the 12-month period to May 1973, 2,300 applications for attendance allowance in respect of children were rejected representing approximately 30 per cent. of the claims made for children.

§ Mr. Janner
Is the Minister aware that this is a sad figure and that there are far too many rejections in cases of real need? Hon. Members on all sides have signed in great numbers a motion in my name deploring the procedures of the Attendance Allowance Board. What does the Minister propose to do about it?

§ Mr. Dean
I regret the criticisms that the hon. and learned Gentleman continues to make about the board. It has done a first-class job in a short time. Over 70 per cent. of the applications for children have been successful. More than 24,000 awards have been made and the new lower rate allowance for children will come into operation on 1st October this year and will bring in another group of children.

§ Mr. Waddington
I do not doubt that the attendance allowance board is doing its best in difficult circumstances, but does my hon. Friend recognise that many of us on both sides of the House feel that certain cases prove that the board is interpreting the rules very strictly?

§ Mr. Dean
There are difficult cases on the borderline, and I accept what my hon. and learned Friend said. It is for that reason that we are now pressing as fast as we can to bring the allowance to additional groups. The allowance, which started towards the end of 1971, is already bringing new help to more than 90,000 hard-pressed families who hitherto were getting no allowance.

§ Mr. Concannon
Will the Minister consider the case of children who are living with foster parents and who, if they were living with their normal parents, would qualify for the attendance allowance? Will he write to the local authorities about cases such as this and suggest that they make an additional payment to foster parents in such cases?

§ Mr. Dean
I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point. I shall consider any individual case that he has in mind. In many cases where fostering is arranged through local authorities it is more advantageous to the parents to have a foster allowance from the local authority than it is to have an allowance in this form. I shall be glad to consider individual cases.

§ Sir R. Cary
I am extremely grateful to the Attendance Allowance Board for the help it has given in many cases in my constituency, but may I ask the board, through my hon. Friend, if it will be so good as to look a little more generously at the claims made for children?

§ Mr. Dean
It seems a little unfair to blame the board. The conditions in which it operates were laid down by Parliament, and the Government take responsibility for that. The early stage of the allowance was made fairly stringent because we felt that this was the only way we could get the allowance most speedily to those who were most in need.