Invalid Care Allowance: Payment Policy (Hansard, 25 March 1982)

§ Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, Lady Lane-Fox has asked me to ask the Question standing in her name as she is recovering from viral 'flu in hospital. So it is at her request that I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Elton)
My Lords, in bearing my good wishes, with those of your Lordships, to my noble friend—as I hope she will do— 1060 my noble friend might say to her that there are a number of things which we should like to do in the field of disablement when resources become available. They will of course be in competition with each other for those resources, but extending the invalid care allowance to all married women is one of them.

§ Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. Will he confirm that this is a benefit which specifically excludes married women, and that when this scheme was extended in 1981 by the present Government to include any person caring for another requiring full-time care, that the only people omitted were married women? Will he also confirm that this was based on the belief that married women were, on the whole, available full-time and were not normally in employment? Will he also confirm that he is aware that we have the highest employment rate of married women in western Europe —currently something above 67 per cent. of married women of employable age?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I am very much aware of the important role played by married women both at work and in the home. Currently there are some 3,400 men, 2,600 single women and about 1,100 women who are widowed, divorced or separated receiving this benefit—but to extend it further would cost anything up to £100 million.

§ Baroness Jeger
My Lords, I am sure that we on this side of the House would like to join in sending our good wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, with our hopes for a speedy recovery, because we do so enjoy having her with us. May I ask the Minister whether the Government have worked out how much they are saving?—because women who stay at home and who give up a career and a good job to look after a relative who is an invalid save the Government money. If a married women did not undertake that responsibility, how much would it cost from social security funds, or the National Health Service, to place a disabled, elderly relative into care? Surely these women are saving the Government money; and is it not really most unfair that their goodness should be taken advantage of in this mean way?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, there is some illogicality in what the noble Baroness says. The people to whom she referred are being exploited by the Government only if they are caring for people without being paid. This makes it difficult to do the arithmetic that the noble Baroness asks me to do. I can only reply that it would cost us anything up to £100 million, and that is what we appear to be saving.

§ Baroness Jeger
My Lords, is the noble Lord saying it would cost more or less than £100 million if all these elderly disabled relatives were put into institutions?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I do not think anyone supposes that they would all be put into institutions—this is the point I am trying to make.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, if the benefit was extended 1061 in the manner suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, to whom we also would like to send our good wishes, would it not be taxable; and is the figure of £100 million which the noble Lord has mentioned based on some notional average tax rate which is applied to the persons concerned? If so, will he give the figure?

§ Lord Elton
No, my Lords, I cannot give a precise figure. I said that it would be up to £100 million. These calculations are always notional to some extent. If the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, wants to know the impact on an individual family, he should recall that it is not payable in addition, for instance, to the supplementary benefit. So if a husband was in receipt of an invalidity pension which included the dependency addition for his wife of £17, the family's income would be increased by only 75 pence. If the husband received retirement pension which included the dependency addition of £17.75, the income would be unchanged. If the husband was in receipt of supplementary benefit, the income would be unchanged if the amount of the supplementary benefit payable before the award of ICA was £17.75 or more. In other words, the impact on the individual family is often a good deal less than noble Lords might at first suspect.

§ Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, would my noble friend therefore agree that the impact would really be considerably less than the £100 million because, with all those people receiving supplementary benefit, that amount would be offset? Alternative estimates on this suggest that the cost may be less than half the amount my noble friend has quoted. Will my noble friend also confirm his figures to me, perhaps on another occasion?—because my own inquiries have revealed that a married man who gives up work to look after a relative who is an invalid would receive £17.75 plus £10.65 for his wife if she was dependent upon him, and £7.70 for each child. These figures are somewhat at variance with the figures which my noble friend has just quoted.

§ Lord Elton
No, my Lords, the figures are not at variance. I can confirm the dependency additions to which the noble Baroness has referred. I stated the condition of the family in the examples I gave. It remains the case that the Government would prefer to be able to extend this allowance, but that preference must be put in competition with other considerations, when resources become available to us to consider those priorities. In the meantime, benefits for the long-term sick and disabled in the financial year 1981–82 amounted to £2,781 million, which is 6 per cent. more in real terms than in 1978–79. I do not think this is a hard-faced Government; we are simply trying to do the best we can in the order in which resources come to hand.

Baroness Secar
My Lords, does it not strike the Minister as being slightly odd that if one is cohabiting with a man one will get this allowance, but if one is married to him, one will not? I have no particular prejudices in the matter, but this does seem to be the wrong way around.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I scarcely know how to answer that question. We are in a time of changing standards and we are looking at the question in the light of those changing standards. If I were to say that it was odd, I would appear to be old-fashioned. If I were to say that it was entirely normal, I would perhaps betray some of my own preconceptions.