§ 7.2 p.m.
§ Lord Trefgarne rose to move, That the regulations laid before the House on 29th March be approved.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the Supplementary Benefit (Requirements) (Longterm Rates) Amendment Regulations 1983 be approved. These regulations are quite straightforward, though in explaining them I shall need also to refer to the Social Security and Supplementary Benefit (Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Regulations 1983, which were made on 24th March 1983 and are subject to the negative resolution procedure. They are entirely beneficial in their effects. They have been accepted as such by the Social Security Advisory Committee, which agreed that they need not be formally referred to it.
§ The general background is as follows. Supplementary benefit is paid at two basic rates for adults: the ordinary rate and the long-term rate. The long-term rate is currently higher by £10.60 a week than the ordinary rate for couples and £7 higher for single householders. Supplementary pensions are paid at the long-term rate automatically. Supplementary allowances are paid at the long-term rate to claimants who have spent a year on the ordinary rate, excluding unemployed claimants under 60, who cannot qualify for the long-term rate. Before 1981 no unemployed claimant could qualify for the long-term rate, but it was then extended by the present Government to 1103 unemployed men over 60 who have been receiving supplementary benefit for a year, in the same way as to other claimants.
§ The effect of the present regulations is, from 30th May 1983, to extend automatic entitlement to the long-term scale rates without any qualifying period, to male claimants aged 60 or over. In effect, this will place them in the same position with regard to supplementary benefit as women, who receive supplementary pensions at 60, though the technical distinction between supplementary pensions and allowances will remain.
§ The parallel change which we are making, with effect from 30th May, is to remove the requirement from unemployed men over 60 to be available for work as a condition for receiving supplementary benefit. This is effected by the Social Security and Supplementary Benefit (Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Regulations 1983. At present the requirement to be available for work is only removed after they have been in receipt of supplementary benefit for a year. The effect of the change is that all men over 60 receiving supplementary benefit—not just those who have been unemployed for a year—will be able to get benefit on an order book, rather than by having to sign on at an unemployment benefit office.
§ My Lords, about 79,000 men will benefit from these changes; of these about 37,000 will be sick or disabled, and for the majority of them the regulations will solve the "invalidity trap". The remaining 42,000 will be mainly men at present signing on as unemployed, and the regulations will simply make the long-term scale rate payable to them without their having to spend a year on the ordinary rate first.
§ The changes do not mean that all unemployed men over 60 are to be written off as far as the employment market is concerned. They can go on looking for work, either by registering at a Job Centre or in any other way they may choose, in the same way as everyone else. These regulations simply recognise the fact that many of these men will in effect have retired from full-time work. For them the mechanical process of proving availability for work by signing on at an unemployment benefit office for a year before qualifying for the long-term scale rate is not really appropriate.
§ I hope that your Lordships will welcome this extension of the long-term scale rate to older unemployed men. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the regulations laid before the House on 29th March be approved.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.