§ Mr. MARKSasked the President of the Local Government Board, whether it is 1851W the practice of the Local Government Board to ignore the rates of interest on investments and mortgages held by persons applying for old age pensions, and to advise the pension committees that they have nothing to do with the rate of interest, even when such appears to have been made deliberately low enough to enable the applicants to secure old age pensions?
§ Mr. BURNSThe answer is in the negative In a circular which the Local Government Board addressed to pension committees in December, 1908, they stated that for the purpose of calculating, under Section 4 (1) (c) of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1908, the value of the yearly income of a claimant for a pension, the yearly value of money invested or deposited in a bank at interest should be taken at the actual amount of income derived from the investment or accruing on the deposit. I may add that, under Section 4 (3) of the Act, if it appears that a person has directly or indirectly deprived himself of any income in order to qualify for a pension that income is to be reckoned as part of his means.