§ Mr. BYRNEasked the Prime Minister if, in. cases where it is impossible to trace the place of birth and where there is no possible chance of discovering the age of persons who claim to be seventy years of age and require an old age pension, he will issue instructions to pensions officers to accept the marriage certificate showing the claimant to be forty-eight years married as evidence of age?
§ Mr. BALDWINThe question whether a claimant to an old age pension has attained the statutory age is a matter for the determination, not of the local pension officer, but of the local pension committee, or, if an appeal be entered, of the Local Government Board. In deciding on any claim those authorities will, of course, take into account all available evidence, including that of a marriage certificate; but I may point out that the bare fact that a claimant has been married forty-eight years would not necessarily show that he or she has attained the age of seventy, as he or she may have been married before having attained the age of twenty-two.