Captain CAZALETasked the Minister of Health what would be the additional cost to the Exchequer of allowing totally blind old-age pensioners to receive the old age pension in addition to 10s. per week blind pension?
§ Mr. W. S. MORRISONMy hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that the present statutory qualification for a blind person's pension is not that the applicant is totally blind but that he is "so blind as to be unable to perform any work for which eyesight is essential." The additional cost of paying an old age and a blind person's pension to those persons over 70 who are known, from the statistics available, to be within the statutory definition, would be about £600,000 a year at the present time and would increase steadily in future, but having regard to the extent to which impairment of sight exists in greater or less degree among the aged, the actual cost would certainly be in excess and probably appreciably in excess of this figure.