§ Mr. Dubsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what costings his Department has made of the items listed in paragraph 4(1) of the Supplementary Benefits (Requirements) Regulations 1980.
§ Mr. RossiNone. Successive Governments have considered it right that beneficiaries should have the freedom to decide for themselves how to allocate their resources on those items which the scale rates are intended to cover. This reflects the fact that people have widely varying needs and priorities which makes it unrealistic to apportion expenditure on individual items. The scale rates are, of course, uprated annually.