§ Mr. John Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will discontinue the practice of treating the surrender value of a life assurance policy as a capital resource for the purpose of assessing entitlement to supplementary benefit; and in how many cases this has taken place in each of the last three years.
§ Mr. NewtonOn the first part of his question, I refer the right hon. and learned Member to my reply to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Foulkes) on 17 January.—[Vol. 35, c.66.] Firm information is not available about the number of cases where the surrender value of a life assurance policy has been treated as a capital resource for the purpose of assessing entitlement to supplementary benefit although, as I indicated in my earlier reply, the indications are that it is unlikely to have been significant.
§ Mr. Stallardasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether patients who leave long-stay institutions with accumulated personal balances of more than £2,500 are excluded from entitlement to supplementary benefit.
392W
§ Mr. NewtonTo the extent that the accumulated personal balances represent savings of mobility allowance which the recipient intends to use in connection with mobility—for example, to buy a car—it is disregarded in assessing entitlement to supplementary benefit. Otherwise the balances are taken into account as a capital resource and if they exceed £2,500 the person is not entitled to supplementary benefit.
§ Mr. Stallardasked the Secretary of State for Social Services at what level the capital limit for supplementary benefit single payments would now stand if it had been uprated in line with inflation since November 1980.
§ Mr. NewtonThe level of the single payment capital limit would be £355 if it had been increased in line with the increase in the retail price index between November 1980 and November 1982.