HC Deb 16 November 1987 vol 122 c440W
Mrs. Beckett

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what discretion adjudication officers have in deciding on the period for which a person who has been ruled to have left or refused employment without good cause should be disqualified for unemployment benefit.

Mr. Portillo

a decision of a tribunal of social security commissioners (decision R(U) 8/74) held that, in considering the period of disqualification for unemployment benefit, adjudication officers must consider each case on its merits and exercisesensible discretion", and that that discretion "must be exercised judicially taking into account all the circumstances relevant to the question whether the claimant should be disqualified at all and excluding extraneous factors".

In a more recent commissioners decision (R(U) 4/87), shortly to be reported, a commissioner affirmed that an adjudication authority, in the case in question a social security appeal tribunal, must consciously exercise a discretion in each case in imposing disqualification and must state the facts taken into account in exercising that discretion.