§ Mr. Kinseyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how children boarded out by a local authority will be treated for the purposes of the family income supplements scheme.
§ Sir K. JosephI intend to provide by regulations that payments made for such children should not be included in the family income and that any child who is the subject of such payments should not be included in the family with which he is living for family income supplement purposes. This will ensure that receipt of a boarding-out allowance will not affect entitlement to family income supplement.
§ Mr. Kinseyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what income he proposes should be disregarded for the purposes of the family income supplement scheme.
§ Sir K. JosephI propose in the initial regulations to provide for the disregard of (a) £2 of any war disablement pension, and (b) the whole of any attendance allowance or constant attendance allowance under the National Insurance, Industrial Injuries or War Pensions Schemes. I am answering a separate Question about local authority boarding-out allowances.
§ Mr. Kinseyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how entitlement to family income supplement is to be determined when the household includes a female relative helping with the care of children, a housekeeper, and a son or daughter who is in employment.
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§ Sir K. JosephThe presence in the household of the persons referred to will not affect entitlement to family income supplement. For family income supplement purposes a family consists of the breadwinner (and, in the case of a couple, the wife or woman living as wife) and the child or children. The rate of family income supplement depends on the income of the family and the number of children. To include any other adults in the family income supplement family could not, therefore, increase the rate; indeed, if such adults had any income the effect of including them would be to reduce the rate.
§ Mr. Kinseyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services why for family income supplement purposes he proposes to take account of the income of a wife or a woman living as a wife but not of other members of the household.
§ Sir K. JosephBroadly our object is to benefit families whose income is below the supplementary benefit level but who are debarred from supplementary benefit by the full-time work test. For this purpose it would clearly be wrong to ignore income of the wife altogether; and there would be strong objections to an arrangement which took account of the wife's income and not that of a woman living as a wife. Other adults are eligible for supplementary benefit in their own right, and are consequently not included in the family for family income supplement purposes.