§ Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give an estimate of the cost of reducing the six months qualifying period for the attendance allowance to three months.
§ Mr. EnnalsNo reliable estimate is possible. The difficulty in estimating the cost of such a reduction is that the three month qualifying period would bring in rather different cases from the generality of existing ones—for example, some accident victims and people with acute illnesses would be brought in. There is no basis for estimating the number and duration of claims from such new categories.