§ Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will make a statement on the situation where care may be provided for 47 weeks out of 52, but because attendance allowance is not in receipt for one week, home responsibilities protection is lost for one year; and if he has any plans to extend home responsibilities provision to cover such cases of temporary withdrawal of attendance allowance;
(2) if the home responsibilities protection is to be continued for the carer when attendance allowance ceases to be paid to an invalid for any period of time.
§ Mr. PrenticeWhen the provisions for home responsibilities protection (HRP) under the new pensions scheme were formulated, it was decided that HRP should be available only for complete tax years throughout which one of the qualifying benefits, including attendance allowance, was payable. HRP is intended to provide a broad-based, long-term, protection with qualifying conditions which are simple and require a minimum of administrative expense. If a more detailed system was introduced, which required investigation of each individual's circumstances, the Department would need a large number of additional civil servants. In view of the Government's policy on public spending and the present economic conditions, this is out of the question, and my right hon. Friend has no proposals to change the present provisions.