§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, following the statement by the Under-Secretary at Question Time on 16 December 1980, Official Report, column 202, regarding the spending of capital and qualification for supplementary benefit, if he will explain the application of the rule about resources deliberately abandoned to such cases.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe application of regulation 4(1) of the Supplementary Benefits (Resources) Regulations concerning deprivation of resources is a matter for the independent adjudicating authorities. I understand that the chief supplementary benefit officer will be issuing guidance to benefit officers and that this will be published. In framing the regulations the Government intended to reproduce the previous policy of the Supplementary Benefits Commission. The commission had wide discretionary powers in this respect, but where a claimant deliberately deprived himself of a resource for the purpose of securing supplementary benefit, for example by giving it away, it might still be taken into account as a resource. The commission would not normally have regarded spending resources as deprivation. If, however, money was spent on items which were in the nature of an investment or which were out of keeping with a person's normal standard of living, having regard to that of people in similar circumstances, the commission had discretion to treat such items as a capital resource. This latter point is embodied in resources regulation 6(1)(c).