HC Deb 23 June 1981 vol 7 cc69-71W
Mr. Gordon Wilson

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services, in the light of the fact that self-employed

how this breaks down between research sectors; and what proportion of research expenditure by public authorities within member States expenditure by the Community represents.

Mr. Michael Marshall

The data requested, except for the breakdown between research sectors, are given in the following table. All expenditure figures have been expressed in millions of pounds sterling. The request for expenditure by the European Community has been answered in terms of appropriationsR J 2–10 allocated to research and development by the Commission of the European Communities. An analysis by objectives is provided in table 6 of Eurostat publication "Government Financing of Research and Development", issues 1977, 1978 and 1980, copies of which are available in the House of Commons Library, from which the figures in the table have been derived.

persons, who have discontinued trading and have no income, are required to submit accounting evidence from an accountant or solicitor and that as a consequence delays can be experienced before benefit is payable, whether, to avoid hardship, he will review the arrangements to enable interim benefit to be paid subject to repayment if evidence of discontinuation of business is not received or is unsatisfactory.

Mrs. Chalker

Where a self-employed person ceases trading, the Supplementary Benefit (Conditions of Entitlement) Regulations provide that he is treated as continuing in remunerative full-time work for a further period of 14 days and is not, therefore, eligible for supplementary benefit. This rule is the counterpart to the rule for employed people who cease employment, who are treated as continuing in full-time work for a period equal to that covered by their final earnings.

Decisions on claims for supplementary benefit are made by the independent adjudicating authorities, the benefit officer in the first instance. After the 14-day period mentioned above, a self-employed person would be eligible for supplementary benefit, subject to the normal rules—for example, the requirement to register and be available for work. The benefit officer may need to see accounting evidence of the state of the business, for example, to determine when self-employment actually ceased and to establish the value of any capital assets of the business. Where any delay occasioned by the need to obtain this information would result in hardship, payment of supplementary benefit may be made in urgent cases under the Supplementary Benefit (Urgent Cases) Regulations.

If the hon. Member has a particular case in mind and would like to let me have the details, I shall be pleased to look into it.