§ Mr. Andrew Bowdenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many pensioners will lose their qualifying status for 90 per cent. improvement or insulation grants after losing entitlement to housing benefit as a result of changes announced within the Chancellor of the Exchequer's autumn statement.
§ Sir George Young[pursuant to his reply, 12 December 1983, c. 324]: It is entirely for local authorities to determine which applicants qualify for 90 per cent. improvement grants. While eligibility for housing benefit is one possible criterion which an authority might employ in defining hardship, the Department has urged authorities to give very sympathetic consideration to any applicant whose principal source of income is a state retirement pension. Changes in the rules for housing benefit do not, therefore, necessarily have any effect on the numbers of elderly people whom local authorities might regard as qualifying for 90 per cent. improvement grants.
Pensioners who may no longer be eligible for housing benefits and are not in receipt of supplementary pensions will lose entitlement to 90 per cent.—as opposed to 66 per cent—grant under the homes insulation scheme if their lofts are still uninsulated. Among all households in Great Britain fewer than 20 per cent. have uninsulated lofts. I have no equivalent figures for pensioner households.