§ Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is planning to ensure that local authorities 230W are consistent with each other in applying disregards to rent and rebate schemes for war disablement and war pensions.
§ Mr. WhitneyThe Housing Benefits Regulations 1982, provide for the first £4 of a war widow's or war disablement pension to be disregarded when assessing entitlement to housing benefits. Under regulation 4 local authorities have the power to make a local scheme modifying the statutory provisions. Some authorities use that power to give a higher disregard for war widows' and war disablement pensions. We have no plans to change these or any other provisions of the housing benefit scheme which have not already been announced until we have considered the report of the independent review of the scheme.