§ Mr. Allan Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he proposes to lay regulations for the 1988 family credit scheme.
§ Mr. ScottThe regulations to implement the family credit scheme next April will be laid before Parliament when final decisions have been taken on the relevant rates in the autumn.
I am today placing in the Library copies of two sets of draft regulations: the Family Credit (General) Regulations and the Family Credit (Transitional) Regulations. These set out the rules the Government intend will operate from next April. They are being made available in draft to assist preparations for the implementation of family credit.
The draft Family Credit (General) Regulations set out the intended detailed rules on the qualifying conditions, the treatment of resources, and the relevant amounts, etc. to be used in the calculation of entitlement to family credit. The amounts shown are illustrative only: they are those used in the technical annex to the White Paper "Reform of Social Security" (Cmnd. 9691) published in December 1985. The final amounts will not be decided until the autumn when the general uprating of social security benefit is announced. Consistent with the objective of a common approach in the new income-related benefits, many of the provisions mirror those in the draft Income Support (General) Regulations, and in the Housing Benefit Regulations issued to local authorities in May, both of which have also been placed in the Library.
The draft Family Credit (Transitional) Regulations provide for the changeover from family income supplement to the new scheme. They provide for existing FIS recipients who are not excluded under the new capital rules to receive family credit, calculated on the earnings and other circumstances at the time of the claim for FIS, and for the award to last for the remainder of the period for which FIS would have been payable but for the introduction of the new scheme, that is up to 51 weeks. They also provide transitional protection for such claimants in the event that the amount of their family credit entitlement is less than the total of the FIS they were receiving before the changeover, plus an additional amount for each child reflecting the fact that FIS families were also entitled to free school meals and free welfare milk.
These draft Family Credit Regulations will be complemented in due course by regulations covering the rules on claims and payments for social security benefits generally. These regulations will provide that in two-parent families family credit should normally be claimed by, and paid to, the mother. It is also intended to provide that, in line with income support, family credit will be paid weekly in arrears. The transitional regulations will provide that there will be no break in weekly payments for existing recipients of FIS in the transition to family credit.