War Pensioners (Housing Benefit) (Hansard, 13 February 1989)

§ Mr. Gow
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many district and borough councils operate a disregard in excess of £5 a week for war pensioners when calculating entitlement to housing benefit; and what rate of weekly disregard is applied by each of those councils.
58W

§ Mr. Peter Lloyd
Local schemes for disregarding war pensions in excess of the statutory £5 are entirely at the discretion of individual authorities.
The following authorities operate such schemes, but I regret that information on the extent to which individual schemes enhance the statutory disregard is not available.
Local authorities operating a local scheme

Aberdeen

Adur

Amber Valley

Angus

Annandale and Eskdale

Argyll-Bute

Ashfield

Aylesbury Vale

Badenoch

Banff and Buchan

Barking

Barnet

Basingstoke

Bearsden and Milngavie

Berwickshire
59
Bexley

Birmingham

Blaby

Blackburn

Blackpool

Borders

Boston

Bournemouth

Bracknell

Bradford

Braintree

Breckland

Brent

Brentwood

Brighton

Bromley

Broxbourne

Broxtowe

Burnley

Bury

Caithness

Calderdale

Cambridge

Camden

Canterbury

Cardiff

Carlisle

Castle Point

Central

Ceredigion

Charnwood

Chelmsford

Cheltenham

Chester

Chesterfield

Chiltern

Chorley

Christchurch

Clackmannan

Clydebank

Clydesdale

Congleton

Corby

Coventry

Craven

Crawley

Crawley New Town

Crewe and Nantwich

Cumbernauld

Cumbernauld Development Corporation

Cumnock and Doon

Cunninghame

Dacorum

Darlington

Dartford

Daventry

Delyn

Derby

Doncaster

Dover

Dudley

Dumbarton

Dundee

Dunfermline

Durham

Dwyfor

Ealing

East Cambridgeshire

East Devon

East Hampshire

East Hertfordshire

East Kilbride

East Kilbride Development Corporation

East Lothian

East Staffordshire

Eastleigh

Eastwood

Edinburgh

Ellesmere Port

Elmbridge
60
Enfield

Epsom and Ewell

Ettrick and Lauderdale

Exeter

Falkirk

Fareham

Fenland

Fife

Forest of Dean

Gedling

Glanford

Glasgow

Glenrothes

Gloucester

Gordon

Gosport

Great Yarmouth

Guildford

Hackney

Hambleton

Hamilton

Hammersmith

Harborough

Haringey

Harlow

Harrow

Hart

Hartlepool

Havant

Havering

Hereford

Hertsmere

High Peak

Highlandv

Hillingdon

Hinckley and Bosworth

Horsham

Hounslow

Huntingdon

Inverclyde

Islington

Kennet

Kilmarnock

Kingston-upon-Thames

Kingswood

Kirkcaldy

Kirklees

Knowsley

Kyle and Carrick

Lambeth

Lancaster

Langbaurgh

Leeds

Leicester

Lewes

Lewisham

Lincoln

Livingston

Lliw Valley

Lochaber

Lothian

Luton

Macclesfield

Maidstone

Maldon

Medina

Meirionnydd

Mendip

Merton

Mid Bedfordshire

Middlesbrough

Midlothian

Milton Keynes

Mole Valley

Monklands

Montgomery

Moray

Motherwell

Nairn

Neath
61
New Forest

Newark

Newbury

Newhamv

Newport

Nithsdale

North Bedfordshire

North Cornwall

North Dorset

North East Fife

North Hertfordshire

North Kesteven

North Shropshire

North Tyneside

North West Leicester

North Wiltshire

Northampton

Nottingham

Oadby and Wigston

Ogwr

Oldham

Orkney

Penwith

Perth and Kinross

Peterborough

Peterborough Development Corporation

Plymouth

Poole

Port Talbot

Portsmouth

Radnor

Redditch

Reigate and Banstead

Renfrew

Rhondda

Rhuddlan

Ribble Valley

Richmond-upon-Thames

Richmondshire

Ross and Cromarty

Rossendale

Rother

Roxburgh

Rugby

Runnymede

Rushcliffe

Ryedale

Salford

Sandwell

Scarborough

Scottish Special Housing Association

Sedgefield

Sefton

Selby

Shepway

Shetland

Skye and Lochalsh

Slough

Solihull

South Bedfordshire

South Buckinghamshire

South Cambridgeshire

South Holland

South Lakeland

South Norfolk

South Northampton

South Ribble

South Staffordshire

South Tyneside

South Wight

Southampton

Southend on Sea

Southwark

Spelthorne

St. Helens

Staffordshire Moorlands

Stevenage

Stewartry

Stirling

Stockton on Tees
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Stratford-on-Avon

Strathclyde

Strathkelvin

Stroud

Surrey Heath

Sutherland

Sutton

Swale

Swansea

Tameside

Tandridge

Tayside

Tendring

Test Valley

Tewkesbury

Three Rivers

Thurrock

Tonbridge and Mailing

Tower Hamlets

Tunbridge Wells

Tweeddale

Vale of Glamorgan

Vale of White Horse

Vale Royal

Wakefield

Walsall

Waltham Forest

Wandsworth

Watford

Waverley

Wealdon

Welwyn Hatfield

West Derbyshire

West Lothian

West Norfolk

West Somerset

West Wiltshire

Western Isles

Westminster

Weymouth and Portland

Wigan

Wigtown

Wimborne

Winchesterv

Windsor and Maidenhead

Wirral

Woking

Wokingham

Wolverhampton

Woodspring

Worthing

Wycombe

York
Total: 308
SourceBased on 1988 returns provided by 474 of the 483 local authorities in Great Britain.

§ Mr. Nellist
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether those in receipt of a war pension which prior to the April 1988 social security changes was disregarded in the calculation of housing benefit(a) were, and (b) are entitled to transitional protection; what rights of appeal are open to those pensioners so affected; and if he will make a statement.

§ Mr. Peter Lloyd
The housing benefit transitional payments scheme is intended to provide help to vulnerable groups of claimants who experienced reductions in their housing benefit as a result of changes introduced by the Government in April 1988. Those in receipt of a war pension are eligible to receive help in the same way as all other applicants except that transitional payments do not cover losses of housing benefit incurred as a result of a local authority limiting the scope of its discretionary scheme in April 1988.
The statutory disregard on war pensions in the housing benefit scheme was increased at the time of the April 63W reforms from £4 to £5 a week and also local authorities retained the right to provide additional help for war pension recipients should they wish to do so. War pension recipients are able to request reviews of their awards of transitional protection by a more senior officer in the same way as all other applicants.