§ Mr. HannamTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make it his policy to ensure deaf students will continue to be eligible for(a) income support, (b) housing benefit and (c) unemployment benefit following the introduction of top-up loans for students.
§ Mrs. Gillian ShephardWe propose that those deaf students who meet the criteria for the disability premium will continue to be eligible for income support and housing benefit. This will include any deaf student in receipt of attendance allowance, mobility allowance, invalidity pension or severe disablement allowance, and those who are also registered blind. Students whose sole disability is deafness are among the least likely to have additional weekly living expenses because of their disability of the kind that income support and housing benefit are intended to meet. Deaf students who face additional costs in connection with their course of study will continue to be eligible for the disabled students allowance under the mandatory award arrangements. We also propose that all full-time students will be excluded from unemployment benefit since students have removed themselves from the labour market and are not unemployed.
§ Mr. HannamTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make it his policy to ensure that all disabled students will continue to be eligible for(a) income support, (b) housing benefit and (c) unemployment benefit following the introduction of top-up loans for students.
§ Mrs. Gillian ShephardWe propose that students who meet the criteria for the disability premium will continue to be eligible for income support and housing benefit. This will include any student in receipt of attendance allowance, mobility allowance, invalidity pension or severe disablement allowance and students who are registered blind. We also propose that all full-time students will be excluded from unemployment benefit since students have removed themselves from the labour market and are not unemployed.
§ Mr. WareingTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how the European Community's programme to assist handicapped people has been apportioned between the individual states; and how the United Kingdom's allocation is to be used.
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§ Mr. ScottThe amount allocated to the programme, called HELIOS, was not divided between member states but assigned to the various aspects of the programme, the majority going towards the development of HANDYNET, the multilingual computerised database of information on disability questions.