§ Mr. BeggsTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make it his policy to provide an increase above the rate of inflation in income support for people in residential care throughout the United Kingdom when income support is next uprated; and if he will make a statement.
§ Miss WiddecombeIn setting the income support limits we have to make decisions within the context of the Government's public expenditure objectives, which embrace not only spending on people in independent homes but on the rest of the social security system, the NHS, and other public services. It is our policy to direct available resources to where the need is greatest and where such targeting will prove most effective.
Rates of income support in Northern Ireland are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The same considerations do, of course, apply there as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom.