§ Mr. BradleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what changes have been made in entitlement to and the method of calculating severe disablement allowance since 1979.
§ Mr. ScottSevere disablement allowance was introduced in November 1984 to replace non-contributory 695W invalidity pension. SDA is a non-means-tested benefit, paid at a basic rate, with dependency additions. In December 1990, three age-related additions were introduced to concentrate additional money on those who became disabled early in life. In April 1992, the residence and presence conditions were eased in line with the then newly introduced disability living allowance. In December 1993, changes were made to the transitional regulations to allow women who may have qualified for NCIP, but for the household duties test, to qualify for SDA, even though they did not make a claim for SDA. The upper age limits for claiming and supplying medical evidence are being equalised for men and women, following a challenge to the rules in the European Court of Justice—case C328/91.
§ Mr. BradleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what are his plans regarding the proposed medical test of incapacity in relation to severe disablement allowance;
(2) under what circumstances (a) existing and (b) new claimants of severe disablement allowance will undertake the proposed medical test of incapacity.
§ Mr. ScottI refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 11 and 21 February at columns498 and 45. New claimants will have to fulfil the requirements of the new objective medical incapacity test. In practice, we expect that there will be sufficient evidence in the majority of cases to show that the claimant fulfils the requirements of the new test without any further investigation.