§ Mr. GogginsTo ask the President of the Board of Trade (1) if she will list those local authorities in England which fully disregard war pensions when calculating council tax benefits and housing benefit; [9141]
(2) if she will list those local authorities in England which do not fully disregard war pensions when calculating council tax benefit and housing benefit, indicating the level of disregard applied in each case. [9140]
§ Mr. Keith BradleyI have been asked to reply.
We do routinely collect information on discretionary local schemes for housing and council tax benefits as any such scheme must be funded from an authority's own resources and, therefore, the decision to operate such a scheme is entirely for local authorities. The information requested is therefore not available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.