asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce legislation to enable supplementary benefit to be continued to be paid to women who it is alleged have been cohabiting until the case has been adjudicated by an independent tribunal.

No, Sir. It is right that questions of entitlement to benefit should be determined in the first instance by the Supplementary Benefits Commission.

Is it not monstrous that a woman who is faced with a situation like this should have her benefit cut off, often simply on the say-so of an investigating officer who may have based his findings on hearsay, as I and no doubt other hon. Members have found on numerous occasions? Would it not be fairer if a tribunal were to adjudicate on the evidence and then make its decision upon the evidence?

No. The commission's officers do not make a cohabitation decision in the first place without carefully considering all the evidence. However, once they have concluded that cohabitation exists, benefit has to be withdrawn, as, on the face of it, no entitlement exists.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is no official definition of "cohabitation"? Although I think most people would agree that a widow, divorcee or unmarried woman living with a man as his wife, should not get social benefit, at the moment because of this unclear indication of the cohabitation rule a large number of widows who take in bona fide lodgers are being harassed by the officials.

I hope my hon. Friend will send me names of any cases where he thinks there is harassment. The Supplementary Benefits Commission has published a leaflet seeking to define cohabitation as it understands it. I shall send my hon. Friend a copy of that publication.

Will the right hon. Member bear in mind that a woman may have to wait eight to 16 weeks before she can appeal and that she would not, I believe, be allowed legal aid? It is wrong that she should suffer financial hardship—and possibly her children as well—waiting for an appeal against a law which is imprecise, when the facts are often extremely hard to obtain.

By hypothesis, in cases where the commission's officers have evidence that cohabitation exists, there are resources coming into the household, and often have been for some time.