Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Work and Pensions – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 16 March 2009.
Kitty Ussher
Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions
2:30,
16 March 2009
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue, and we will, of course, evaluate and review the SMI package in due course. It is worth making it clear that people can receive SMI even if they are on contribution-based JSA, if they are single and meet the qualifying criteria for income-based JSA in terms of the level of savings and so on. However, I suspect my hon. Friend refers to situations when somebody is part of a couple, in which case she is right as the remunerative work rule means that it is long held that they cannot access income-based benefits of any kind if their partner is working more than 24 hours per week. It is precisely to help and support this type of family in such circumstances that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing will shortly be introducing the mortgage support scheme.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
