Former MP for Dumfriesshire
Need for assistance is calculated in the first place by reference to the scale rates and other rules for reckoning requirements and resources laid down in the National Assistance (Determination of Need) Regulations. These Regulations have all along included provision for the allowance payable to an unemployed person to be restricted by reference to his normal earnings. The answer to the...
The point does not arise since constant attendance allowance cannot be paid except as a supplement to the basic pension for loss of faculty under the War Pensions and Industrial Injuries Schemes and then only where special conditions obtain.
I recognise that there can be difficulties and that there are difficulties, but the problem is to single out some sick people for more favourable attention than others. This allowance is based on a 100 per cent. assessment of loss of faculty, under the Industrial Injuries and War Pensions Schemes, and it would not be appropriate to graft this on to National Insurance.
This is the kind of subject that is very much under constant examination, but there is no possibility of transferring benefits which are conferred under one scheme to another scheme. Whatever may be the ultimate solution, that cannot be it.
No, Sir. The criteria applied by the Silicosis Medical Board are the same as those applied under the Industrial Injuries Acts and are derived from the stautory definition of pneumoconiosis, the general case-law on cause of death, and the current state of medical knowledge.
To deal with the particular case, the Silicosis Medical Board found, as I informed the right hon. Gentleman by letter, that there was no significant pneumoconiosis present. In any case, I think the right hon. Gentleman, with his great experience, would agree that it would be impossible to base a decision of this kind on a single case. I do not suppose he is basing it on a single case, but he...
The personnel of the Silicosis Medical Board are exactly the same as those of the pneumoconiosis panels, and for that very reason they are very closely in touch indeed with the Commissioner's rulings. Perhaps it might help the right hon. Gentleman if I told him that wherever a death occurs in a case where a man has been certified to have had pneumoconiosis during his life, then, if the...
Yes, Sir, and I have written to the hon. and learned Member about it.
