I move amendment No. 13:—
First Schedule, rule (1), sub-rule (2). Before the sub-rule to insert a new sub-rule as follows :—
(2) In the calculation of the annual means of a person for the purposes of paragraph (a) or paragraph (d) of the immediately preceding sub-rule the yearly value of any dwelling house in which the applicant for a pension resides shall be calculated as follows, that is to say—
(i) The first twenty-five pounds of the capital value of the said property shall be excluded; and
(ii) The yearly value of the next three hundred and seventy-five pounds of the capital value of the said property shall be taken to be the one-twentieth part of the capital value; and
(iii) The yearly value of so much of the capital value of the said property as exceeds the sum of four hundred pounds shall be taken to be one-tenth part of the capital value.
On the Committee Stage there was an amendment discussed seeking to have the means of a widow who was applying for a pension under the noncontributory scheme assessed in such a manner that if she were the owner of the house in which she lived—the house being of a certain value—the value should not be taken into account in assessing her means. The new drafting that I have put forward to achieve the same result is based upon the existing law in regard to old age pensions. The method of assessing means for persons under the Old Age Pensions Act, which was introduced in 1932 by the Minister, has been taken as the method of assessing in respect of this particular class of persons. The point is that there is a considerable number of houses in the country occupied by persons who have bought them on the instalment system. They are the legal owners of these houses, and there is the danger, a much more serious danger than, I think, the Minister will allow, that in assessing the value of that property the assessors will follow the course indicated by the Minister for Finance, and say that the assumed income from that property is the difference between what is paid out and what could be gained by the letting of that property. Conceivably, a widow in such a house, after meeting all outgoings, might get £20 of a profit rent if she were to let that house at the highest rent obtainable. But this widow lives in the house. She has lived there and brought up her children in it. She has a property in the house, but not something from which she obtains income. It is merely the home that she occupies. I want to see that such an assumed income is exempted from any calculation of means, and to achieve that I have followed the guidance of the Minister himself when he adopted this method in the Old Age Pensions Act of 1932.
A widow has a house value for, say, £400. The first £25 of the capital value will not be taken into account; for the next £375 the annual value will be taken to be 1/20th. If the value of the property exceeds £400, then 1/10th of the excess will be taken into account. Whatever merit that formula has in regard to old age pensions, it has the same merit in this case. While it may not affect very large numbers—and it may not affect any—there is no security that the Finance Department's method of assessment is not to be followed, and, having regard to the warning we have had from the Minister of Finance, it seems to me that some such provision as this is very desirable. I think the most effective way of achieving the thing I spoke of is the Minister's own formula taken from the Old Age Pensions Act.