Vol. 440 No. 4
112 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated cost of extending to all social welfare pensioners aged 70 and over, the entitlement to free television licence and free electricity allowance, irrespective of whether they are living alone; and his views on whether it would be a beneficial change in helping to keep younger relatives living with the elderly.
The free electricity allowance and free television licence schemes are designed primarily to encourage elderly or disabled people who are living alone on limited means to continue to live in their own homes. However, the living alone condition attached to the schemes allows certain people to live with the pensioner without affecting entitlement. In 1990 I removed the living alone condition altogether for those schemes in the case of people 80 years of age or over and from July next the living alone condition will no longer apply to people 75 years or over.
The current annual cost of the free electricity allowance and the free television licence schemes is about £32 million. The cost of extending those schemes to all social welfare pensioners aged 70 and over who are not currently qualified for these schemes is estimated at about £350,000 a year. Any further reduction in the age at which the living alone condition ceases to apply would have to be considered in a budgetary context.
