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Financial Assistance Scheme and Incapacity Benefit (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2009

I referred earlier to having been gently chided, during a previous debate on the financial assistance scheme, for going into a history of that scheme as I saw it. I am going to resist that temptation today, probably to the Minister’s pleasure. Suffice to say that the substance of the order is not like that of the scheme itself or the orders emanating from it, where the Government had to be led, kicking and screaming, to do anything at all. This order is a different ball game. Last year’s order improved the financial assistance scheme yet again, that time to make payments available to people with terminal illnesses and those unable to work through illness up to five years before their normal retirement age. Naturally, their payments would be actuarily reduced at the time of first payment, and, presumably, after their retirement date as well—in other words, throughout their life. Perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm that. It came to light, though, that there was a problem with a few people who would be excluded from that provision, being too young to qualify. I believe that they did not totally fulfil the illness criterion as set out in last year’s order. I would be grateful if the Minister will confirm that when winding up. The order corrects that in cases where people have significantly reduced life expectancy if they have attained the age of 55 and are suffering from an ailment—the Minister used a technical term that I am afraid I did not catch—of which the prognosis is that they will die within five years. Amazingly, such payments are not to be actuarily reduced. Is this not apples and pears? The long-term ill are to have actuarily reduced payments, under last year’s order, while payments to the longer-term terminally ill are to be paid without such a reduction. That raises a question that I hope the Minister will be able to answer: why? The second question that arises is what happens when the unfortunate sufferer exceeds his life expectancy of five years. Doctors, after all, are not infallible, and medical science is improving all the time. Do the payments remain the same, suddenly become actuarily reduced or what? Will the recipient perhaps have to reapply? Incidentally, in the Minister’s closing words, when he said he hoped that the first payments would be made by the end of April this year, he did not comment on the fact that the individuals have to apply. That raises the question of how they apply and to whom. Given that when the five years is up they are, or will be by then, almost at, or near, death’s door, I hope that the payments will continue unaltered and unreapplied-for—what a horrible word—until death. I also note the second part of this order, which says that the payments we are discussing are to be treated as pensions. That has two effects. The first is that if the individual has enough income, the FAS payments will be taxable. The other is that they will go to reduce any incapacity benefit that may have been in payment. Will the Minister reassure me that not only will no one be worse off financially as a result of this but in all cases they will have more money to live on in their declining years? If the answers to my questions are positive, as I hope they are, then this order makes beneficial improvements to the financial assistance scheme and deserves our full support.