UC housing costs and war pensioners

Hi,

Apologies if I’ve missed this in the draft regs.

Currently for DWP purposes, the first £10.00 of any war pension is disregarded when benefits are assessed.

Local authorities also have the £10.00 statutory disregard but then have discretionary powers to disregard more of the war pension. Most local authorities disregard war pensions in full for HB purposes.

When HB becomes a housing cost under UC and PC, will it just be the statutory £10.00 disregard?

If it is just the statutory disregard that is applied, it could mean people who currently receive HB from the local authority won’t qualify under the new UC and PC regulations.

Any thoughts?

John

War pensions are not mentioned in the list of “unearned income” and are thus disregarded. This is not a drafting error: see paragraph 191 of the Explanatory Memonrandum which specifically emphasises the point.

Thanks for this, don’t know how I managed to miss this in the explanatory notes!

John