asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he has considered the desirability of granting the same old-age pension to each married person as to single persons, widows or widowers, or of reducing the difference between that paid to the former and to the latter.

Where a husband and wife are both insured they will each be granted a pension at the single person's rate. I see no reason for providing similar treatment where the wife relies on her husband's insurance.

Is the Minister aware of the anomaly of two people living in two separate rooms, in the same household, or, indeed, actually cohabiting, each receiving a pension and, therefore, receiving an aggregate income, by pension, much larger than if they were married?

That may well be so, where each has been a contributor to the Insurance Fund.