To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether foster parent allowances will be treated as income when calculating entitlement to community charge benefit.

The community charge benefit scheme will not treat as income any fostering allowance made to a claimant.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be the cost of applying individually to a husband and wife the £8,000 limit on assets which cause a community charge payer to be ineligible for rebates.

Information on the individual capital holding of members of couples is not available.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the likely cost of community charge rebate for 1990–91; and how much that would increase if savings were to be disregarded.

[holding answer 8 February 1990]: Expenditure on community charge benefit in England, Wales and Scotland in 1990–91 is currently forecast to be £1·75 billion. Information is not available to make precise estimates but it seems probable that expenditure would increase by between £250 million and £300 million if the capital limit was abolished and no income was assumed to be derived from capital holdings.