To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he next expects to review the criteria for payment of invalid care allowance.

The earnings limit for people receiving invalid care allowance was increased, in April, from £12 to £20 per week. The extension of attendance allowance for children under age two from April, and for terminally ill people without the normal six-month waiting period, proposed for October 1990, will enable more carers to qualify for invalid care allowance. We also propose to introduce, from October, a £10 carers premium into income support, housing benefit and community charge benefit for those receiving invalid care allowance.