Welfare Reform Bill

To deal with this a little more fully, the provisions are here because we must deal with regulations under this Bill. To be more specific, subsection (4) provides a power to make regulations prescribing how income from capital holdings will be taken into account in calculating ESA. Normally, capital will be deemed to have an assumed tariff income for the purposes of assessing entitlement. The intention is that a tariff income of £1 a week for every £250, or part thereof, will be applied to capital over £6,000, or £10,000 for those in residential care and nursing homes, up to and including £16,000. That is the way that income from capital assets is determined for other income-related benefits, such as income support and income-based jobseeker’s allowance. We shall simply roll forward the current arrangements in benefits legislation, but we need to do it specifically for ESA because of its income-related component.