The purpose of the proposed legislation is to amend various social security regulations to apply a new capital disregard to payments made from the estate of a deceased infected person which derive from payments made to the estate by an approved infected blood scheme.

Beneficiaries of any such payment who also receive means-tested benefits will have the payment disregarded for the purposes of assessing their entitlement to means-tested benefits and it will therefore have no impact on their benefit award.   

This will ensure that these beneficiaries of a deceased infected person’s estate can receive their compensation payment and remain on means-tested benefit, if they choose to do so.