The Welfare Supplementary Payment (Extension) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2022

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend existing regulations under Article 137 of the Welfare Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 2015 which provided for welfare supplementary payment to be paid to individuals where certain entitlements to social security benefits had been terminated or reduced. The relevant common feature of the existing regulations was that they provided for welfare supplementary payment not to be payable for times after 31st March 2020. These Regulations provide for welfare supplementary payment under the existing regulations to become payable again as from the end of the day these Regulations are made. These Regulations do not alter what is payable for times before they come into operation. Accordingly, replacement of the 31st March 2020 cut-off date with the new end date of 31st March 2025 is accompanied by text confirming that welfare supplementary payment is not payable under the existing regulations for times in the “administrative period” that began with 1st April 2020 and ends with the date these Regulations are made.

The existing regulations deal separately with entitlement to welfare supplementary payment and the period for which it is payable. As a result, entitlements may have arisen or ended, or been suspended or ceased to be suspended, during the intervening administrative period, or the amount of an entitlement may have changed during that period. Those matters will affect what is payable for times after the day these Regulations are made.

In some cases, welfare supplementary payment is limited to being paid for a maximum period of one year, and these Regulations provide for relevant times in the administrative period to count towards that year, even though no amounts are payable under the existing regulations for times in that period. In those one-year cases, some of the amendments made by regulations 2, 4, 6 and 8 of these Regulations will, once a clear year has elapsed, no longer need references to the administrative period, and regulations 3, 5, 7 and 9 of these Regulations therefore make amendments coming into operation after 13 months in order to simplify the amended text by removing what by then will be spent references.