Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 section 214

Entitlement to allowance

Section 214 establishes the farm assist allowance for qualifying farmers, setting out the age and means conditions for eligibility and the rules for halving means where a spouse, civil partner or cohabitant has certain social welfare entitlements.

• Farm assist is payable to farmers aged 18 or over but below pensionable age whose weekly means do not exceed the maximum farm assist rate.
• Where the claimant's spouse, civil partner or cohabitant falls into specified categories or receives jobseeker's pay related benefit, the claimant's means are halved.
• Transitional protection applied for claimants already on farm assist before the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2007 changes, preserving whichever means calculation was more favourable — but this protection is lost once the general halving rule is applied or the claimant goes off farm assist for four or more consecutive weeks.
• The halving rule also applies where the claimant's spouse, civil partner or cohabitant is receiving a payment under Part 6 of the Act (Working Family Payment and related provisions).