Social Security Act 1973

2 (1) Except where regulations otherwise provide, a person shall be disqualified for receiving any benefit, and an increase of benefit shall not be payable in respect of any person as the beneficiary's wife or husband, for any period during which that person—

(a) is absent from Great Britain ; or

(b) is undergoing imprisonment or detention in legal custody.

(2) Regulations may provide for the suspension of payment to or in respect of any person during any such period as aforesaid of benefit which is excepted from the operation of sub-paragraph (1) above or which is payable otherwise than in respect of that period.

(3) Regulations may provide for disqualifying a person for the receipt of any benefit if he fails to make his claim therefor within the prescribed time; but any such regulations shall provide for extending, subject to any prescribed conditions, the time within which the claim may be made in cases where good cause is shown for delay.

(4) Notwithstanding any regulations made by virtue of sub-paragraph (3) above, no sum shall be paid to any person—

(a) on account of a maternity grant in respect of a confinement occurring more than 12 months before the date on which the claim for the grant is made ;

(b) on account of a death grant in any case where the prescribed time for making a claim falls to be extended by virtue of that sub-paragraph by more than 12 months;

(c) on account of any other benefit in respect of any period more than 12 months before the date on which the claim for the benefit is made.

(5) Regulations may provide for treating a person for the purposes of the following provisions of this Act—

(a) section 10(8);

(b) section 13 ; and

(c) section 17(4),

as having been entitled to benefit for any day if he would have been so entitled but for any delay or failure to make or prosecute a claim; but a person shall not be so treated where he shows that he did not intend, by failing to acquire or establish a right to benefit for that day, to cause a new period of interruption of employment to begin for the purposes of earnings-related supplement, or to avoid the necessity for requalifying for benefit.

(6) Subject to sub-paragraph (7) below, where it appears to the Secretary of State that a question has arisen whether—

(a) the conditions for the receipt of benefit payable under an award are or were fulfilled; or

(b) an award of benefit ought to be revised in accordance with Part IV of the former principal Act,

he may direct that payment of the benefit shall be suspended in whole or in part until that question has been determined ; but this sub-paragraph shall not apply in any case where the question has arisen as to whether the claimant has ceased to be entitled to receive unemployment benefit by reason of any of the provisions of section 14(2)(b) to (e) of this Act.

(7) Regulations may provide that sub-paragraph (b) above shall cease to apply to any case, or to cases of any specified description, to which it would otherwise apply, or shall apply to cases of any specified description to which it would otherwise not apply.