TOP Tory Jeremy Balfour refused to apologise today for proposing that terminally ill people should be reassessed for benefits if they are still alive after three years.

The Scottish Conservatives’ welfare spokesman withdrew his amendment to a social security Bill being debated in the Scottish Parliament, whle still insisting that it was well-intentioned.

Mr Balfour had sought to change the law to specify that, “where an individual’s eligibility depends on the individual having a terminal
illness [and] at the end of a period of three years beginning with the day on which the individual applied for such assistance, the individual is still living, the Scottish ministers must review the individual’s entitlement to assistance.”