HC Deb 13 May 1909 vol 4 cc2096-103

[Lords].

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

Motion made and Question proposed: an Amendment to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months." The point I desire to raise may by some Members be considered to be rather a Committee point. There has grown up a habit, which is becoming more general, of public authority in these Bills making payments to superannuation funds compulsory upon their officers. This Bill is one of those, and in clause 8 of the Bill there are two provisons made. The first is, that if an officer who has paid into this council superannuation fund resigns for any reason whatever, good, bad or indifferent, he forfeits the payment that he has made to the fund. I know perfectly well that some public authorities have got Bills with this provision through the House. I think the time has come for the House to say whether it proposes to allow that sort of thing to go on or not. An officer is compelled; he has no choice but, as a condition of his employment, to subscribe to the fund. I hold the subscriptions are his private property, and that, being his private property, they ought not to be alienated if he, to benefit himself or for any other reason, wishes to leave his position. There is another provision in this clause 8 that if an officer has been guilty of some misdemeanour then he may forfeit the payments he has made to the fund. Now this looks a more reasonable provision, but again I object. I think it is an exceedingly bad principle. If an officer is guilty of misdemeanour a court of law, and not the committee of a public authority, ought to have the power to forfeit his private property.

Those of us who have experience of municipal government know that there are committees and committees, that there are public authorities and public authorities, and if you put in the hands of the committee of a public authority the power of saying that under these circumstances this or that money paid by an officer should be forfeited, then you never know where you get. You have no guarantee you get justice. Prejudice may come in, anything may come in, and the officer has no redress. I do not believe that this House for a single moment will sanction this. I do not know if those who are going to defend the Bill are going to quote precedent. I admit straight away they have precedents against us. The question has never been raised, I think, before this, and I think it is a question which ought to be raised on second reading, and not merely discussed in Committee. Then there is a third point, and it is the last objection I make to the Bill. In clause 16 of the Bill the payments made to the City Superannuation Fund are provided. Now, I hold that if superannuation fund payments are to be made compulsory on public servants they must be made compulsory on one condition, and that is that the servants paying into those funds are to find their payments supplemented by contributions from the rates, and if you were going to have compulsory insurance for public servants, the public authorities compelling the servants to insure ought to take from the servants a contribution sufficiently high to make the fund actuarially sound, or in other words, the superannuation fund made up by contributions from the servants ought not to be actuarially sound, but ought to require some contribution from the rates.

I have been informed by a pretty eminent actuary that the Bill as drawn up, the Westminster Bill, will mean that the officers subscriptions will of themselves establish the fund upon an actuarially sound foundation. Not only is that the case, but I have an extract here taken from the Minutes of 15th November, 1908, from the Report of the Legal and Parliamentary Committee of the Westminster City Council. That committee reported: Any deficiency in the fund would be met out of the general rates, but it is anticipated that for some years, and henceforth from time to time the contributions to the fund would be more than sufficient to meet the calls upon it, and that the net surplus thus arising could be invested to advantage so that in the course of time the interest arising from the invested fund and the contributions of the officers will be sufficient to meet all the calls upon the fund without any assistance from the rates. Now, that is my case. The three points that I bring forward in no hostile spirit to the Westminster City Corporation are first of all, if you are going to have compulsory payment, and I do not object to them at all, those payments must be regarded as the private property of the officers who pay them. Secondly, they must not be forfeited, certainly not forfeited if the officer resigns without any stain on his character, or without any reason save to benefit himself or change his employment. I do not think that a good and sound and just cause could be made out for the forfeiture of those payments, even, if the officer has misconducted himself, because that is the function of a court of law, and not of a committee. Thirdly, if these funds were going to be created they ought not to be actuarially sound, except that the payment to the officers are augmented by the payments from the rates. I move accordingly.

Mr. JOHN WARD

I rise to second this Motion for the purpose especially of getting an explanation, if possible, upon one or two points in the Bill. In clause 8 the term "misconduct" is used as a justification for calling upon an officer to resign. That may be merely a question of want of discipline. It is a very loose term to use in this connection, and I should like some interpretation of it. For instance, would it be misconduct if a man in his spare time was an officer of a trade union, organising the other workmen in the employ of the city council? If the city council decided that he was not to occupy that position in his spare time, and he still insisted on remaining a member of his trade union, would that be considered misconduct within the terms of this clause? I am strongly of opinion, unless there is some other interpretation of the term, that disobedience by the officer concerned to any order given by the council, or by its chief officers, would be considered as sufficient misconduct for the purpose of this clause. In that case, the mere failure to carry out the orders of a superior officer would involve resignation, voluntary or otherwise, and might also involve the loss of the money deducted compulsorily from the wages of the men concerned. I notice, further, that in the clauses dealing with deductions from wages the term "servants" is used, while throughout the remaining part of the Bill the term used is "officer." I should like, therefore, to be sure that this is not a superannuation scheme for the superior officers of the council to the exclusion of the ordinary workmen. I do not say it is, but I should like the hon. Member for Westminster's statement that that is not the case. We cannot be too careful, seeing that we are giving very great powers under this Bill to the city council. We are allowing them, for instance, practically to repeal, so far as their workpeople are concerned, the Shop Clubs Act, which absolutely prohibits a firm from forcing any employé to belong to a fund or shop club of this description. We also have special law dealing with industrial concerns in the matter of these institutions, such as provident funds, and so on, started by private contractors and others; and where a council is asking for very big powers of this description we want to be certain that, if those powers are granted, the benefits, if any, will be distributed among the poorer workers as well as the well-salaried officers of the council.

Question proposed: "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS

It is, I think, very unfortunate that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway should take advantage of the present Bill to raise this question, not only because, as I think the hon. Member for Leicester admitted, there are many precedents for this measure, but because the Bill is, I believe, more generous to the workman than any Act of the same kind hitherto passed by Parliament. In this case, and, I believe, in this case alone, a workman is entitled to a pension at 60 years of age, not 65, without regard to length of service. In every other Act of the kind, I believe, the pension age is 65, and a provision is included that the workman must have been either 30 or 40 years, in the service. A second point in which this Bill is more favourable to the workmen than other Acts is in regard to the contributions demanded from the workmen. I feel so strongly that all the points which have been raised are really Committee points, that I hesitate to detain the House by going into details. I would, however, point out that, while in other Bills the scale of contribution varies from 2 per cent. of the wages and emoluments—that is 4 4–5d. in the £—up to 3 per cent., or 7 l–5d. in the £, according to the length of service, in the Westminster Bill the workmen whose wages do not exceed 25s. a week will pay only 4d.; the workmen receiving from 25s. to 30s. per week will pay 5d.; and those receiving from 30s. to 35s. per week will pay 6d. These contributions are more favourable to the workmen than those in any other similar Act.

I will deal very briefly with the three points raised by the hon. Member for Leicester. The hon. Member for Stoke added one other question with regard to the application of the superannuation provisions to workmen as well as officers. I can assure the hon. Member that the word "officer," wherever it is used, is intended to include all workmen, but if there should be any doubt upon the point it can be put right in Committee. The hon. Member for Leicester objects to the provisions of clause 16. I do not exactly understand how he will arrange a fund, which must of necessity be an insurance fund, without making provision for the accumulations being dealt with in the future. The House will understand that it is absolutely essential. You cannot arrange an insurance fund without there being accumulations. For instance, the contributions from the rates are made pari passu with the contributions from the workman. Those contributions from the rates would have been paid to the fund in such cases as we are dealing with, where the workman ceased connection with the fund before he was entitled to a pension. He would, of course, get his own contributions back, but he would not get the contributions from the rates. Therefore, there must be sums of money constantly accumulating, and such a clause (which the hon. Member admitted is actuarially sound) is necessary to provide for such a state of things. Well, I think the hon. Member, in reference to the term actuarially sound, said it must be actuarially unsound to satisfy his desires.

Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD

The point is this: that if you are compelling your officers to insure you ought to do so under the condition that their insurance premiums shall be supplemented from public sources. That is the point. Therefore your fund ought not to be actuarially sound owing to the contributions from the officers themselves. This actuarial soundness ought only to be obtained after the officers' contributions have been supplemented by the contributions from the council.

Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS

I will not discuss the very large question as to whether it is a wise thing to establish an insurance fund or not, or whether that fund should be compulsory. All I wished to point out was that it would pass the ingenuity or ability of the hon. Member, and it would pass the wit of man to arrange a scheme which would really carry out his intention. I can quite understand that if the contribution from the rates was made when the pension was due that some such arrangement as he desires might be made. But if the contribution from the rates is made pari passu with the contribution from the workmen that contribution from the rates must accumulate, and there must be provision for that in this Bill. I now come to the second point. That point was also referred to by the hon. Member for Stoke. It was whether a workman should be entitled to the return of his contribution if he is dismissed on account of fraud or grave misconduct. May I ask the attention of the hon. Member for Stoke for one moment in order to answer while I am upon this point the question which he put? He desired a definition of the word "misconduct," and he put some hypothetical case, some very light offence, which might be construed into misconduct, and might render the workman liable to the loss of his contributions. That was a point that I must say that I was somewhat curious upon; but I find in some other Acts that grave misconduct is defined as "anything involving pecuniary loss and injury to the authority." It is not any light misconduct, or anything about which there can be any doubt. It is a crime in one or two of the Acts which I have got here by me. But it has a general definition, and that is the idea of the promoters of the Bill in their use of the word. I am sure the city council would be prepared to insert words if my hon. Friend is not satisfied with simply the word "misconduct," words which would protect the workmen against any arbitrary action or injustice. May I say upon this question of fraud that there is no desire to bear hardly upon the workmen. It has been thought that as this insurance fund is created and not contributed to by workmen that it would be well that there should be a deterrent arranged for on the part of the workmen against what I have just explained as grave misconduct. I do not think that the general body of workmen, either those employed under this body or anywhere else, are particularly anxious to see the deterrent removed. In my communications with people so employed they have been rather anxious—they have considered it as a point of honour—that the fraudulent employé should be separated from the rest by some sort of provision like this.

I come to the point raised by the hon. Member as to whether a workman who voluntarily resigns before he is entitled to his pension should be deprived of his contributions to the pension fund. Upon that point I am thoroughly and entirely in agreement with my hon. Friend. I do not know why the Bill was drawn up as it has been with this provision in it, because I cannot find anybody to whom I have talked and who are responsible for this Bill who would sanction such a thing. Therefore I can undertake in good faith to make certain that the Bill will be altered in that respect, so that should the workman desire to better himself, to change his employment, or leave the service of the Westminster City Council, he will have his contributions to the superannuation fund returned in full. I have endeavoured to answer all the points so far as I could put before the House, and I would like to urge upon this House to give this Bill a second reading. I venture to think that the explanation I have offered on these main principles which have been discussed by the hon. Member for Leicester have satisfied the hon. Member, and I venture to hope that hon. Members will let the Bill go through, because they will have another opportunity of discussing it.

Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD

In view of the comments of my hon. Friend that he will meet me on the first point, although I have my feelings on the second and third, and as this is only the second reading of the Bill, and as I will have another opportunity of raising the question, I propose to ask the House to allow me to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed.

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