HC Deb 15 June 1911 vol 26 cc1678-9
Mr. PATRICK O'BRIEN

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that in the present state of the law a person who spent all his best working years from age twenty to fifty in a foreign country is entitled to the old age pension at seventy if he returned to the United Kingdom when fifty years old, but a person who worked wholly in the United Kingdom till sixty-five, and at that age went even to a British possession for the purpose of making his home with a son or daughter married there, and has been obliged to return to the United Kingdom (for instance, by the death of such married child) after two years' absence, aged sixty-seven, is debarred from the pension till the age of eighty-seven; and whether, having regard to the comparatively small additional burden on the Exchequer by an alteration of the law in this respect and the acuteness of the hardship to each individual affected by it, he will take steps to ascertain whether a measure putting the law on a more reasonable basis will be able to secure assent from all parts of the House and pass as an unopposed measure?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Perhaps I may refer the hon. Member to the statement made as to the intentions of the Government in this connection by my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on the 19th May, on the Second Reading of the Old Age Pensions Bill recently introduced.

Mr. P. O'BRIEN

Has anything been done since then to ascertain what the decision of the House would be if an amended Bill was brought in?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Well, last night we got the money Resolutions, and the Bill was afterwards sent upstairs. These matters will be considered.