CLAUSE 33.—(Transfer from Approved Society to Deposit Insurance, and vice versâ.) (Hansard, 1 November 1911)

§ Mr. LANSBURY
I beg to move, in Subsection (1), paragraph (b), after the word "with" ["dealt with in such manner"], to insert the words, "for the benefit of himself or of his dependents."
The object of the Amendment is to secure that any money which may stand to the credit of a man, if he does not become a deposit contributor, shall be carried to his dependents. That is a proposal that the Committee might accept without doing any harm at all to the conditions laid down by the Chancellor, especially in view of the fact that in the case of transfer he has already promised on Report to bring up some arrangement by which this shall be carried out.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
All these questions can be considered on the rules, and I think it will be a mistake to put in words of this kind before the rules are considered. I can promise this to the hon. Member, that if it is necessary to introduce words in order to enable the regulations to take this form I will consider it between this and Report.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I beg to move, in Subsection (2), to leave out paragraph (a).
I move this in order to ask the Government to justify what they propose to do. It will be observed that if a depositor subsequently becomes a member of an approved society, he may lose a very considerable proportion of the credit which stands to his name in the Post Office contributors' fund. Let me take a concrete case which will make my meaning clear. A man enters insurance as a deposit contributor at sixteen. In the course of ten years he has built up a fund standing to his credit which may very well amount to 962 £10. Supposing he then joins an approved society, and suppose that his reserve value amounts to something like £5, that amount will be taken out of his credit in the Post Office fund and credited to the society as his reserve value. The balance of £5 standing to his credit in the Post Office fund will be forfeited as far as he is concerned. I can quite see the point of view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer wishing to build up and swell the Post Office fund, but I want him to explain how it is fair to the individual.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
It is really quite immaterial now because we are reconsidering the whole of this proposal on 1st January, 1915, and it is almost inconceivable that a fund should be accumulated which would be in excess of the transfer value. It is quite immaterial whether it is in or out for that reason. I really do not care if the hon. Gentleman would really like to have it out.

§ Mr. FORSTER
That is another case in point. It shows that the whole position of the deposit contributor is so unsatisfactory to the House that they all agree that the proposals in the Bill cannot stand and that the whole question must be reconsidered, if not this year or next, at any rate within the next two or three years.

§ Mr. SNOWDEN
I beg to move, in paragraph (b), after the word "shall" ["the insured person shall be treated"], to insert the word "not."
I move this mainly for the purpose of ascertaining what is the meaning of this paragraph. In the case of a Post Office depositor transferring to an approved society, if the amount standing to his credit in the Post Office is less than, I suppose, his value in the approved society he is to be debited with arrears. How is it proposed to give effect to that and to charge the person with arrears?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The point of the paragraph is that if a man who has been a Post Office contributor subsequently joins a society, the society of course can only take him on his paying something which is equivalent to the transfer value. Supposing the amount is not sufficient for that purpose, he can either pay it up himself and put himself in the same position as anyone else, or he can take reduced benefits. That is the whole point.