NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT. (Hansard, 11 February 1913)

HC Deb 11 February 1913 vol 48 cc863-98 863

§ "That a sum, not exceeding £1,825,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1913, for Grants-in-Aid of National Health Insurance (United Kingdom), in addition to the sums payable under Section 3 of the National Insurance Act, 1911."

§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

864

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
When, Mr. Speaker, eighteen months ago, we gave you authority of a judicial kind under the Parliament Act, even those of us who supported the measure must have felt that a very extraordinary and unusual step was being taken in the development of the Constitution. For the first time we made Mr. Speaker a judicial officer. We appointed him to construe what were Money Bills, and upon Mr. Speaker will depend whether the King's Majesty can place the Royal signature to a measure to seal the action of the House of Commons. Therefore, when in the future we are dealing with anything in the nature of a Money Bill, I think it is incumbent upon us to see that these measures fulfil the older functions of Money Bills, and that they do not go outside. If, for instance, they should become legislative Bills, or Bills to enable a Minister hard pressed by any political or social difficulty to use the money in his own control for the advancement of his own policy without any regard to statute: then if such Bills are promoted a very onerous, unpleasant, and delicate duty is cast upon the Speaker. Accordingly in future those of us who support the Parliament Act must take care that Estimates are presented and Appropriation Bills are drafted if we want these Bills to pass the House without the intervention of the House of Lords, to which the Speaker can, in accordance with the Constitution, give his assent under this Section of the Parliament Act. That is the new function that is cast upon Members of this House. The other function is the common function, namely, the necessity of economy, and to that function we have been bidden in connection with the Vote now before the House, and attention has been fastened on it in a special manner by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He begged the House of Commons in glowing and vivid language that when Estimates of this kind came before it the House has a special duty cast upon it of exercising a check upon the Departments and of exercising a check upon himself. He laid that down in May, 1911, when he was bringing in the Budget of that year in language which though perhaps familiar on the lips of every Chancellor of the Exchequer is, I think, of special significance in reference to the very offensive and wholly unfounded charges as regards statements, not one of which has one rag or tittle of foundation, which he made when I myself ventured to 865 ask a question on this subject on Friday last. Let me first call attention to the language of the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he is filling the dignified rôle of introducer of the Budget, and then let me contrast that with his language when he degenerates, as I think I will show he has done to the malignity of the corner-boy. I will first quote for the House the right hon. Gentleman in his robes. He spoke on the 16th May, 1911, and he asked this question:— Can we finance insurance without fresh taxation? I will be perfectly frank with the Committee. The answer to that depends entirely upon the Departments and on the House of Commons. Can they keep down the expenditure? The Departments cannot keep down expenditure without the House of Commons, with which rests the primary—the first and the last—responsibility. The Exchequer is pressed from two quarters—it is pressed to spend more and to charge less. You cannot do both. If you raise more money for any purpose you must find it somewhere. More expenditure means more taxation, and if every man when he proposed an increase of expenditure had in his mind the necessity for finding the cash for the purpose, I am perfectly certain there are many proposals made in this House which would never be advanced. The Committee will forgive me for speaking very frankly. Then he deals with the facts of the case and says:— There is too mach attention paid to the case and too little to the cash. I respectfully appeal to the House of Commons on this point. I do not suggest for a moment that one side is more to blame than the other. Whenever there is a demand of increased expenditure it is the duty of the House of Commons to review the whole financial position and not merely each separate item for which special taxation is asked. Then he goes on to say:— It is really the House of Commons alone which is responsible, and I warn the House of Commons that any attempt to increase benefit must increase the extent of taxation. I appeal to Members, therefore, to assist the Government in resisting every inducement to place fresh burdens for this purpose upon the taxpayer in addition to the generous provision made for it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th May, 1911, cols. 1868–70, Vol. XXV.] That is the right hon. Gentleman in his best form, which one very much likes to see him always retain. I now wish to show the right hon. Gentleman in another form. Acting on the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman, I rose on Friday, and in language which anyone who reads it will consider moderate, I asked questions for the information of the Committee as to what this £1,800,000 is required for, and I was met in this spirit by the right hon. Gentleman with a series of statements as to one of which there is not an atom of foundation. The personal element in this question is extremely small and unimportant, but what is of importance is that it shows that a Minister who at a crisis of his fate when this Insurance Bill was in the balance, and when it was doubtful whether doctors could be found 866 to work it, and when a month ago this whole question was in flux, did not hesitate, in order to advance the interests of his own personal policy without Statute—if he did the Statute there is an end to the matter—dipped into the finances of this country, and drew from it a huge sum of money, and then, when brought to book, instead of stating upon what ground he had drawn the money, under what Section he had drawn it, or what was his authority for drawing it, ignores all these questions and attempts simply to drench those who question him with a flood of bilge water. Those who had the advantage of being in this House under the Chancellorship of Mr. Gladstone, Sir William Harcourt, the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for East Worcestershire, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, and other famous financiers of the last thirty years, and I do not think anyone, however humble, will question that any person rising to ask a question with regard to a new Estimate brought forward in the disguise of a Supplementary Estimate, and affecting to be for a year, namely, the year 1913 ending in March, for which it is conceded no money whatever is required, especially any one like myself, who has in the main given his support to the Government—certainly I voted except on one occasion, upon every occasion upon the Welsh Church Bill, which is supposed to be the darling of the right hon. Gentleman's heart—whether one be for or against the Government, I think one may lay down the rule if one cannot have civility one is entitled to accuracy. I first asked: Under what Section of the Insurance Act is this money voted? I called attention to the fact that the Estimate distinctly declared that it is not voted under Section 3. Section 3 is the Section which provides that this House shall find two-ninths and the rest of the community shall find seven-ninths of the money. It is the "ninepence for fourpence" Section, and I should have thought if there was any one shibboleth as to which the Government might think themselves impregnable it was as regards this "ninepence for fourpence" Section. Accordingly, I say if this £1,800,000 is not required to implement this two-ninths, what is it for and under what Section is it voted? The original estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that the doctors would cost 4s., and I said, "If you have, by reason of the doctors' demands, 867 to double that amount and thereby change the basis of taxation, you may thereby possibly alter the employers' and workmen's seven-ninths contribution, because if the State two-ninths be altered it may follow that some similar alteration may take place in the seven ninths." At all events, if there is one thing certain it is that the seven-ninths is fixed and constant, and, if it be fixed and constant, the two-ninths must depend upon the figure with which you start as the popular or taxpayers' contribution. That is an intelligible proposition. I said, "If you are not working under Section 3, and if this is not to provide medical and sanatoria benefit and the other benefits under the Act, what is it for?" I then went on to ask, "Could it be possible the Government were using an Appropriation Bill for legislation?" I especially call the attention of the Labour party to this. They are very anxious that the age for old age pensions should be reduced from seventy years to sixty years, and some of them are perhaps anxious to increase the pension from 5s. to 6s. or 7s. A Chancellor of the Exchequer, possibly a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, seeking popularity, might by means of an Estimate and the Appropriation Bill, and without more, provide that henceforth old age pensions shall be raised from 5s. to 7s. 6d., and the age reduced from seventy to sixty years. I am not arguing for one moment whether these be desirable changes or not. I only say that in view of the Parliament Act these are changes which must be made, not indirectly by the Appropriation Act, but by direct and decisive legislation. My argument went to that, and no further. It appears to me that when there is a special appeal made by the Government to this House, and to every Member of this House, to see that no reckless finance is tolerated, that the Treasury Departments should be kept strictly within their limits and legitimate bounds. I think it is no crime to ask the Government for information upon these subjects. I asked these questions, and the answers I got made me think he had mistaken me for the Colonial Secretary in a Suffrage Debate, or that perhaps I belonged to the Reform Club, which I do not. This is the reply of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what, after all, was a constitutional question:— I come to the objection that, not for the first time, has been put forward that this has never been done 868 before—that it is an outrage on constitutional precedent due entirely to the wicked people here, who want to extend these benefits to Ireland. It had never been done before! Well on the very occasion to which he refers he said exactly the same thing! What happened? He challenged precedents. He got one. He got many more precedents than he cared for. My right hon. Friend has a list as long as my arm, and he pelted and buffeted the hon. and learned Gentleman with them, and I think, for the first time, reduced him to a state in which he was left dizzy and speechless. It was the first time, I think, that I have found the hon. and learned Gentleman absolutely speechless. I will do him the credit to say that he is never dismayed by the badness of his case. But this time it was so hopelessly bad that he had not a word to say for himself. It has taken him twelve months to get over it. He has recovered, and here he is at it again. With tremendous truculence he puts forward his case. He has forgotten what took place, and he has relied upon the memory of everyone else being as bad as his own. Luckily it is not! I remember his questions: there was a very long string of them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th February, 1913, cols. 335–6.] Of course, that is very small, but let me say that so far from being reduced to silence by the very powerful eloquence of the Secretary to the Treasury who buffeted me in this pitiless manner, I made three speeches in reply. My speeches may be good or bad, but at all events he suggested that I had made so wretched a case, and this, too, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, after all, is the second person in the Ministry of the Empire, and who, by this, I should have supposed, should have long since sown his wild—shall we say, leeks. I suppose he is still sowing them now, as he is not here. [An HON. MEMBER: "He is ill."] I did not know that. Had I been informed I should not have said that. Nobody has a more sincere regard for the ability of the right hon. Gentleman, but the greater his ability the less one cares to see it exercised, not only in a bad case, but in attempting to say to those who are obeying his suggestion to challenge the Treasury in the interests of economy, "You have brought forward a bad point. You have no reply to make, and you are reduced to pitiable silence." For all that, so far as the right hon. Gentleman is concerned, there is not one word of foundation. The right hon. Gentleman who was sitting beside him knew there was not a word of foundation for it, and should have reminded him that there was no foundation for it, because not merely did I endeavour to encounter the right hon. Gentleman upon one day, but I renewed the attack again and again. Whether my arguments were good, bad, or indifferent, for that suggestion there was not a word of foundation. The moral I wish to draw from it is this: When a finance Minister, pressed for information upon a substantial 869 point, is driven to take refuge in subterfuges of that kind, what are we to say of the finance Minister's accuracy upon that or upon any other matter?
11.0 P.M.
Let us now come to the substance of the case. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I suppose that as the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved the Closure immediately after his own speech on Friday—a very handsome thing for him to do—I suppose that others would like to see the Closure moved now, but I think they will find before grasp of this is relaxed that it has a much more serious aspect than perhaps some of them realise. The right hon. Gentleman stated that I brought this point forward before. That statement is equally incorrect. I would not have brought forward before a point that had never arisen in the British Constitution. I never would have brought forward a point that would not arise until this Estimate was presented. I said this was a Supplementary Estimate. That was also denied by the right hon. Gentleman on Friday, and when I held up the page before his eyes, he then, being contradicted by the statement which was signed by "C. F. G. Masterman," was not prepared to deny his statement signed by his own colleague. Let us now see where the money of the public is going, what it is going for, and what is the authority for this Vote. The sum in question is a large one. You would think you were most generous to Ireland by your Home Rule finance. You are to collect all her taxes, and you provide that in future she is to have £200,000 per annum. That is the handsome dowry with which you propose to start us upon our national career, plus any savings we can effect. This is a sum of £1,825,000, and my first question is under what Section of the Insurance Act is it voted. I put that question twice to the Government. I put it on Friday and I put it again yesterday, and the question is all the more urgent if you look at the Stationery Vote and find that by way of masking the additional expenses there is practically an entirely new service and a very large sum, £177,000, which they say is "required to meet unforeseen liabilities incurred for Departments administering the National Insurance Act, for the Post Office, Telephones, and for additional stocks of paper," and so on. We are invited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to keep our eye on the Department. The first aid to keeping our eye on the Department would be for the Department to present one Estimate as a 870 whole, so that we should know exactly what was the sum that has been incurred under all this Insurance Vote. The second thing which would enable us greatly to check the Department's action would be that they should put in the Estimate, as they generally do in regard to all Estimates, the Section of the Act of Parliament under which the Vote is taken.
Let me first call the attention of the House to the fact that this Section 3 includes not merely the expenses of the Insurance Act, the two-ninths and seven-ninths, but that it includes the expenses of the administration of the Act, because when the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed his Budget and proposed the Insurance Act he informed the House of Commons that it would cost so much and no more. It would cost the employer and the employed seven-ninths and the State two-ninths of that amount. That that is so is, I think, shown by Section 3, and the Estimate says it is under this Section that this £1,800,000 is voted:—
"Except as otherwise provided by this Act, the funds for providing the benefits conferred by this part of this Act and defraying the expenses of the administration of those benefits."
That is to say, the benefits themselves; the administration falls under a Vote to be taken under Section 3—
"shall be derived as to seven-ninths (or, in the case of women, three-fourths), thereof for contributions made by or in respect of the contributors, by themselves or their employers, and as to the remaining two-ninths (or, in the case of women, one quarter) thereof for monies provided by Parliament."
One would naturally suppose, therefore, when a vote for so substantial a sum as £1,800,000 was being asked for, it was on the footing of these benefits, because the House knows that in the Estimates we voted last year—this will be the second Appropriation Act—sums for administrative expenses. Therefore we dealt with the administrative expenses in August last, and we are done with that. This Act only came into force on 1st January, and this is for service which will only be to 31st March, 1913. Therefore this is a service for three months only. If this £1,800,000 is a reasonable amount for one quarter, independent of Section 3 of the Act, what are the services under Section 3? Therefore I respectfully submit that this Vote is not in any sense a genuine Vote, that this is the Vote which covers the deal 871 with the doctors. Let it not be supposed that I am complaining of the amount amount given to the doctors. On the contrary, I think the Government were quite right to treat the medical men fairly. I have no complaint whatever with the Government for giving these sums to the doctors whose services are absolutely required. What I put to the House is this: Whenever any Minister unconnected with the Treasury goes to the Treasury for money the Treasury acts as the watchdog upon the other Departments, but when the Chancellor of the Exchequer goes to Mr. Lloyd George is it not a case of putting the cat to watch the cream? In putting him in that position—the Minister who ought to take charge of the taxing Departments of the realm—you gratify his ambition by putting him in charge—leaving out the Army and the Navy—of one of the greatest spending Departments of the State. The right hon. Gentleman has only to go to himself when he finds he has made a gross error in dealing with the doctors whose provision he had estimated at 4s. That provision was to have been part of the two-ninths, and then the right hon. Gentleman suddenly finds himself wrong. He has to go to the doctors either cap in hand or with a bludgeon, I care not which, he has either to coax or coerce them, coo them or kick them, and he says, "Oh, I cannot do this under my two-ninths system. It will not work, but I can keep the House of Commons from quite understanding what I am at. I do not want to let them see under which thimble the pea is. I will conceal from the House of Commons what is the scheme which I am engaged in, and I will take a Vote for £1,800,000 and declare that it is not taken back under Section 3 at all, but under one of the unstated Sections of the Act." If my suspicion on this point were unfounded, they were presented, I think, in moderate and guarded language. They were not met. The right hon. Gentleman made no answer on the subject. He simply took refuge in saying, "I cited this before and my Friend, the Secretary to the Treasury, put you into a limp and speechless condition." I respectfully say that on Friday last when this point was raised I was entitled to an answer. Not one of the precedents cited deals with this case. On the 1st of August last year he gave an answer, and every precedent which he cited was a loan. Is this a loan? He 872 cited twelve cases. I had challenged the position then taken up that loans were a proper subject in the Appropriation Bill of that year, seeing that in a previous Budget he had dealt with a particular railway loan by Statute, by formal Act of Parliament, and not merely by allocation of the fund. Said the right. hon. Gentleman, "True it is we did pass a formal Statute last year for this railway loan, but there are precedents—I admit small precedents—for making loans in an Appropriation Bill," and he cited loans given to the Tycoon of Japan and some Chinese and Japanese departments. Is a loan an authority for a Grant? Was the Chancelleor of the Exchequer accurate when he said I had been replied to on this point? This is a case of a Grant, and except upon one occasion nothing of this kind has ever been done. May I point out the difference between this and the case of salaries to Members of Parliament. It is perfectly true that we voted ourselves £400 a year without Statute except in the Appropriation Act, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has, I suppose, for Cabinet reasons, increased the salaries of two of his Cabinet colleagues to £5,000 a year. The argument was that there was no Statute. It is one thing to act without Statute, except the Appropriation Act, and quite another thing to act against Statute. If I am right in my contention, that is what the Estimate does. I have gone through the various Sections of the Act, and I find that this two-ninths and seven-ninths are repeated in the soldiers and sailors, and repeated in many other ways, in which the proportion is to be two-ninths from the State and seven-ninths from the public.
There is no provision that I can find except Section 3, which suggests that a Grant can be made for any effective purpose to which this Act can be applied. When you tried to raise the salaries of the resident magistrates, at the beginning of 1882–3, from £600 or £800 to £1,000, and said the Appropriation Act was sufficient, the Public Accounts Committee condemned it, and you had to drop it. But take the case of Ireland. It is provided in regard to Ireland that there shall be no medical benefit. That was due to the decision of Irish Members, who were not content to lay 1d. or 1½d. on the backs of their constituents for the sake of getting medical benefit. What does the Government do in regard to that? In the same Estimate they provide the sum of £50,000, and say the Grant-in-Aid will be paid to a 873 special account in the National Health Insurance Fund, and will be applied by the Irish Insurance Commissioners in grants in cases of medical certificates of sickness and for expenses of administration, owing to the absence of medical benefit in Ireland. I asked the right hon. Gentleman how this money was going to go, and certainly his statement was on a par with the other statements which I have quoted. He at once assumed his homely pathetic style, and he drew a picture of my ruthless hands preventing benefit from being brought to the sick consumptive. I do not know that he brought in the hectic flush, which I was increasing, or other matters of that kind, but so far as demeanour and manner were concerned, his remarks were very warmly taken up by some of my admirers on this side. The right hon. Gentleman said that this was the first time in his experience that an Irish Member had raised a technical objection to a Grant of £50,000. Now comes this statement of the right hon. Gentleman:— This sum is for the purpose of enabling sanatorium treatment to be given to poor consumptives. If that is true, why did you not state it in your Estimate? When the Chancellor of the Exchequer replies to my question of what the money was for, when he suddenly turns round and uses the case which most appeals to the public for sympathy; and when, having thrown down his Estimate to the House, he tries to suggest that anybody who asks him a question is endeavouring to tear away the cup of charity from the lips of the needy, or prevent those lips from tasting the "rare and refreshing fruit" which he was inclined to present, I can only say, if that is the position of the right hon. Gentleman, would it not have been honest of him, would it not have been manlier and franker of him to have stated that on the face of his Estimate? What he did was to turn the point against one who was only trying to see what the money was for. He in effect said, "You want to prevent the poor consumptive from getting relief; you want to have this white scourge continued in your country. You of all Irish Members want a continuation of this appalling malady." What are the facts? We have in Ireland, and it was upon that basis the Irish party decided not to ask for medical benefit, one of the most efficient systems of medical benefit in the world under the Poor Law system. There is no poor person since the Act of 1850, I think, in Ireland for the last sixty years, who could not get medical benefit. I agree they could 874 not get sanatorium benefit, but where are the sanatoria at present—where are they? As far as effective relief is concerned, the Poor Law medical system at present for which the taxpayers have to pay is an absolute answer to the right hon. Gentleman. It was upon the ground of the expense of that Poor Law relief that the Irish party decided that they would not have this system of medical relief for Ireland. What happened? The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:— I will give the facts, for while he was less than usually entertaining, he was more than usually inaccurate. There is a very considerable sum of money here due to the fact that owing to the great distance which had to be travelled by doctors in order to attend poor consumptives in some of the wilder districts of Ireland, the sum provided was not adequate. If that is true Papers ought to be laid upon this matter on the Table, because for sixty years you have had the guardians of the poor, and, as in olden times, the relief wardens, on the Dispensary Committees, and there is not a single district in Ireland without a dispensary, and not a single person in Ireland but is within a short distance of a dispensary. To suggest, as the right hon. Gentleman does, that he was providing something we were trying to prevent is on a par with the rest of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The House might like to know who were the poor consumptives. The poor consumptives were the "Molly Maguires."
By one of the most extraordinary manuœvres ever practised in this House the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) one day last week asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question of which he had given him private notice—it was extraordinarily urgent. What was the question? It was to ask the names of the Committee, a Committee that had never been heard of, to consider whether this system of medical benefits, which the whole Irish party had unanimously decided should not be extended to Ireland, should in future be extended to that country. Accordingly the right hon. Gentleman right off—the matter never having been debated in this House, never having been discussed in Ireland to any extent, never having been considered, so far as my information goes, at any meeting of the gentlemen of the party over which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Waterford presides—appoints for this purpose the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast (Mr. J. Devlin) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Monaghan (Mr. Lardner), one of them the head of the modern 875 order of Hibernians and the other the head of the Foresters, which are the very bodies which need money. If this thing was done openly and frankly I should have nothing to say against it, but it is a system of obtaining money by false pretences, it is the poor consumptives that are pretended to want this money, and it is the Foresters and the Ancient Order to whom it is to be given. Another hole had been driven in this great Statute in regard to the benefit societies, who found that they could not get 9d. for 4d., and that the grant made by the State did not cover the medical certificates. They could not administer the relief unless the doctors were paid extra, and it is to provide that extra money for the benefit of these friendly societies that this £50,000 has been put on the Paper. That is what the Paper says. So that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is contradicted under the signature of his own colleague. It will be applied by the Irish Insurance Commissioners in grants towards the cost of medical certificate of sickness and of the expenses of administration owing to the absence of medical benefit in Ireland. Sanatorium benefit, I understand, is provided for Ireland. Therefore the poor pallid hectic consumptives, which the right hon. Gentleman used as an argument against me, entirely disappear from this picturesque story. I have called the attention of the House to this system of Debate, because it is for the first time inaugurated by a great Minister of State in presenting Estimates of which the House has had no adequate explanation. The House has already voted in the year 1911 a sufficient sum. These Votes, including sums of £10 for the Public Trustee and £180 for the Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum, really play no efficient part in these so-called Supplementary Estimates. This it not a Supplementary Estimate; it is a new Estimate which has been palmed off upon the House as a Supplementary Estimate. It was stated some time ago by the Prime Minister that time would be required for passing Supplementary Estimates. Did anyone imagine that a new Estimate dealing with the right hon. Gentleman's wrestling with his medical friends was the purpose for which that time was to be given? It is a new and novel Estimate, and an attempt illegally to legislate by means of the Appropriation Act. Having regard to your function, Mr. Speaker, under the Parliament Act, if we tolerated this without scrutiny, allowed it without suspicion, and are to be derided when we ask for infor- 876 mation, I submit that the greatest function belonging to this House, namely that of raising and spending judiciously the money of the taxpayer, will have been taken away from us by the whim of an ambitious Minister.

§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman)
I have listened carefully to the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement, and I must confess that at the end of it I am at a loss to understand what it is to what I have to reply. The great bulk of the speech appears to have been animated by a sense of personal grievance against the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Nine-tenths of the dissertation that he has given to us has dealt with statements made in a Debate between any right hon. Friend and himself on Friday last, with which personal matters I certainly have no concern. The hon. and learned Gentleman last Friday made a series of wild and unsupported statements, and as one who often listens with great pleasure to the hon. and learned Gentleman, I must say whenever I hear him dealing with Treasury matters, he always seems to me to make wild and unsupported statements. I think I can show him to-night that Treasury officials, and hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House who have had anything to do with Treasury matters, are simply amazed at what has fallen from the lips of a man so able as the hon. and learned Gentleman. What happened on Friday? The hon. and learned Gentleman made a speech in which was wild, violent, invective statements against the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said he did not get a reply. He did—a very effective reply. What he ought to have stated was that he did not like the reply. He has been nursing the matter for three days and has come down with an elaborately prepared scheme of invective against my right hon. Friend.
I express my sincere sympathy with the hon. and learned Gentleman because invective against an absent Minister is never so pleasant and effective as when that Minister is present, and in consequence that part of his speech fell more flat than it otherwise might have done. My right hon. Friend has remained indoors all day under doctor's orders, or the hon. and learned Gentleman would have received to-day from him as effective a reply as he did on Friday. What, if we come to analyse the speech and get behind the torrent of abuse, do we find? Just look at some of the state- 877 ments. He says that this is not a Supplementary Estimate; it is a new Estimate. Then he called your attention, Mr. Speaker, to your action in future under the Parliament Act. What are the facts about these Estimates? The Treasury presents Supplementary Estimates to the Civil Service Estimates, that is to say, Estimates supplementary to the expenditure which has already been voted, and which was included in the sum under the Appropriation Act, That Supplementary Estimate includes two classes of Estimates. It includes Estimates which are supplementary to the Votes which have already been voted, and it includes sums which are not supplementary to the Votes already voted. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the various items as presented in detail he will see that they are set out under heads and subheads—Class II. (8) Board of Trade, and so on. He will see that under the heading of the Civil Contingency Fund an Estimate is required because it is not supplementary. There is no fraud in the matter. Not only in the White Paper is the thing set out, but in repeated Questions and Answers by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Prime Minister and myself, in the explanations that we have already given, have tried to show that we have exercised economy.
There is no concealment about the matter. The Grant-in-Aid that we propose to ask the House to pass for the National Insurance Fund for special expenses is in accordance with exactly the same procedure and governed exactly by the same conditions as all Grants-in-Aid that have been voted almost every year since the Estimates were voted by the House. Take another item that the hon. and learned Gentleman holds up to great scorn, the £10 Estimate for the Public Trustee. He says how grotesque to ask the House to vote £10. The hon. and learned Member knows, or he ought to know if he studied Parliamentary matters at all, that every one of those Votes of £10 brought forward is brought before the House under Statutory Authority and that each one represents transactions of thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds. The £10 is merely found by balancing on the one hand sums that have to be sanctioned against, on the other hand, the Appropriation in Aid, and if we omitted to bring forward those Votes of £10 we should be impeached, and ought to be impeached, before the tribunal of the House of Commons and the country, and he takes advantage, apparently of the fact 878 that every Member of the House does not know this particular fact, for I assume he does know it, to attempt to throw ridicule upon the Government for putting down sums of £10 in Supplementary Estimates, which every man who has to bring in Supplementary Estimates has to do.
I tried with the utmost intelligence I could bring to bear upon the subject to find out exactly what his grievance was in connection with this Grant-in-Aid. He kept on repeating the expression, which I confess had no meaning at all for me, "Under what Section of the Act is this Vote taken?" He made great play with Section 3 and some others out of the hundred and ten Sections of the Act. Votes are not taken under any Sections of the Act. They are Aids granted to the Crown first by Estimates in Committee of Supply and approved on Report in the House, stating what the ground is for which they are desired by the Crown, and on which Parliament is willing to grant them to the Crown, and afterwards endorsed as far as the money is concerned by the operation of Ways and Means and later by the Appropriation Act. I should think that the great bulk of the money voted year by year to the Crown is voted without any relation to any Statute at all. I do not know whether the hon. Member is labouring under the apprehension that every Estimate has to have a corresponding Clause in a Statute passed by this House. If so I can only say it is the most amazing theory of government I ever heard. Votes are voted and Estimates are prepared in conformity with Regulations laid down by Statute. Estimates are prepared in conformity with Aids and Supply required apart from any Statute as Grants-in-Aid for certain specific purposes, and these Grants-in-Aid are asked, as other Grants-in-Aid are asked, for the specific purpose set out on the face of the Estimates and which were fully explained to the House in the Committee stage. Then the hon. and learned Member stated this was a belated attempt to get back money because the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made a mistake in connection with the Insurance Act.
If any mistakes were made in connection with the Insurance Bill they were not made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Government, but deliberately by this House in passing that measure. I doubt if any Bill in recent times ever received more elaborate deliberation and discussion. [AN HON. MEMBER: "More Closure."] What was the actual operation? When 879 the Bill was first of all introduced into this House there were ample supplies in the scheme laid down under Section 3 to provide for a large margin which might have been available for the additional payment to the doctors which is now being suggested. During the whole time the Bill was being passed—sometimes deliberately, but more often quite recklessly—Amendment after Amendment was proposed enormously extending the expenditure under the National Insurance Act. Some of them we managed to resist, and the fact that we resisted them has been the subject matter of complaint at almost every by-election since. With the utmost effort in the world we were unable to resist some of them. During the discussions on the National Insurance Bill the House of Commons carried such increased obligations upon the National Insurance Fund that they almost completely ate up the balance in reserve for additional payment to the doctors. The Insurance Bill was passed in December and at the first meeting addressed by my right hon. Friend in January he announced to everyone concerned that the margin provided had been eaten up by additional commitments, and that additional provision would have to be submitted to Parliament for the amount that might have otherwise been provided by the margin allowed. That additional provision is being submitted to Parliament in this Estimate. Let me now turn to the special controversy raised by the hon. and learned Member about the Grant to Ireland.

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
Do you say that this £1,800,000 is embraced in the two-ninths?

§ Mr. MASTERMAN
No, it has nothing whatever to do with the two-ninths. It is a grant to assist people in Ireland obtaining medical benefit, and it has no more to do with the two-ninths than any other Statute of the realm. As to the £50,000 the hon. and learned Member says it is directly against the Statute. Even if it were against the Statute it would be a legitimate Vote for this House to make and there are many precedents in the past for doing it. As a matter of fact it is not voted against the Statute, but it is voted for purposes definitely set out under the sub-head which describes the purpose of this Vote, and those which are not purposes of this Vote which would be included if medical benefit were in the Act. This is not a Vote for medical benefit, but it is 880 a Vote specially given for expenses which, in Great Britain, where medical benefit does exist, would not be required owing to the general provision of medical benefit. Let me give an example. For sick pay certificates are required. Where medical benefit certificates are given in the ordinary course of medical benefit the patient goes to his doctor through the National Insurance Act and receives a certificate to show he is sick and that puts him on the fund. In Ireland there is no money to provide that he shall go to his doctor and if the doctor requires to be paid for a certificate that money must be found, and it will be found by this Vote. That is not money for medical benefit or treatment but to supply a purpose which will be covered by a medical benefit when that benefit is established in Ireland.
Take the question of Sanatorium benefit and the treatment of consumption. He seemed to suggest my right hon. Friend had invented the answer concerning consumption as a means of putting him in the wrong. If he thinks so, I can only tell him he is absolutely mistaken. This £50,000 limn the very beginning was calculated on the assumption that it would cover those methods of dealing with consumption in Ireland, which are covered in England by medical benefit but which cannot be so covered in Ireland because there is no medical benefit there. Under medical benefit in England sixpence is provided for every insured person for the domiciliary treatment of consumption, and that is possible because the doctor who is attending a large number of persons is quite ready on his round to take a case of consumption in conjunction with all the other cases. In Ireland we are not paying the doctors anything, and therefore if a doctor has to go five or six miles to one case of tuberculosis he cannot take it in the course of his round of visits. Therefore, until such medical benefit is provided as would enable him to take these cases in the ordinary course of his work, we had a right to ask that this special money should be provided for these tuberculosis cases. I think I have shown the hon. Gentleman that so far as his contentions against the Treasury are concerned he has invented a series of mare's nests. The hon. Gentleman says the precedents of August last were no precedents at all. They were precedents of Grants-in-Aid given as this is given, under exactly similar conditions without Statute, as Parliament has always given Grants-in-Aid 881 without Statute when it has considered there was a case in which a Grant-in-Aid should be given. Everyone of those cases was exactly similar and the fact that some of the Grants were to be repaid and some were not makes not the slightest difference. They were Grants-in-Aid given like this without Statute. Every step in this transaction has been explained in the fullest possible manner for the passing of the National Insurance Act to this moment. Again and again in the Debates during the summer the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself stated that when a case was made out by the doctors as to how much they were legitimately entitled we would present an Estimate to the House in order that the House might have an opportunity of discussing the matter. Hon. Gentlemen have accused us of keeping back this Vote and giving the doctors money without the sanction of Parliament. We have paid no money without the sanction of Parliament. We have brought this Vote before Parliament at the earliest possible moment, and we have no doubt Parliament will endorse our action.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
All of us regret when a Minister is prevented from being present, above all by illness, at a Debate in which his Department or administration is concerned, and I particularly regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should not have been present to-night to listen to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy) and to reply to him. But I will assure the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken that, having been frequently and intimately associated with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he too, has become a past-master in the special Parliamentary gifts of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the chief exponent. The right hon. Gentleman made a speech of considerable length. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]

§ Mr. MASTERMAN
Twenty minutes.

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
It was twenty-five minutes.

§ Mr. MASTERMAN
I am told it was eighteen minutes.

§ Mr. CHAMBERLAIN
The right hon. Gentleman has made a speech of sufficient length to enable him to answer the really serious case which has been brought forward by the hon. and learned Member 882 (Mr. T. M. Healy) if he had an answer to it. But knowing he had no answer he followed the tactics of his more distinguished chief and he almost succeeded in addressing the House for eighteen minutes without referring to the matter at all. I am not here to challenge the propriety, or the amount, of the payment which it is proposed to make to the doctors for their services, but I am here to support the challenge made by the hon. and learned Member to-night as I supported another challenge on the same subject on Friday, against the propriety of the method by which the Government are carrying out their policy. The point that was raised on Friday was as to whether we ought to vote money this year which was only required for the service of next year. The right hon. Gentleman defended that proposal and said it was perfectly normal and that the House was bound to do it because the money was required at the beginning of the calendar year. He had no statutory authority. If the money was required at the beginning of the calendar year provision should have been made in the Estimates which were presented last year and not in the Supplementary Estimate which is now before the House.
We now come to another point. It is the serious feature of the case which is raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He complains that not merely, as the Financial Secretary said in his finishing sentences, is this Vote made without statutory authority, for it is true, as the right hon. Gentleman observed, that the bulk of these Votes have no pre-existing statutory authority; the complaint of the hon. and learned Member is that this is made in defiance of statutory authority. That is the point the right hon. Gentleman had to answer and which he carefully refrained from answering. Section (3) of the Act lays down that the expenses are to be met as to seven-ninths by the payments of the employer and the insured person and two-ninths by payments by the State. What are you doing now? You are varying Section (3) of the Act. It may be that Section (3) is wrong. If that be so I ask the right hon. Gentleman on whom the blame lies in that case? Not on the House of Commons. It rests with the Government, which had never thought this question out. Though I make no complaint of the arrangement they have come to with the doctors, I think they have failed in their duty. The taxpayers 883 are now paying for the blundering way in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his colleagues took up this question.
First they tried to cajole the doctors. Then they made a promise which they broke in spirit on the next day if not in actual language. They then tried to bully them, and at last, finding themselves face to face with the failure of the Act, they had to bribe them, and we have got to pay the bribe. That is the history of the matter, and not a credible one in any sense. The point the hon. and learned Gentleman makes now is that if you want to vary the Statute you ought to have statutory authority for the variation; if you are to proceed in the ordinary regular course. But if you are going to vary the Statute by a Vote which is subsequently grouped in the Appropriation Act, and the Appropriation Act is the only legislative authority for varying the express provisions of a Statute, I say you are denaturing the Appropriation Act, and making it impossible to follow the procedure in regard to the Appropriation Act which has been pursued by this House in the past. I believe I am right in saying that if this Vote is passed to-night, and if it is grouped in the Appropriation Act, it will not be in the power of any Member to move an Amendment in Committee on the Appropriation Act, excluding this particular sum, and accordingly, although it will be the only statutory authority, it will not be possible to object to this particular sum, or to deal with it by rejecting the Appropriation Act altogether. Accordingly the only statutory authority for the payment will be one which no Member of this House has had at any time any opportunity of challenging, and that statutory authority is held to be sufficient for varying the express provisions of a Statute which was discussed, I cannot say in the ordinary way, but in the way which has become ordinary under the present administration.
That is the grievance against the Government. The right hon. Gentleman knew that. He is not so obtuse as not to have seen it, but he never said one word in defence of it. What have we a right to claim? I do not challenge the settlement you have come to with the doctors now. I think you have no alternative. You have got to get their services. You were pledged to give them to the insured. I do not challenge the payment of this money. But I do say that you ought to 884 regularise that payment. You have on record the opinion of the Public Accounts Committee—I think it was alluded to by the hon. and learned Member (Mr. T. M. Healy)—sitting on a similar procedure undertaken by Mr. Gladstone's Government in the early 'eighties. If I remember rightly, twice Mr. Gladstone's Government followed, in reference to an Irish matter, the procedure which the right, hon. Gentleman is following now. Twice the Comptroller and Auditor-General condemned that. Twice the Public Accounts Committee endorsed his condemnation, and the Treasury supported the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Mr. Gladstone sought legislative authority for the payment, and, failing to get legislative authority, I believe I am right in saying that he abandoned the payment. Are you going to set that precedent at defiance?
Are you going to break down all the safeguards by which the expenditure of public money is being guarded? I venture to say that this would never have been allowed to happen if the Treasury had not been, as has been said before, allowed to become itself a great spending Department. If any other colleague of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone to him and asked for this, he would have been told that he must do it in a regular way or it would not be done. As Mrs. Poyser said, I am not one of those who see the cat in the dairy and wonder what she has come for. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the first to break down the barriers he ought to protect. What have we a right to demand? That the Government should regularise their procedure at the first opportunity. You may say it is too late to get your statutory authority in the closing days of this already far too prolonged Session, but we have a right to ask of the Government that early next Session they shall get statutory authority for the variation of an Act passed only last year, which expressly limits the contribution of the State to two-ninths. If the House does not insist upon that on the next occasion this Vote comes before it, they must understand that they are parting with their control over finance, that they are allowing a latitude to a spending Minister such as has never been allowed to pass unchallenged before, and that they are really making it ridiculous for us to lay down any provisions regarding the spending of public money by Statute at all. The right hon. Gentleman 885 can only speak again by the leave of the House. I am sure the House will give him that leave, and I hope he will say whether he will take the course I suggest, and early next Session, or before such a Vote is again put before Parliament next Session, he will take steps by the introduction of a Bill to regularise the departure from the Statute which is committed in this Vote.

§ Mr. BOOTH
I had expected from the front Opposition Bench that at this time of day there would have been a little more sympathetic consideration for the insured persons. What expression has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman in the slightest way sympathetic to the fifteen millions of people who will receive benefits under the Act? I really would ask the Opposition, if the time has not passed for eternally indulging in these technical and legal quibbles? I should like to answer the right hon. Gentleman in his criticism of our Front Bench spokesman by reminding him that I think any independent man in the House would consider that the speech from the Front Bench faithfully followed the lines of the opener of the Debate. I was amazed when he claimed that the answer had not been direct. I should myself have thought the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy) was considering it a little too direct. The hon. and learned Gentleman I hope feels better now that he has got rid of his speech, and I hope in future he will be able to treat the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the same generous way which has characterised his utterances in the past. But what is his position? He criticised the Vote because he could not find in it anything to support the idea that consumptives were to receive benefit. I would ask him to forget his own profession for a moment and ask himself how any injured person who is entitled either to sanatorium treatment in an institution or special treatment at home can obtain it except under medical advice. If he is not prepared for medical examination clearly he cannot have sanatorium treatment. The hon. and learned Gentleman is much more concerned to knock down some imaginary person called a Molly Maguire than to help the poor consumptive. He certainly gives us the impression—I cannot think he really means it—that he would far sooner even that some of his countrymen under what appears to be a sentence of death should be neglected than that they should be brought back to health by 886 the agency of the National Insurance Act. I really cannot understand that position.
With regard to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, I am connected with societies which are affiliated to the Hibernians and which regard them with special favour. The fact that a large number of insured persons wish to avail themselves of the services of that approved society is no reason why it should be continually held up to ridicule and contempt. The leading manager of the Order of Hibernians has distinguished himself in past years in the realm of insurance. I know of no more capable man throughout Ireland for this particular purpose. It was a loss to the industrial insurance world and the organisation with which I have long been connected when he left it. I would appeal to the hon and learned Gentleman that he is not impressing English Members at all favourably when he seems to show such continual spite against this approved society. Suppose it appeals to a particular faith, to which I think the hon. and learned Gentleman claims to belong, and to which I do not belong, surely that is no reason for wishing it ill, particularly when it involves the health and strength of such a large number of people sadly in need of the benefits of the Insurance Act.
The right hon. Gentleman the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer has introduced rather a novel attitude into the consideration of this Bill. He charges the Government with having bribed the doctors. When bribes are given bribes are received, and I ask the Opposition whether they are prepared to go through the length and breadth of the country charging the doctors with being the receivers of bribes. That is the position. I thought the claim of the doctors was generally supported on the other side of the House. I would ask hon. Members opposite to pause. They have already set large sections of the community against them by their attacks on the Insurance Act. I would ask them to pause before they attack the great medical profession by charging them with being the receivers of bribes. I think the additional money voted to the medical profession is a handsome sum. It is larger than I thought would be necessary, but I would never be guilty of insinuating that the members of the medical profession were not perfectly honest in asking this, or of saying that in taking it they have been guilty of 887 receiving bribes. The right hon. Gentleman has made charges against the Government which he ought to have had the courage to make when the Bill was brought in. He says that the Bill was not thought out. The right hon. Gentleman is surely aware that the only critic of the Bill when it was brought in was myself. If the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Forster) is going to impute motives to me, I wish he would have the courage to get on his feet.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I would ask the hon. Gentleman to read his own speeches.

§ Mr. BOOTH
I have, and I would ask the hon. Gentleman to quote anything I said which would support the charge he has made. My criticism was largely on this very point. On the First Reading of the Bill the Opposition came slobbering the Chancellor of the Exchequer with praise. They did not oppose it on the Second Reading. The hon. Member (Mr. Forster) made one speech of his life, which gave him a reputation in this House when he said he would never be guilty of making party capital out of the Bill. He endorsed the entire scheme when he saw it in print. When the Bill was introduced my criticism was that I did not think the money was sufficient, and that there would have to be a further claim on the Exchequer.
The hon. Member mentioned something about collecting societies. I never named them, and, as a matter of fact, I pointed out that a further grant would be needed from the Exchequer in order to carry out this huge and important scheme. Time has shown that I was right, but that necessity never dawned on the watch dogs on the Opposition Benches, and they never criticised the Bill from that point of view in its progress through the House. On the other hand, hon. Members opposite were continually bringing forward proposals which they knew would endanger its finance, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to point out again and again that, while some of the things proposed were very desirable, he did not think the finance of the Bill would stand it. The right hon. Gentleman made many concessions. Even the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) was dumb during the passage of the Insurance Bill. Never did there come from him a word of caution in the interest of the taxpayers of this country. The whole pressure put on the Govern- 888 ment was to grant more benefits in order that hon. Members might go down to their Constituents and say that they had wrung them from an unwilling Radical Government. The right hon. Gentleman opposite made a general objection to what was being done by stating that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who ought to be the guardian of the Treasury, was now the head of a spending Department.
Is that something that has only been found out now? Those criticisms should have been made on the First or Second Reading. The whole basis of this Bill was that it was to be put under Treasury control and not a single Member of the Opposition learned or unlearned got up to complain that this Bill was brought in under the ægis of the Treasury and that this was an unconstitutional position. There was no Debate on the First or Second Reading, and there was no party division on the Third Reading. Even when it passed the party opposite did not know whether they wanted it repealed or not. They do not know now. They have not the slightest idea what they would do if the responsibility was thrust upon them. They say they must get on the Treasury Bench before we can wring the secret from their unwilling breasts. Surely this elementary point that the Treasury should be the watchdog of the public purse is rather belated. Surely it equally applied when the predecessor of the present Chancellor brought in the Old Age Pensions Bill. The objection should have been taken then, but the record of the Conservative party was so bad on old age pensions that they did not dare to do it. Again they could have taken objection on the First or Second Reading but they did not do so. The hon. and learned Member is about to say that during the Passage of the Bill there were some complaints of this kind made. Certainly after they had been down to by-elections and were beginning to make a party use of the difficulties of the Act.
I am not going to say that the Conservative party cannot claim credit for criticising the finances at that stage, but even then they had not the courage to vote against the Third Reading, and it comes with an exceedingly bad grace from them to raise points of this kind on a supplementary Vote which is definitely to enable the doctors to be handsomely remunerated. What is the meaning of it? Do they or do they not want the doctors to receive this extra remuneration? One may gather that they dare not vote against it. Their 889 real grievance is that we are doing it. They want the quarrel between the doctors and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to continue. It was a great political asset to them. As long as it lasted they thought they had some chance at by-elections. But now that has gone. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has had the courage to come to the House and ask for the full amount of money and pledge himself as a Free Trade Chancellor to raise it without taxing the people's food and immediately the Opposition are angry. But I do not mind the Opposition making a party point or hammering me or even hammering my leaders upon the Insurance Act. That does not trouble me because we ought to take a line independent of party as I always have done, and I believe some Members of the Opposition have done, and I am exceedingly sorry as the month goes over we are driven more and more into bitter party conflict with regard to this great Insurance Act which unless it is carried out by a great deal of voluntary labour both by Liberals and Conservatives alike will never be a success. It is with exceeding pain and regret that I notice a tone in the right hon. Gentleman's speech which has been absent before in all his other references to this great question of the healing of the nation.

Colonel WILLIAMS
I have listened with a good deal of interest to what the hon. Member for Pontefract said. The hon. Member seemed to think that this is a question of the working of the National Insurance Act. He spoke a good deal about the acts of the Opposition during the passage of the Bill through this House. He also complained that all the Opposition did was to try and increase the amount which is necessary to be spent under the Bill. Well, this estimate justifies that attitude, and proves that more ought to be spent, and that the Opposition were perfectly right in saying that more ought to be spent, and that enough money was not given under the Bill, or under the estimates of the Bill, to carry it out. The hon. Member for Pontefract spoke as though this House was simply an eleemosynary institution, for the benefit of the poor people. I agree that it is our purpose and duty to look after that class of people, but our complaint, on this particular item is that, the House having deliberately sanctioned on the advice of the Ministry of the day, a certain amount of money, to be spent for this purpose, the Govern- 890 ment now comes down and says, "The money is not enough after all, and we want more." The hon. Member who has just spoken said the money was going to benefit the doctors. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary, or, if he cannot speak again, the ex-Financial Secretary of the Treasury, who knows a great deal about it, whether this money is going to be spent on the doctors or not? The Financial Secretary said the £50,000 was going to be spent on sanatorium benefit for the people of Ireland. I do not find that in the Estimates. The words of the Supplementary Estimate are that it is to be spent in regard to any certificates of sickness, and for expenses of administration. Administration! That has nothing to do with providing sanatoria or consumptive benefit.
As I make it out, the £50,000 additional moneys, spread over the 4,000,000 of people in Ireland, comes to nearly 3d. per head for the administration of the Act. That seems to me to be a very large amount, and the Financial Secretary says it is going to be spent on consumptive benefit for the people in Ireland; but there is not a word about that in the purpose for which the Vote is asked. That is, so far, dealing with the words of the Supplementary Estimate itself; but it is very unsatisfactory to ask for a Supplementary Estimate on this point, particularly for a Grant-in-Aid. A Grant-in-Aid is usually asked for for a particular and specific purpose, which is fully explained, and the amount of that Grant-in-Aid is voted by this House. But to come down afterwards and ask for a Supplementary Estimate for a Grant-in-Aid, and a Grant-in-Aid of a most peculiar character—my experience goes back a good many years, but I do not think I can recollect a Grant-in-Aid that has been asked for under these particular conditions. In the foot-note on the first page of this Class VIII. Vote, it is said that this is a Grant-in-Aid, and therefore, of course, the balance need not be surrendered at the end of the year. But it is added that any balances will be taken into account in determining the amount of the Grant for the subsequent year. It really becomes a Grant-in-Aid of the Estimate of this year, and of the Estimate of next year, as well, and it seems to me that that is not fulfilling the true purpose of a Grant-in-Aid. 891 The right hon. Gentleman, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that this Estimate was brought forward in order to carry out the wishes of the House. Perhaps, if he is going to speak again, he will tell us when the wishes of the House were expressed which are carried out by this particular Estimate. I am not sure that the wishes of the House have been expressed, as regards the extra half-a-crown for insured persons, or the extra 1½d. for the cost of administration, or as regards the cost of certificates for sickness in Ireland. If the right hon. Gentleman would tell me any Resolution, or even any expression of the House, which this Estimate carries out, I shall be very much obliged to him. I must ask the right hon. Gentleman again, or the ex-Financial Secretary, who perhaps will answer for him, that question about the two-ninths, because, if I understand rightly, the total cost of the Act will come to about £13,000,000 a year. And, if I work it out rightly, two-ninths of £13,000,000 comes to something very like £2,900,000 a year. That is what is provided for under the Act, which will be the contribution of the taxpayer towards this benefit for the sick poor. But this is asking for £1,800,000 more, in fact, it is more than fifty per cent. in excess of the two-ninths. Yet the "9d. for 4d." mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was founded on the fact of that two-ninths—4d. for 9d. is, in fact, two-ninths—and he will have to alter his next picturesque phrase when he uses it, and say; not that it would be 9d. for 4d., but that, by some expenditure or other, the 4d. has grown to 7d.

§ Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN
But it is for 4d. now.

Colonel WILLIAMS
The other way about. I am dealing with the case of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were two-ninths, as I understand it, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said meant 4d. for 9d. Surely, if you add to that two-ninths, which was represented by £2,900,000, the £1,800,000, it makes the 4d. very nearly into 60. I should be very glad if anybody would get up and contradict that arithmetic, because we are dealing with the contribution of the tax-payer, we are not dealing with the contribution of anybody else, and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was right, that the tax-payer was 892 going to contribute two-ninths, and that amounted to £2,900,000, then he is now deliberately putting on £1,800,000 in addition. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Pontefract to come down and accuse us of not doing what we can for the benefit of the sick poor. He says himself that all we did was to try and get more money for the sick poor.

§ Mr. BOOTH
No.

Colonel WILLIAMS
The hon. Member now says "No," but he just now said that we tried to put on a greater charge, and to increase the expenses of the Bill.

§ Mr. BOOTH
To kill the Bill. I said that the Amendments that came from that side were all in the nature of granting increased benefits, which endangered the safety of the finances of the Bill.

Colonel WILLIAMS
But the finances of the Bill, according to the hon. Member, does not count, if only we can give more benefits to the sick poor. You cannot have it both ways. You may be a financial purist, and you may be a sympathiser with the poor, and you may want to give them more money, but you cannot have it both ways. The hon. Member complains of us, because we tried to put more money at the disposal of the sick poor under this Act. If that is blameworthy, I am very glad to accept the blame. That money would upset the finance of the Bill I quite agree. But that proves out of his own mouth that the finance of the Bill was quite rotten, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had never thought out the finance of the Bill. What they wanted to do was to increase the share of the taxpayer by more than fifty per cent. of what they said. Now they come down at the fag-end of the Session for an Account-in-Aid. It is a multiplication of bungle from first to end.

§ Mr. CASSEL
I think the Government owe a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Pontefract. Whenever there is a likelihood that they may not be in a majority, the hon. Member rises to make observations rather more or less remote from the subject under discussion. But whenever the Government are in a tight corner and a vital point is concerned, the hon. Member for Pontefract tries to draw the House off the track. He tries to do so. Even by inviting the House to consider what are his reasons for changing his own opinions. But we decline to be diverted from that point. 893 The hon. Member asked us, "Do you want the doctors to have this extra money, or do you not?" [An HON. MEMBER: "Do you?"] Well, I will give you my answer. I do. But by regular means, and in accordance with the proper procedure of this House. The point raised by the hon. and learned Member is whether it is proper to do this by estimate and the Appropriation Bill, or whether there ought to be an Act for the purpose. That is a very important constitutional question. To try and mix it up with all questions of prejudice is a very futile purpose. We say this is contrary to the provisions of the Statute, and that there are proportions laid down by the statute.
It may be right to vary the proportions. I do not say it is not right to vary them. What I say is that constitutionally we should do it by an Act. That is the whole point raised. All that I am insisting on is that the proper legal, constitutional method ought to be employed and that this would be an exception for all time for dealing with the question in this way. So far as I can find there is only one precedent, in 1907, of the Supplementary Estimate to the Education Grant. When it was done then, the Speaker, when he was appealed to, said he could not rule it out of order but he thought it was illegal and unconstitutional. What he said on that occasion was that it might be a question for the Public Accounts Committee to consider thereafter, or it might be a legal question as to whether the Appropriation Act in these circumstances really could have the effect of repealing a Statute. He said the matter therefore seemed to be a constitutional one and entirely for the House to decide for itself. "Putting the matter as shortly as possible the two questions would seem to be these—Can the House of Commons disobey an Act of Parliament, and ought the House of Commons to disobey an Act of Parliament? In regard to the first question I think it is obvious the House of Commons can disobey an Act of Parliament; with regard to the second, I think it is a question which ought to be left to the conscience of the House of Commons." That was a clear intimation to the House that Mr. Speaker considered that this was not a legal or constitutional method of procedure.
I submit it is a most dangerous method of procedure. The House has got a really legal and constitutional question to deal 894 with and it ought to separate from it all these questions of prejudice to which the hon. Member for Pontefract referred. It is all the more important owing to the fact that the Government proceeded with this matter without bringing it before the House at all so far as the first three months are concerned. They actually entered into binding contracts with the doctors. Before these contracts were entered into I asked questions again and again. I say it was interfering with the control of this House over finance to make these binding contracts without first giving the House an opportunity of discussing them. Now the right hon. Gentleman says I was inconsistent because the other day I objected to these Estimates being for the whole year. Where the inconsistency comes in I have yet been unable to see. My contention throughout was that the matter ought to have been brought fairly before the House before any such steps as entering into these legal binding contracts was made. In conclusion I would invite the Government—I see there is an ex-Secretary to the Treasury seated on the Treasury Bench—to deal with this extremely important legal and constitutional question, and to say whether in future it is to be treated as a precedent, and that the express provisions of a Statute may be departed from simply in a Supplementary Estimate and not by an Act of Parliament.

Mr. TYSON WILSON
I am not quite sure whether the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down is made of cast-iron or elastic. At any rate, every argument used by every Member who has spoken on this subject bears out the position taken up by certain Members of the Labour Party when the Insurance Act, was before the House of Commons, namely, that it ought to have been a non-contributory scheme. The hon. and learned Member said that when the Government got into a difficulty the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) got up and helped them out of it by appealing to Members of the House to support the Government. I say without any hesitation whatever, that when the hon. Member for Pontefract gets up I always look with suspicion upon him, and am extremely suspicious of his arguments, for I know perfectly well that all the time the Insurance Bill was before the House of Commons he was manœuvring with the object of getting as far as possible the administration of the Act in the hands of the great insurance 895 companies. That may be by the way, but he referred to the 15,000,000 persons who, he hoped, would get the benefit of the Act.
I hope these 15,000,000 will not get the benefit of the Act. If they do, then the Act is financially unsound. It is only the fact that a very large proportion of insured persons never require the benefits that the Act is financially sound, and, therefore, I hope the hon. Member for Pontefract is wrong in the argument that he has used. He must know perfectly well that any company that insures against sickness, or any friendly society, could not possibly pay the whole benefits to every one of their members, and that their benefits are based on the assumption that a very large number of members will be healthy and able to keep at their work. I said just now that the arguments used by every Member of the House who has spoken was in favour of the position taken up by the Labour party in favour of a non-contributory scheme.

§ Mr. PRINGLE
When did the Labour party say that?

Mr. TYSON WILSON
If the hon. Member will refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT he will find Amendments down in the name of Members of the Labour party in favour of a non-contributory scheme.

§ Mr. PRINGLE
The only Amendment in favour of a non-contributory scheme was proposed by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and was not supported by the Labour party.

Mr. TYSON WILSON
We were in favour of a non-contributory scheme, and we also favoured, if I may say so, the administration of the Act so far as doctors are concerned being left in the hands of the friendly societies, and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had accepted the suggestions of the Labour party he would never have had the trouble he had. I want to say we fully recognise that if the Act is to be administered successfully the money asked for must be granted. That being so I think it comes with ill-grace from Members of the Opposition to criticise the Government for asking for this additional sum. They have agitated and argued that doctors should have a larger amount granted them than was foreshadowed in the speeches addressed by the Government to the House when the Bill was going through the House. We recognise that if the Act is to be of any benefit whatever 896 we must have the doctors, and, so far as we are concerned, we are going to support the Government in this Supplementary Vote for which they are asking.

§ Mr. NORMAN CRAIG
There is one aspect of the matter I want to bring to the notice of the House. The necessity for this Supplementary Estimate is explained by the Financial Secretary as being due to the fact that the balance for increased payment to the doctors has been eaten up because of Amendments proposed on this side of the House. What does he mean by that? Does he mean that when he originally brought in his actuarial calculation for the doctors he brought it in below the amount he knew would be required? Does he mean he kept a balance up his sleeve? Does he mean that balance has been withdrawn because other benefits have been created? Does he mean that he consciously put forward what was inadequate for the doctors? Does he mean that this Supplementary Estimate is necessary because the nest-egg which he put by and kept out of sight is required for other purposes? The doctors would be interested, the public would be interested, and I think this House would be interested to know whether that is the case or not.
1.0 A.M.
I do not agree with my hon. and gallant Friend who has spoken on this side in the view he has taken about 9d. for 4d. The accurate view of this I take to be 10½d. for 4d., if 9d. for 4d. was ever true. I think my hon. and gallant Friend has made some mistake about that, and as regards the hon. Member for Pontefract, whose services are proving so valuable that he is in some peril of going to another place, I do not think he need be distressed because Amendments put forward from this side of the House upset the finances of the Bill. It does not matter if the finance of the Bill is upset. You can bring forward Supplementary Estimates of this character and restore the balance, no matter what the upset has been. You are asking here for a Supplementary Estimate which is in complete conflict with the basis of the Act. The whole basis of the Act is that a certain proportion shall be contributed by a certain body of persons, another proportion by another body of persons, and a third proportion by the taxpayers out of the Imperial Exchequer. If this Supplementary Estimate is passed, you are going totally to upset the whole basis of proportion on which the finance 897 of the Act is based, and it cannot be regularised this Session. As I understand it—I do not pretend to be an expert in the finances administered by this House—it is a mere matter of administrative extravagance, and the thing will go forward without any sort of really legal or constitutional sanction. Whether it is in order or not may be in question, but it is a matter of conscience, if not one of obligation, to this House that in spending you should have some sort of regard to the basis on which the House passed the Act. Now by a Supplementary Estimate taken at the fag end of a long Session, you are going to upset its finance and make it bear some 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. more than when it was first put forward. I cannot believe that that is in accordance either with sound finance or Parliamentary practice.

Captain CRAIG
I wish to ask a simple question. I notice that under (d) there is a grant for £50,000 for National Health Insurance funds in Ireland. If hon. Gentlemen will look at (c) they will find that the reasons of the Treasury there for making a grant of £214,000 to Scotland, or higher up, at (a), a grant to England, is the increased cost of medical benefit. The doctors are getting an extra half-a-crown, and necessarily there is a large sum of money required, but if anyone looks at (d), which applies to Ireland, he will see that it says this money is to be granted to Ireland for this extraordinary reason, the absence of medical benefit in Ireland. In the one case, then, it is because medical benefit is to be granted that a large sum is necessary, and in the other because there is no medical benefit at all. I wish to ask how this sum of £50,000 is to be expended. It will be within the memory of this House that when the announcement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), who leads the Nationalist party, and is always squaring the sextant, was up like a shot to know what Ireland was to get out of it, if the doctors were to benefit. I do not know what this £50,000 is for unless it is to go into the pockets of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. That is the only possible explanation I can see for such a large sum being granted. At any rate the House ought to have some explanation, and if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Masterman) is, by the rules of the House, not allowed to 898 speak again perhaps he will ask a Nationalist Member to speak for him.

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
I wish to raise this point of order on this Vote, Mr. Speaker. The Government have now admitted that this is not a casual or intermittent Vote which might have been said of previous Votes. It is now admitted that the two-ninths basis of the Statute has gone and that this present Vote is one which practically exceeds that amount and therefore disturbs the entire basis on which Parliamentary sanction was given to the Act. It must be evident that unless some Amendment of the Act is provided this must come up for a further implementing of the sum year after year in the Estimates, and I ask therefore, if that in that case is not in the nature of a casual Supplementary Vote and that it is practically suggested that by an annual Vote of Parliament we can repeal a Statute in its entirety so far as its financial basis is concerned?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I do not think it is really a question for me to rule upon. The matter has been very clearly put in the debate we have had. I think it must be evident that this procedure does vary Section 3 of the Insurance Act. The question then arises, does it vary it to such an extent as to become illegal? That would be a question of law—as to whether the Appropriation Act, when it appropriates this sum will over-rule the Insurance Act or not, and upon that the House will receive the report and advice of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, who is the officer appointed by the House to consider and to see whether all sums paid out are paid out under proper authority. The House would be advised by him in due course. I think it was well put when it was said that it was a constitutional question for the House itself, and the House must decide it. I do not think I can do so.