CLAUSE 1.—(Application of 9 Edw. 7 c. 48, to Officers and Servants of Certified institutions for Defectives.) (Hansard, 24 July 1918)

§ Sir W. COLLINS
Clause 1 is the operative Clause of the Bill and applies the provisions of the Asylum Officers Superannuation Act, 1909, to the officers of institutions for defectives. As I had the honour of introducing, as a private Member, the Asylums Officers Superannuation Act, 1909, I should like to express my gratification that the right hon. Gentleman has seen fit to bring in this amending Bill. The principle of the principal Act was the securing to asylums officers assured pensions on a contributive basis. It provided for the principle of aggregation, whereby an asylums officer passing from one institution under one local authority to another, carried his pension rights with him. I understood that it was the intention of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, and of the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1913, to apply the provisions of the Asylums Officers Superannuation Act to the officers of institutions for mental defectives. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain how it was that those powers failed to carry out that intention. Perhaps he will also explain why Clause 1 only permits the officers of institutions for mental defectives to be classed in Class 2, which gives them relatively less advantageous rights of pension than asylum officers in Class 1 would possess and whether, in regard to that power and the power in paragraph (b) of adding years of service for the purposes of superannuation, he has taken the opinion of any officers of institutions for mental defectives; and whether they are satisfied with those two limiting provisions in their particular case. In so far as this Bill enables officers in institutions for mental defectives to have the benefits of aggregation, which I understand 1912 they failed to obtain in the past, I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has found time to bring in this useful amending Bill.

§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace)
I am sure the Committee and the country have felt themselves under a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Derby (Sir W. Collins) for the great interest he has always taken in this question. This Bill is intended to meet a defect in the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. It was found in practice that, although it was thought that the Act of 1913 did provide for the aggregation of service, in fact it did not so provide. This Bill is intended to correct that grievance which the service, both men and women in mental hospitals of this country, suffer when they change their occupation from an asylum to an institution. When this Bill becomes law, a man or woman may leave an asylum to form part of the staff of a certified institution, and the whole of the service that he or she may have rendered in the asylum will be counted for pension purposes as if they had been in the employment of the institution all the time. It has been found to be essential that this should be done, because these institutions must grow as the days go by; and without giving an assurance to these officers in the asylums that their pensions will be aggregated if they change their occupation from an asylum to an institution, it would be quite impossible to get the nucleus for a trained staff for the institutions as they were formed. Sub-section (2) of the Clause is to make it easy to transfer these officers from Scotland to England or from England to Scotland, as the case may be. Consequently, we have the amending Clause dealing with the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1913. As to the hon. Gentleman's question whether we have taken the opinion of the officers concerned, I am afraid I am not in a position to say Yes or No. It is because we have found as a Department that this grievance did exist, and that it is a grievance that the House of Commons, when its attention was called to it, would be likely to remedy, and in face of the growth of these particular institutions, which will be formed under the control of local authorities, that we have felt we ought to come down to the House and, as soon as possible, correct what was a defect in the Act of 1913. The Bill proposes to do nothing more than that. The 1913 reason why the officers in mental institutions will be classified as second-class instead of first-class officers is, that when they are in asylums they are in charge of patients, and that when they are in mental institutions the work will be neither so arduous nor so dangerous. Consequently, we have come to the conclusion that in classifying the officers in mental institution as second-class officers for pension purposes, we were making a fair arrangement as between asylums and mental institutions.

§ Mr. BOOTH
I remember the Act of 1913 very well. I am sorry we did not then have the advantage of the help of the hon. Member for Derby (Sir W. Collins). These points were then quite neglected. I was one who opposed and helped to kill the Bill of 1912—a horrible Bill—with the result that the Bill of 1913 was modelled on lines quite satisfactory to the House. Speaking for the critics, I would say that we told the Government time and again that this point would be raised. We were entirely ignored. We did not criticise them or offer opposition when it came to dealing with the staff. The Government were so engrossed in their quarrel with the Lord Chancellor about the legal members' £3,000 that they neglected to see justice done to the staff. All our efforts to get the Government to be more practical and to stop quarrelling about the legal members were in vain for twelve months. We did succeed in some measure in 1913. I am sorry we did not put this point right then. I am glad we are putting it right now. It is the Government's own fault that it was not attended to.