HC Deb 21 July 1920 vol 186 cc2159-71
Mr. LAWSON

I beg to move, in page 23, line 19, to leave out Sub-section (1).

I scarcely need to remind the House that this Amendment deals with the Clause under which the ex-service man who is receiving a pension, or his dependants who are receiving pensions, are excluded from the benefits of this Bill. There have been many reasons given during the discussions on this Bill for penalising people, but the last persons one would expect to see deprived of their pensions would be the ex-service men and their dependants. These people and their dependants are insurable people, and except for the fact that they are the parents of ex-service men, or receiving the pensions of ex-service men, they would receive the benefits of this Bill. As a matter of fact you can reduce the Clause to this, that the parents of ex-service men are penalised because they have given their sons for the country. In all respects they would receive the benefits of this Bill if it were not for the fact that they are receiving a pension in some other form. The arguments set forth in respect to the other Clauses tonight, and throughout the whole of the sitting, have been that these people have certain rights because they have paid for them. That applies to such people under this Clause, and under other Clauses.

I should like to point out the very amazing thing that has happened. We did understand from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech on the Finance Bill, that at least under this Bill we were going to get rid of the means limit. As a matter of fact the old means limit is established under this Clause. There is a sub-section of the Clause which deals with necessity pensions, but the Clause deals with all kinds and grades of ex-service men's pensions. The right hon. Gentleman is going to take upon himself the power to make regulations, which means the old inquisition into the means of the parent, and above all things, the parents of ex-service men! There is no one in any quarter of the House who in their hearts could give support to the right hon. Gentleman for a Clause of this kind.

It may be said that they are going to get two pensions. I think the right hon. Gentleman himself suggested that, speaking generally, ex-service men receiving pensions would be excluded from the Bill. I again repeat that these people pay for their pension?. It does not matter how many pensions they are getting if they are paying for them! The fact of the matter is that the Government seem to me to have started out with this Bill under the illusion that it was a gift from the State. That idea has marked the discussions on the Bill. We have heard the word "dependant," and some are under the illusion that the State is giving something. The people themselves concerned have paid for what they have got. Why we are moving the omission of the first part of this Clause is in order to make sure that ex-service men and their dependants receive the pensions to which they are entitled. I think it would be quite to the point to read the view expressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Budget Speech upon this particular question. T thought it was one of the finest and most eloquent passages in a very eloquent speech. The Chancellor said:— I would say that I like the association of this new scheme of widows' pensions, and pensions at 65 with the dying out of the cost of the war pensions. I like to think that the sorrow and the sacrifice and the suffering have been the seed from which a strong tree would grow, under which perhaps many generations of British people may find shelter against some of the storms of life. It is by far the finest war memorial you can set up to those who gave their lives, their limbs, their blood, and who lost their health or dear ones in their country's cause."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April. l925; col. 83, Vol., 183.] I submit to this House that no one, in face of a passage and sentiment of that kind, can vote against the exclusion of this Sub-section. It is going to rob the ex-service men and their dependants of than for which they are compelled to pay.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS

I beg to second the Amendment.

I would like to say to hon. Members opposite who were ushered into the Lobby against their will one day last week, that few words of mine are necessary to emphasise the necessity for carrying this Amendment. It was said by Members from the opposite benches that the right hon. Gentleman was running the gauntlet when he endeavoured to secure a majority last week. His own supporters felt that something would be done between that day and the Report stage to appease the appetites of his own supporters. That has not happened, with the result that we find the Clause to-day just as it was prior to the Committee stage. My hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-street (Mr. Lawson) has indicated the general effect of the Clause. While one scarcely needs to repeat arguments submitted on the last occasion, I should like to draw attention to one or two typical cases. Take, for instance, a person who joined the Army and met with some injuries which cause permanent physical disability. He is receiving a life pension of somewhere in the "teens" of shillings to-day. He could he a contributor to this pensions scheme for 30 years, at the end of which you will tell him that his pension must be reduced in case his wife should be alive. But if his wife has passed before him, he is deprived of receiving any pension, although he has paid for 30 years. Implied in the Clause is not only a, desire on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to deprive this individual of pension for which he has paid, but there is also a penalty for having joined His Majesty's Forces and having done his best during that very critical period, suffered physical pain and permanent physical disability. He is penalised far-having done so much for his country. If that is the real intention of the Government, if they are going to penalise ex-service men, we on these benches cannot agree with them, and will continue to support that section of the community which, rightly or wrongly, fought during the War and suffered physical disabilities as a result.

The right hon. Gentleman told the Committee, and particularly his own supporters, one day last week that unless they supported him in the Lobby against an attempt to throw out this Clause the Bill would be wrecked. He said the deletion of this Clause would cost the nation many millions of pounds, and the scheme could no longer be carried through. I would like to remind him that no one on this side of the House would wish to duplicate pensions such as those dealt with in Sub-sections (2), (3), (4), and even (5); but we do object to an ex-service man who is receiving a small permanent disability pension, and who will be compelled to contribute 4d. per week towards the pension scheme, being deprived of that to which he is justly entitled. Does any hon. Member say, also, that a woman who lost her son during the War, and is in receipt of a dependant's pension, should be placed at a disadvantage thereby? If the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues behind him can support that kind of thing, then all their statements in the past have been meaningless, like the statements of those hon. Gentlemen who supported an Amendment recently until it was carried to a Division and then found themselves in the wrong Lobby. This Clause, above all others, ought to be seriously amended or deleted in order to avoid injustices that are otherwise bound to happen.

May I call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to paragraph (a). He will see by that paragraph that an ex-service man with a pension of 18s. a week will, on teaching the pensionable age, be entitled under the terms of this Clause to a pension of 1s. a week, and his wife will be entitled to a similar amount, though he may have been paying for the full pension of 10s. for 10, 20 or 30 years. I am sure that does not meet with the general approval of Members of this House, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be willing to say he will recon- sider the whole thing and is prepared to do justice by making it possible for an ex-service man who has paid for a pension to receive it regardless of any other pension of which he may be in receipt.

11.0 P.M.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS

When the House was in Committee with regard to this Bill a similar Amendment to that now proposed was brought up, and on that occasion I, and many other hon. Members supported that Amendment. We are now in the same position on the Report stage as during the Committee stage. The Clause as it stands leaves a certain amount of confusion in the minds of many hon. Members in this House as to what it involves, and I want to clear that up before I give my own opinion and explain the course which I propose to adopt. In the Bill there is an entirely new term made use of for the first time in connection with pensions. This is the phrase "service dependants' pensions." Clause 45 of the Bill gives a definition which brings into this Measure the question of war widows. The term "dependants' pensions" to which we have been accustomed since the War has nothing to do with widows. The dependants referred to are those parents who have lost a son in the War, and who are receiving a pension of one of three types. Either it is a pre-War pension, a flat-rate pension, or a necessitous need pension. They got this in return for the loss of their son. The arguments against this pension being touched or affected in any way by this new Bill are so obvious, and the logic of them is so irresistible, that I need not go into them again in detail. I think that whatever else may be provided for in this Bill, the right of the parents earned by the sacrifice of their sons in the War is one which should be almost sacrosanct.

The Bill as it stands provides that when these parents reach the age of 65 the pension they have won by the loss of their child will be telescoped into the old age pension which will become payable. Numerous cases must occur in which the pre-War pension or the flat-rate pension, drawn by the parents at present, would be in excess or equal to the pension they would draw under this Bill. We should then be face to face with a case of a contributor under this Bill from the present day up to reaching the old-age limit, who would have paid precisely the same contributions as anybody else, and who because of the pension granted by the State for the death of his two sons, would not draw one penny during his lifetime for the contributions he had made to the contributory pensions fund. I am sure the House and the whole country will agree that such a state of affairs cannot be defended by any logic. The argument we were faced with in Committee was that this was to cost £4,000,000 a year. This was a staggering figure. What we were pressing for was (1) the omission of the telescoping of the disabled-man's pension, and (2) of the dependence pension. The sum of £4,000,000 mentioned by the Minister of Health did not seem to us a figure commensurate with the cost which would be thrown on the State by those two main concessions. We now understand that the £4,000,000 was calculated upon the inclusion of all war widows. The war widows are in a totally different position from those on whose behalf we were pressing our two main concessions. The men killed in the War were not contributing to the scheme, and the pension provided to their widows was an adequate provision by the State for their maintenance. The confusion brought in by the figure of £4,000,000 arose from the use of the new term "service dependence pension." We do not ask that war widows should, in addition to their present pension, receive a pension which other widows will get as the result of the contributions of their husbands. If the House will separate these two issues, the issue of the war widow and that of the dependant of the disabled man, we should be able to have a clear idea of what the House wishes and what. I am sure, the country also wishes.

I now come to the question, how have we to act in view of the Amendment? I remember that when the House was in Committee, before I spoke, there were many taunts directed at us from Members of the Labour party, that we had not the courage of our convictions. We were not afraid of those taunts, but we did become a trifle timid when to those taunts there succeeded an invitation from the Liberal benches to agree to the deletion of the Clause so that the Government might substitute something else. The source was, we thought, a little tainted. I hope we shall not be given that advice again to-night. Yet as the Clause stands, and unless something is done to meet the case of these dependants' pensions, unless something quite clear and unmistakable is put into the Bill, it is difficult to see what other course any of us on this side would have save to clear the way, even in spite of the advice from the benches opposite, for some other Amendment which we would have to propose. I half expected that an Amendment would be put on the Paper by Labour Members. Possibly they might make the taunt, in reply, that they expected that we would put down an Amendment. The reason why we did not do so was that all on this side of the House realise that the case has only to be made clear to the Treasury Bench for that bench to act. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I welcome those cheers from Labour Members as showing that the confidence we have in the Treasury Bench is shared by them. We believe-that if this case is made clear, even now at this eleventh hour, the right hon. Gentleman will find some way of introducing an Amendment which will meet the views I have expressed. It is in that hope that I do not propose to say how I shall vote should this Amendment be pressed to a Division. But I do ask Members on all sides who follow me to advance arguments more cogent and eloquent than mine, and to bring pressure to bear on the Minister so that he may be induced to bring in an Amendment from the point of view which I have endeavoured to express.

Mrs. PHILIPSON

I want to support whole-heartedly all that has been said by the last speaker. Knowing the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health, I feel sure that he will amend this Clause. If I read the Clause rightly, it means that a mother in receipt of 5s. a week pension for the son whom she has given in the War, will have to forfeit that pension when she is in receipt of an old age pension. I know that the hon. and gallant Member for North St. Pancras (Captain Fraser)— I say this in case he does not get a chance to speak—is whole-heartedly with us, as are several other hon. Members. I feel sure that the Minister will do something to help these mothers who have lost their sons in the War. Five shillings a week will not bring the sons back, and it is the duty of the Government to give a helping hand.

Lieut.-Colonel HENDERSON

I would like, in a few words, to support what has been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Dumfries (Brigadier-General Charteris). I was one of those who did go so far as to express myself on the Committee stage with regard to this particular Clause. As one who has interested himself in the question of pensions and ex-service men ever since he came into the House, it is a question in which I feel very strongly. Most of us on the Conservative side of the House were not exercised in the Committee stage on the question of the ex-service man, because most of us realised that the disabled ex-service man, as far as pension is concerned, is not brought into the Bill. His pension is not included or assessed for the purpose of this Bill. The Sub-section on which we divided in the Committee stage was one with regard to dependant's pensions. T quite appreciate what the Minister has paid about need pensions and war widows: but there are two other classes of War dependants, the ox-service man's dependant who is drawing a pre-War dependance pension and the dependant who is drawing a flat-rate pension; and they are in an entirely different category. The maximum pension that parents may receive under one heading is 40s. and on an average it works out at about 9s. In the case of the flat rate, and if two or more sons are killed, you get a maximum of 20s. In the Clause under discussion the pension that is payable is divided by half for the purpose of assessment where both parents are alive. At the age of 56 a man might be easily paying a contribution towards a pension for his widow for 10 years or five years and then, if he dies before his wife becomes 65, his wife would only get the difference between what she is getting from the Pensions Ministry and what she is entitled to receive, and, if she is getting the maximum, she would get nothing at all. The same rule is applicable with regard to old age pensions. I think it is absolutely indefensible to suggest that you are going to ask people, who have already sacrificed a great deal in losing their children in the War, to contribute towards a scheme for 10 or 15 years, on the distinct understanding that at the end of those 10 or 15 years they cannot possibly get anything at all. I cannot understand anybody being able to get up and defend a proposal of that kind. Therefore, for that reason, I hope that the Minister will reconsider this question of the dependants of ex-service men, because I really think there is a genuine case of hardship which calls for some rectification.

Sir JOHN PENNEFATHER

I believe that a great deal of confusion still exists in the minds of Members of the House in regard to this Bill. I have been endeavouring for some days past to get explanations of what the Bill really does mean, and I confess that every explanation I have heard has left me still more confused. That being the case, I feel compelled to suspend judgment until I hear what the Government are really going to do. If I understand the Rill rightly, it might—I do not say it would —have the effect of placing the dependants of ex-service men at a disadvantage compared with the other contributors insured under this Bill. If the dependants of ex-service men are under this Bill, as it finally becomes law, placed at a disadvantage as compared with other persons who have not made the same sacrifice and who have contributed no more, then I should have no option but to vote against the Bill. But I cannot conceive that the Government intend anything so unjust, and, therefore, I still hope and believe that they will, before we part with the Bill, make some statement or put in some Clause or Amendment which will make it quite clear that those who have doubted thorn are wrong, and those who, like myself, are prepared to trust them are right, and by that means will enable us to have the satisfaction of continuing to 6upport them solidly in the Lobby.

Captain FRASER

I do not desire to take up the time of the House for more than two or three minutes, because I am quite certain that it is unnecessary in any way to go over the many arguments that have been so forcibly brought forward in the last Debate and to-night, but before the Minister replies I want to ask him if it is possible for him to answer one question which presents very great difficulties to me. It is quite clear, as was stated by the hon. and gallant Member for Bootle (Lieut.-Colonel Henderson), that, where a need pension is under consideration, it may be quite appropriate for the State to take away from the pensioner some portion of the money that is being received, if adequate benefit is being paid out, let us say, from another Department. It might be quite proper for the Ministry of Pensions to diminish a need pension as and when a contributory pension becomes payable, if in fact the need was diminished or ceased to exist. But it does not seem to me proper or logical to diminish or in any way curtail the contributory pension, which is, I understand, what is being done. I would ask the Minister if it is possible for him to explain why he cannot allow a person to receive the contributory pension to which he or she is obviously entitled, and make whatever deduction appears fair, if such deduction be fair, from another source when this contributory pension has been paid. With regard to the general question of pensions which have been earned, I can only say that the position I take up is precisely that of the last speaker. I am hopeful, particularly after the concession which the right hon. Gentleman made at a late hour in Committee last week, he may be able to make some statement to-night which will satisfy us and make it possible for us to give him our whole-hearted support. I should hesitate very strongly to fail to give my whole-hearted support because I am not of the opinion that any other Government would have done as well.

Captain MACMILLAN

The hon. Members who moved and seconded the Amendment did not seem to me to throw a clear light on the situation in which we are placed, and indeed the hon. Member who seconded succeeded in increasing the darkness, because he devoted some of his remarks to a discussion of how an ex-service man drawing a disability pension would be affected by this proviso. That is unfortunate, because he will not be affected in any way at all. However, since the moving and the seconding of the Amendment a great deal more light has been thrown on the subject. As I understand the matter, the Amendment cannot command the serious support of any Member of the House, because if it were carried in its present form the effect would be to bring in to the orbit of additional pensions the whole number of the War widows and the future war widows of future wars. It was that which certainly made up, in our opinion, the greater part of the very large sum of £4,000,000 which is mentioned as the probable cost of the Amendment as it stands. After all, there is clearly no case for giving the additional pension of 10s. a week to the War widow who is already receiving a pension. Therefore there is no real case that he has a grievance under Clause 24 (1). She does not have a claim as a contributor to this pension scheme, because she is expressly excluded from it, and to that extent the case for the Amendment falls to the ground. In regard to the widows of future wars, the present serving soldier is coming into this scheme on very favourable terms. The contributions paid for him or in respect of him are low compared to the contributions paid by civilians.

But there is a very strong and a very real case in regard to those persons who have already been mentioned, that is to say, the people who are drawing their service dependants' pensions in respect of son or sons. Those service dependants' pensions fall into three categories. First, there is the pre-war dependants' pension reckoned according to the amount contributed by that son or sons to the parent. Then there is the need pension and the flat rate pension. With regard to the need pension the case is already met in the Clause as it stands, but with regard to the flat rate pension, and the pre-War dependants' pension, if this Clause is allowed to stand there will, in my opinion, be a grave injustice done to a class of persons, that is the parents of sons killed in the War who might be for many years contributors to this scheme without the prospect and in some cases without even the possibility of drawing any benefits in return for their contributions. Therefore, while I would most certainly not vote for the Amendment as it stands, I hope the Minister will not be able to exclude from the operation of Sub-section (1) the parent whose son or sons have been killed in the War and in respect of whose death they are drawing service dependants' pensions. I hope he will do so for two reasons: First, because it is the general view of this House that there can be no category of persons in respect of whom we should be more unwilling to commit any injustice; and, secondly, for the very strong reason, also, that a provision of this kind tends to throw discredit upon the whole of the contributory idea. The contributory idea is the basis of this scheme, and it is the contributory idea that this Bill is going to establish in the country.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The Debate that has taken place on this Amendment has served this extremely useful purpose, that it has clarified the situation. Looking back upon the Debate that took place in Committee upon this Clause, I do not think that the atmosphere was by any means clear, and I am sure that a number of those who took part in that Debate were not completely acquainted with what are the actual effects of the Bill. That confusion seems to remain even today among some hon. Members opposite. The speech to which we have just listened has summed up the situation as it appears in respect of the real grievance, the real injustice, which has been described and which a great number of hon. Members desire that we should remedy. It is obvious that I cannot accept the Amendment in the form in which it stands. It would mean a cost of between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000. But it has been represented to me— and I confess I feel the force of the argument—that, particularly in cases where parents are receiving pensions in respect of a son or sons killed on active service, and where the father of such dead son or sons is in insurable employment and is paying contributions, that it is not right and it is not even consistent with the underlying principles of this Bill that he should be forced to pay these contributions when it may be that it is impossible for him ever to derive any benefits. I confess that I feel that that is a very strong case, but I am afraid it is a very expensive case. It is going, if I meet the point, to add a very serious sum to the charge upon the Exchequer, but in view of the fact that it is now half-past eleven, I think the House will not take it amiss if I suggest that they should give me a few hours to consider the matter, and if I can find a way to meet the case that has been put up. I can make a statement upon it when we resume the proceedings to-morrow. That is a course which I think would be best for the House, best for the people whom we want to serve, and, incidentally, best for the Minister. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] As that idea seems to command general assent, I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.