CLAUSE 8.—(Statutory conditions as to old age pensions.)

HC Deb 21 July 1920 vol 186 cc2027-32

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Neville Chamberlain)

I beg to move, in page 7, line 31, at the end to insert a new paragraph,— (iii) Where a person on attaining the age of sixty in the case of a man, or fifty-five in the case of a woman, had been, continuously insured for a period of ten years or since the fifteenth day of July, nineteen hundred and twelve whichever period is the shorter), condition (c) shall, if he or she so elects, apply as if, for the reference to thirty-nine contributions, there were substituted a reference to twenty-six contributions, but in such case the regulations shall not provide that the contributions shall for the purposes of that condition be deemed to have been paid in respect of any period of unemployment except unemployment owing to incapacity for work due to some specific disease or some bodily or mental disablement. This Amendment becomes necessary in order to carry out a concession which was promised in Committee. I undertook I would move the re-committal of the Bill in order to make a provision in respect of employed persons similar to that already made in the case of voluntary contributors. The men and women concerned in this particular Amendment are elderly people—in the case of the men being of the age of 60 and in the case of the women of the age of 55—who may not be able to comply with the statutory conditions. Under this Amendment I think their position will be considerably eased. I believe the concession will meet with general approval.

Mr. LEES-SMITH

I do not think that this Amendment and the Amendment which follows it in the name of the Minister of Health, need give rise to lengthy debate, but there are one or two points which we wish to elucidate in the right hon. Gentleman's proposal. The position is that under Clause 8 the contributor would lose his old age pension at 65 unless for three years prior to reaching that age he was for 39 weeks in a year either employed or genuinely seeking employment or sick. The point we raised in Committee was that a large number of elderly men through no fault of their own would fall out of these provisions. Men before reaching the ago of 65 in many cases slacken of and become intermittent. The case which I put before the Minister was the case of a waiter who was growing elderly and getting past his work and who worked only during the season and carried on some little personal occupation for the remainder of the time. Before we express our view on this Amendment we should be clear as to what it means. I understand the first Amendment gives a man in this position an option. Instead of coming under the 39 weeks condition, he can, if he wishes, come under a 26 weeks condition, towards which weeks of genuinely seeking employment do not count. In that case a man of that kind, if he can prove that for 26 weeks he was either working or sick, will be able to obtain his pension.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

indicated assent.

Mr. LEES-SMITH

I think it is evident the majority of men in the position we are considering will choose the second option rather than the first. That, however, does not cover all the cases we have in mind. Many of these men will be employed, not for 26 weeks, but for 20 or 18 weeks. Am I right in assuming that the third Amendment which the Minister has put down is for the purpose of dealing with that case.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

indicated assent.

Mr. LEES-SMITH

By that Amendment a man in that position may for the few weeks that are necessary to bring him up to the 26 weeks, stamp his own card and so cover the margin.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

indicated assent.

Mr. LEES-SMITH

That being so, I think the right hon. Gentleman has met the points we made in Committee. I would point out, however, that as a result of all these Amendments and improvements, this Bill is becoming very complicated. How can we be sure, for example, that the men whom we are now considering will know at the right moment and when the choice has to be made, that they have this threefold option> To take another case, how can we be sure that the single woman will know that she can become a voluntary contributor for health, and under this Bill at the same time, and that she can go into arrears for 32 weeks out of the 52 and still retain her old age pension? In fact, how are we in this House to know what this Bill does, and answer all the questions that will be put to us? It seems to me that for the next 18 months or more Members of this House will have to be experts on widows' pensions. Can we send the letters to the Minister of Health to be answered by him? No doubt in the next six months the Ministry of Health will devise a code of regulations. I ask the Minister if, in those Regulations, it is possible to take steps in regard to special classes of contributors—not the general mass of contributors, but special classes such as these Amendments are creating—to insure that as far as possible they shall be individually notified, at the right time, of their rights and privileges under the Bill.

Major HORE-BELISHA

I wish to direct the attention of the Committee to the wording of the Amendment. The Clause provides the statutory conditions as to old age pensions, namely, that the person has been continuously insured for five years prior to the age of 65, that 104 contributions have been paid by him or in respect of him and that for the three contribution years prior to the age of 65 he had an average of 39 contributions for each year. Weeks of genuine unemployment were to count in his favour. The Amendment takes that benefit away. It says that if a man has been in employment —has been continuously insured—for 10 years, he may have the benefit of the Bill by paying a reduced number of contributions: But in such case the regulations shall not provide that the contributions shall for the purposes of that condition be deemed to have been paid in respect of any period of unemployment except unem- ployment owing to incapacity for work due to some specific disease or some bodily or mental disablement. I submit that is a very grave and serious disqualification. Anybody who may have drawn health insurance benefit will get the benefit of this provision, but anybody who draws unemployment benefit ceases to get the benefit of this provision. The case which I put to the right hon. Gentleman when the Clause was under consideration in Committee was the case of Crown employés who are compulsorily superannuated at the age of 60. They may have worked assiduously from the age of 16 to the age of 60 and through no fault of their own they may be cast out of work and where there is no alternative industry then they are cast upon the unemployment fund. They were entirely ruled out of this Clause as it stood, and I admit that the Minister has done something to redress their very serious position. As the Clause stood, no servant of the Crown who did not become a voluntary contributor could possibly have got anything under this Bill, although he was the very person one would have imagined it was desired to benefit. Now the Minister says he will bring that person in provided he has been under the Health Insurance Act for a period of 10 years, but if at any period during that 10 years he has been out of work, he is not going to make him any concession whatever.

If the Committee passes this Amendment, it will be doing a very grave injustice, and I ask the Minister whether he will not consider removing from it all the words beginning with the word "but," that is to say, removing this grave and serious disqualification, which I hope the Committee will examine. The right hon. Gentleman has not gone very far. All that he has done for these men who are compulsorily superannuated at the age of 60—it applies not only to Government employés, but to others—is to let them off, I think, 13 contributions in the year. It is not a very generous concession. He is giving them about a £1 a year towards the contributions which he is taking from them in the first instance quite unjustly. I submit that it is a more worthy thing for a man to have paid his contributions from the age of 16 to the age of 60, than it is for a man to come into insurance for the first time at the age of 55, and yet a man who comes into insurance for the first time at the age of 55 will be in a very much better position that the man under this particular Clause. I do not see why the Minister should have exacted such a long period as ten years of employment before a man can get the benefits of this scheme, and I fail to see why he should have put in that qualification, which I hope he will see his way to remove.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Really the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Major Hore-Belisha) is very unreasonable. The whole purpose of this concession was to provide for the case of the man who was intermittently employed and who, therefore, could neither make up his full number of contributions nor show that he was genuinely unemployed. If he is in that position we give him the option of the shorter period; if, on the other hand, he is employable and can show he has been genuinely seeking employment, he will have no difficulty in making up the 39 contributions. With regard to the points made by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith), I think he sees we have endeavoured fully to meet the points he raised, and it is a little hard that, when we have made concessions asked for by the other side, we should then find them turning round and saying we have made the thing so complicated that nobody can understand it. That is the necessary result of trying to meet the hard cases. The more hard cases we try to meet, the more exceptions there will be in the Bill by special provisions; and the more complicated the Bill becomes, the more difficult it is to keep it in mind. That, I fully admit, but it is the inevitable result of doing what we have been asked to do by the hon. Member and his friends, and I suggest to him that, after all, we shall have the approved societies, who will make it their business to see that their members do understand all the rights and privileges which may accrue to them under the different provisions of the Bill, and that we may safely trust to them to issue to their members such warnings and notices as may be necessary to ensure that they shall not omit anything by reason of the complications of the Bill.

Mr. POTTS

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what interpretation is going to be put on the phrase "genuinely seeking employment"? Supposing a man is unemployed and he is seeking work, how many days out of the six per week is he to be deemed to be genuinely seeking work?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

That is an old question which, I think, has already been answered on the Committee stage. The matter has to be decided by the approved societies themselves.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN

Does that mean that the test of genuinely seeking employment will be the test as applied by the Employment Exchanges at present?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

No.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.