PENSIONS ADMINISTRATION. (Hansard, 8 March 1923)

§ Mr. LANSBURY
I am very sorry to have brought the Minister of Pensions back again to-night, but there are some cases connected with his Department which ought to be on the Records of this House, so that the public may know the kind of case that is being turned down. I want to refer to two mental cases, both of which, I think, the Minister knows something about. The first is the case of a man in the Brentwood Asylum, as to whom the guardians have levied a charge on the father of 5s. a week. This man did not join as an A1 man, but he joined the Army, he was taken over to France, 898 and he returned home. After being demobilised, he broke down in health. There is no evidence that this man suffered from any mental derangement until after he had joined the forces. I understand that the doctors maintain that this is a case where a period, has elapsed between the time when a man was demobilised and the mental derangement took place, and that some germ in the man's brain, which had lain dormant, broke out and brought on his trouble. I want to suggest that this is one of those cases where, if a man was fit at the time he was taken into the Army, and if afterwards—it may be some months, or even a year or two—he broke down in this fashion, it would be only reasonable to suppose it was due to the fact that he had been under the most terrific shell-fire and war conditions. Some of the strongest men were broken down because of that. I think it is unfair that his father should be obliged to maintain him, and that he should be treated as a. pauper lunatic.
Another case is that of Captain Christopher Douglas Thomson, who served in the 11th Royal Fusiliers. He joined in August, 1914, and got a commission in 1916. He served a further two years and one month. He had malaria while serving and was also wounded in France. Then he was used as a transport officer to bring troops from Jamaica to France and Italy, and to take them back again. At the close of the War he was demobilised. He lost his reason and was removed to Brook-wood Asylum on 23rd December, 1922. Again, there is not the slightest record that this man had any mental disease whatsoever before he joined up. He had a four years' clean health record with a firm in the City of London and also two years since the War with another company. The argument here is that this man's mental derangement after the War had nothing to do with his war service. Everybody knows that malaria and such diseases do occasionally break people down even without a war, but this man's mental capacity was, 899 I suggest, broken down definitely because of his service with the colours. There is no question about his being A1, but after these 4½ years of service the man is now pitchforked into a pauper lunatic asylum. There is another case of a man who was discharged from the army at Michaelmas. He was operated upon for a bad under, and was continually under treatment until January of this year. Two doctors certified that his illness and death were the result of an ulcer for which they had had to operate and which was a direct result of his service in the War. His wife has now to live on Poor Law relief.
In another case, the man was an old soldier who served in the Army from 1889 to 1908. He rejoined in 1914, but became permanently unfit owing to rheumatism. The doctors certified that the disease was permanent. His claim was first accepted, but last November one of the appeal tribunals struck him off although he is permanently unfit. In another case the man was twice wounded and was invalided out in 1919 on account of wounds. In 1922 he claimed a pension for tuberculosis but the Government doctor diagnosed it as bronchitis, and the Minister says that this could not have arisen because of wounds in the left arm. I should have thought that a wound anywhere under the shoulder or near the shoulder would probably have helped to make a man more liable to tuberculosis. A doctor who is an expert on tuberculosis, in June, 1922, gave him a certificate to take to the local Pensions Office and to the Ministry that be was suffering from tuberculosis. In regard to the next case, when I raised it in this House at Question time a laugh went up because the man is suffering from obesity. There is no question at all that the disease is directly attributable to his war service. He had been operated upon in such a fashion and so carved up since he left the Army that most of his natural functions cannot be performed. That man is now in Bromley just a burden to himself, his wife and family, and is living on Poor Law relief.
I will give only one other case. This man has four children. He enlisted in January, 1917, and was discharged in 1918. He was gassed. I understand that there was some question about his having been gassed, but since the answer of the 900 Minister, I have gone to some trouble to ascertain, and it is definite that he was gassed at Cambrai in 1917. He managed to carry on till January, 1918, when he was removed to hospital at Rouen. I have seen this man, as I have most of the other eases. There is no question about the incapacitation of any of these men; before the War all of these were in a reasonable state of health. I want to put to the Minister two things. Firstly, that even at the worst, or, from his point. of view, the best, these are hard cases, which I believe the British public and every hon. Member here, were he free to vote, would be willing that something should be done.
I know that the Minister can say he takes no account of cases that have been dealt with, but I do not think any case ought to be left undealt with. When, in a division like the one I represent, we have about 2,000 women, children and men, the men being disabled or partially disabled, I think I am entitled to say that there must be thousands of others up and down the country. We are told that we want to make political capital out of this Question. I do not. I shall he perfectly willing never again to raise my voice about any of these cases if the Government will set up some sort of small Committee, of which the Minister, or someone representing him can be Chairman, to which we can take these hard cases and hammer them out. It is monstrous that one has to wait and throw them at the Minister at this hour of the night, or do it in a duel across the Table at Question Time. I beg the Minister to believe me when I say—and speak for all my colleagues—that what we want is power to bring these cases definitely and distinctly before the Minister in one form or another, and that the hest method would be to have a Committee, to which we could go, one day a week, and put our whole case before them.

§ The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon)
I make no complaint of the hon. Member, because he has, I know, endeavoured on three successive Thursdays to bring these cases before the House, but the fact that I have been left three minutes in which to deal with eight eases, suggests to me—not in the way of a charge against the hon. Member—how absolutely impossible it is to decide individual cases 901 by Debate in the House of Commons. I am not complaining in any way, but I am pointing out that when the hon. Member raised the case which he first mentioned, be certainly gave me the impression from the question which he asked in the House, that the man had enlisted as A1. The hon. Member has, quite rightly, admitted now that the man was enlisted as C2, which shows that it is very easy to bring up an individual case and, in all sincerity, snake a mistake.

§ Mr. LANSBURY
You told me yourself what was his category.

§ Major TRYON
The hon. Member wrote me a letter, in which he contended that if, at the end of that period, a man left the Army broken in health, he should receive maintenance. That is a very natural contention, but now that point does not arise, because the man's last category was B1, so that, in the Army, he was better, after a time, than when he went in. Consequently, on the two points which the hon. Member made, first, that we ought to go by his condition when he entered the Army, and, secondly, that we ought to go by his condition afterwards, when he left the Army, he was wrong. I also find that he said, very naturally, whether he was passed Al, B1 or C3 does not matter. It seems to me a little inconsistent first to take up the attitude that everything that matters is his condition when he went in, then, that the one thing that matters is, was he unfit when he left, and finally, that nothing matters at all—

§ Mr. LANSBURY
Except that he was fit to join the Army and fight. That was my point.

§ Major TRYON
I think the hon. Member has forgotten his point. He has changed his ground, at all events. It is impossible to conduct the administration of the Pensions Ministry if all these individual cases are to be brought up in 902 the House of Commons. I have now withdrawn the files for several of these cases, week after week, from the proper procedure of the Ministry, to endeavour to meet Debate, but the Ministry cannot carry on its work if all these individual files are to be withdrawn from the various Regional Headquarters from Scotland or from London, indefinitely on the offchance of a Debate coming up in the House of Commons, and when the hon. Member suggests that what is wanted is a small committee where individual cases can be brought before the Minister, he has no idea of proportion. I do not say it in any offensive sense. It is a fact. The House of Commons, at the demand of the ex-service men, took all these points of entitlement out of the decision of the Ministry, and said a tribunal should settle them. I was on the Departmental Committee. We found that 12 tribunals were not keeping pace with the demand. We represented that more were wanted. The Government. of the day agreed and we got 24 tribunals, and later there were 30 and they were not enough, and if anyone thinks he can settle these questions by referring them all to the Minister of Pensions, when 30 tribunals are barely keeping up with the work, he is making a suggestion which would have a devastating effect on the settlement of these questions.

§ Mr. LAWSON
You had to double the appeal tribunals when you abolished the local committees.

§ Major TRYON
The tribunals have nothing whatever to do with the work of the local committees. The tribunals were set up in the days of local committees, with the support of all parties in this House, because the local committees—