HC Deb 27 February 1924 vol 170 cc630-42
Mr. HUGH EDWARDS

I beg to move: That this House is of opinion that the necessary steps should forthwith be taken for the abolition of any means limit in the application of Old Age Pensions. In submitting such a Resolution as this to the consideration and judgment of the House, I am deeply sensible of the fact that this Motion lacks the charm of novelty. This is the fourth occasion within the last three years on which a Motion of this kind has been debated on the Floor of this House. I venture, however, to claim that what it lacks in novelty it gains in urgency. It is indisputable that the beneficent purposes of the Old Age Pensions Act have been grievously vitiated by various harassing restrictions and restrictive Regulations within which the administration of the Act is enclosed. When the aged toilers come through life's vissicitudes to that period of life to which they are entitled to ask for a pension, they find themselves subjected to most irksome and ruthless disabilities.

If, for example, they have grown-up sons and daughters who give them any help, as is only right and natural, in the form either of money or kind, the value of these gifts is strictly assessed and debited as income to the pensioners, and a corresponding reduction is made from their pensions. If, again, the pensioners seek to add to their standard of subsistence by resorting either to poultry-keeping or the cultivation of their garden or allotment, they are required to make a very strict return of the number of fowls they keep, their egg-producing capacity, and the nature and quantity of the produce of the garden or allotment, and the commercial value of these commodities are assessed and a corresponding deduction made from their pension.

It is only fair to acknowledge that the pensions officers are not responsible for these exacting and inquisitorial investigations. They have to carry out the Regulations as prescribed by the Act. It is the Act itself that is at fault. It is the Act that requires amendment, for as at present constituted it undoubtedly operates to the advantage of the improvident and disadvantage of the thrifty. Let me use a homely illustration. Take two men of the same age engaged by the same firm, and in receipt of the same wage. The one man joins a trade union or a friendly society, and week by week pays his contribution in as a provision for the time when health and strength shall have failed him and he is unable to follow his daily work. The other man makes no attempt in the way of provision for old age. He joins no friendly society. He is content to spend every penny of his wage as it comes to him. What happens when these two men arrive at the age of 70 and apply for their old age pensions? The one man who has shown himself to be absolutely improvident receives the whole pension on the ground that he has absolutely nothing, while the other who has been practising all his life the much-vaunted virtue of thrift finds himself penalised by the deduction of his superannuation income from the amount of his weekly pension. Such a statement is absolutely indefensible. I will recall what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Hillhead Division of Glasgow (Sir R. Horne) said when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and taking part in a Debate on a Motion of this kind. Here are the right hon. Gentleman's words: It certainly appears illogical, because people have saved a little, and have been thrifty and put something by, that therefore they should be denied that which a man gets who has paid no attention to his future. It was a most interesting thing to hear a Scotsman praise the value of thrift. He also condemned what I have referred to as a bad principle. The object of my motion is to eliminate that bad principle which operates to the advantage of the thriftless, and to the disadvantage of the thrifty. I advance another plea in this connection. It is a well known fact that there are many employers of labour who are anxious to make some provision for their aged workers, for the men and women who have grown old and grey in their service, in order to enable them to retire in their old age with a superannuation grant, but they are deterred from doing so by the knowledge that their generosity would be both the cause and the occasion for a reduced pension. Let us consider for a moment how this re-acts on the industry to the disadvantage of the community. I recently read a striking article by the hon. Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara), who pointed out how the War had affected the whole industrial situation. He writes: When the young fellows went to the War the old man remained behind to take their places, and having themselves secured the standard of life which a full wage or salary earning made possible, they found it difficult to fall out again at a time when the cost of living is so enormously high. As a result we have tens of thousands of men walking the streets in enforced idleness drawing unemployment benefit and guardians' relief, and tens of thousands of old men doing their level best to hold on to their jobs, because they have nothing to fall back upon, and the Old Age Pension does not suffice to maintain them. My right hon. Friend agrees that the deletion of the means limit would help to simplify the situation. It would remove from the minds of private firms and employers disposed to superannuate aged employés the difficulty that, within the limits of the present scale, what they propose to provide would come out of the old age pension; and the result would be, as my right hon. Friend puts it, that old men would go off the wage-sheet, and young fellows would come off the Poor Law, out-relief and Unemployment Fund, very much to their advantage, and industry at large would benefit.

I should like to remind the House that in 1919 a very strong Committee was appointed by the Treasury for the purpose of inquiring into the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act and of making recommendations for its improvement. That Committee consisted of 18 members, representing every shade of political thought, and it included some distinguished members of the Civil Service. After sitting for many months, under the capable chairmanship of Sir Ryland Adkins, and examining a large number of witnesses, all of whom could claim an intimate knowledge of the circumstances of the pensioners and of the administration of the Act on its practical side, that Committee issued a Majority Report, signed by no fewer than 11 of its members, and these three decisions were definitely formulated therein:

  1. "(1) The incidence of the means limit introduces the old pauper taint, and brands the old age pension as a compassionate grant.
  2. (2) The inclusion in the pensioner's means, by which he may lose his right to a pension, of certain kinds of income, injuriously affects thrift, benevolence and industry.
  3. (3) The inquiries which are essential to the system cause a large amount of irritation and of friction."
The Report proceeds, and I would ask the House to mark these words: We have, therefore, been forced to advocate that the means limit should be abolished altogether, and that the old age pensions be given to all citizens at the age of 70. We are of opinion that no other course will remove the very serious objection to the present system. In the face of so weighty and authoritative a declaration, I venture to think that the time has come when the Old Age Pension should be raised to a new and a loftier plane. It should be treated, not as merely a dole for the relief of the necessitous, but also as a token of acknowledgment, on the part of the State, of its indebtedness to those aged citizens, men and women, who have borne the brunt in the discharge of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, who have contributed of their strength and substance to the sustenance of the State, and who, consequently, are entitled, in their declining years, when their natural powers are abating, to some special consideration on the part of the State which they have served so long and so faithfully.

We hear a good deal in these days of the right to work, of the right of every individual born into a civilised State to have his opportunity to make his contribution to the general weal and welfare, to use and to exercise his inborn capacities and energies for the common good, and, consequently, to have his share of the rewards that attach to his own industry. But I venture to think that there is yet another right, scarcely less imperative or urgent—the right of the aged, after a lifetime of exhausting toil, to rest on this side of the grave amid conditions undulled by the black shadows of care and want. The House will observe that the Motion makes no reference either to a reduction of the age limit or to an increased amount. Personally, I am firmly convinced that the age limit must be reduced to 65 for men and 60 for women, and I shall be prepared to support the increase of the weekly pension to 15s. and even to 20s. But to-night I am concerned only with one thing, and that is the deletion of the means limit. Like the present Prime Minister, one step is enough for me.

It has been urged on previous occasions that this will mean for the Exchequer an extra outlay of £15,000,000 a year. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) said in his recent speech at Plymouth that, during the last 10 years, the cost of the fighting services has been increased from £86,000,000 to £145,000,000 a year. If the State can afford that, it ought to have no difficulty in finding an extra £15,000,000 for the aged. But I go further than that. I have never yet known a Government which has encountered any difficulty in finding the money for any project on which it has set its heart, and, unlike his two immediate predecessors at the Exchequer, the present Chancellor cannot plead the attenuated state of the Exchequer, for I observe that one of his own colleagues, the Secretary of State for War, in a recent speech at Burnley—another Burnley speech—declared that this country can afford to give pensions of 15s. a week at 65. I do not know whether the Minister for War made that statement with the authority and assent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or whether it will be necessary for us to move the Adjournment again, or whether it was one of those flamboyant window-dressing devices, to which even Cabinet Ministers are addicted in the throes of an exciting by-election. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer will tell us whether his colleague was justified in making that statement. But be that as it may, I think this Motion will have his sympathy and his support. I am much more anxious to see the Resolution passed than I am to make any speech, and I, therefore, appeal to the House confidently to give this Motion its full and undivided support, and thus encourage and enable the present Chancellor of the Exchequer to give legislative effect, both to its purport and to its purpose, and by so doing hon. Members will have the satisfaction of knowing that they have done their part in helping to purge the Old Age Pensions Act of every possible taint of pauperism and also of investing it with a new and gracious significance as the attestation and token of the nation's devotion to the welfare and to the interest of a deserving section of the community.

Lady TERRINGTON

I beg to second the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman—I mean the hon. Member; I wish he were right hon.—for this reason, that it appeals to my sense of justice and humanity. It proposes to meet the needs of those who are least able to help themselves at a period of life when they should receive the utmost assistance which the country's resources can afford. I am pleased to observe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer publicly pledged himself to amending the Old Age Pension scheme. This is indeed good news for the necessitous aged. I have always regarded as one of the greatest blots on the existing method of administering Old Age Pensions that penalty placed upon thrift, decency and honest worth. Those who profited most from the grant of Old Age Pensions were not always those who led useful and industrious lives and who saved to the utmost of their means to provide for that rainy day which so often comes to those who live by their labour. Those people were penalised, while those who were wasteful and least careful of the management of their lives and were therefore less helpful to the nation, generally got as a right what was denied to the thrift, energy and respectability of the others. If it were necessary to plead to the present Government for a reform of the existing legislation, I should do so most earnestly, But I am quite sure that in appealing to them we are knocking at an open door as far as they are concerned. Speaking for myself, I strongly favour the age limit being reduced to 65, and I have many reasons for that. I find that so many women are needful of the money at an earlier age than are the men. They suffer in so many ways. They have to go through so many trials in life, especially those women who have to work so hard in the class to which I am referring. I should like to feel that we can, at least, give those who have attained the age of 70 the minimum of security to which they are entitled, but I should like to give them the maximum. It is absolutely essential to free them from the invidious inquiries, and so forth, that are made into what they have saved.

There can be only one way of dealing with this question, and that is to place all old age pensions on the same level, as a right. There should be no unnecessary inquiries into the private means of anyone who makes a claim to a pension. It is so often those who have established the best right to consideration from the State who are the most pained and humiliated by inquiries, and most threatened by penalties. I believe that many deserving people over the present age limit for old age pensions have not yet asked for them, because they do not want to endure the humiliation of such inquiries, and do not want to be subjected to the indignities attaching to the existing system. We want to remove all this. We want to ensure that thrift and economy shall not be penalised, and thriftlessness encouraged. In my view, all legislation should be directed towards increasing the happiness of the greatest number, and I know no more beneficent legislation than that which will assure those who have given to the service of the country in their prime and strength, and have also been thrifty, shall not suffer in the declining winter of their years on account of their thriftiness. It is they who suffer from the stress of life more extremely than any others, for they carry the burden of a life of toil as well as thrift and the burden of age. Many of the aged, who in normal circumstances would have been assisted by generous and affectionate children have had their wage-earners stricken down during the Great War, and, in addition to the bitterness of distress and want, they have to endure through their remaining years greater bitterness, due to the loss of those who were most dear to them, because of any small savings which may have been left to them. It is for this class that I would earnestly plead to-night. The hearts of the House and of the nation must go out to these people. They must have our whole sympathies. Insofar as our national resources will permit, we must do all that lies in our power to smooth their declining years and to tide them over the winters of their struggles and discontents. The appaling rise in the cost of living, which has been going on, makes it very hard for these people. They might have been assisted by greater help given as a right and not as charity. It is they who have given their life's labour, and very often their children, to the country, and yet their savings are of no account as against the careless and wasteful citizen.

I second this Motion, and I bespeak for it the support of every Member of this House, because I want to see that these people are treated well, and I want to feel that their difficulties can be honestly and justly dealt with. I want to see the sorrow, which I have met with in my short experience in this House, relieved. I had known of such sorrow before, but it has been brought particularly to my notice since I came here. Before then I had no idea that there was so much misery in the world. I want to feel that those who have laboured all their lives will not be subjected to the injustice of being treated less well than others who have not been such good citizens. I feel that these people include some of our best citizens, and I plead earnestly on their behalf in seconding this Motion in the very bad way in which I have done it. I may explain the reason for that by saying that I have listened to a rather depressing Debate, but I do not want to feel that because I am perhaps a little depressed I may in any way impede the cause for which I stand. I want to see both men and women get their fair share, that is, the whole pension, without any question of inquiry into their means, so that we may encourage the best citizens who shall not be penalised because they have done their best.

Major-General Sir J. DAVIDSON

There can be no doubt that every Member of this House, on whichever side he sits, is in hearty agreement with the principle which has been enunciated by the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution. I remember that on the 21st February last year, when a similar Motion was before the House, the Conservative party opposed it and voted against it. Personally I think that that was a mistake on the part of the Conservative party. For this reason very largely, and it is the reason which was given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer only a few nights ago in connection with the widows' pensions. He said that he would support the Resolution and encourage it, but that he would not guarantee by any means to bring the Measure into operation in the current year if he did not find funds available. I think that the position was exactly the same last year when the Conservative party voted against this Resolution. I think that way of treating a Resolution is a trifle immoral. But at the same time there is a limit to immorality, and I think that the limit of immorality has been overstepped recently by a responsible Minister of the Government. This matter was referred to by the Mover of the Resolution. I will read an extract from a newspaper, showing what was said by the Secretary of State for War at Burnley in regard to the question of old age pensions. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the proposal to give old age pensions at the rate of 15s. a week at the age of 65, and he said: If the Labour party is given a real chance, these figures are not very far off in the future. This country is not only wealthy enough; it can do it with both hands and one leg tied up. He might have carried that a little further and have said that the country could do it with both hands and legs tied up, pinioned and trussed, for I do not think that he realises the amount of money which his proposal would cost. It would cost in the current year, approximately, £110,000,000 sterling, and if continued for another 10 years it would run up to something like £125,000,000. Either that responsible Minister did not know what he was talking about, or he should not have made his statement at all. To my mind it was purely vote-catching. There was no possible chance of its being brought in this year or next year, and it was highly dishonest and immoral. I agree entirely with the Mover and the Seconder as to the desirability of removing the thrift disqualification in old age pensions. That should be removed, and also the inquisition into the income of pensioners. It must appear to be just to every hon. Member. I want to draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to one point. There are only two kinds of pensioners who are subject to any income limitation whatever. One is the old age pensioner, and the other is the pre-War pensioner. I want to warn him that I and my friends intend to take every opportunity of pressing for the removal of the income limit in pre-War pensions as well.

I want to make a suggestion to the Government as to a way of dealing with old age pensions. Personally, I view the detailed terms of the Resolution as unsound. The Mover said that he considered it desirable to move the abolition of any means limit. Some people do not require the old age pension, and it is eminently desirable that there should be a means limit of some sort. There is in existence at present an inquisition which it is impossible to remove, and that is the inquisition for the purpose of Income Tax. The proper limitation for old age pensions should coincide with the limitation for Income Tax. It would work suitably in every way, for there would be a rebate for married couples, as in the case of Income Tax. I understand that the removal of the means limit would cost this year something between £15,000,000 and £17,000,000 additional expenditure. I also gather that owing to a large increase of population in the last 70 years, and the longevity at the present moment, that the increase of expenditure will be greater and greater in the years to come, and that it will run up to something like £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 a year in the course of the next few years, which is a very serious consideration. I believe myself it is sound to modify the means limit, but I would consider it sounder still to run a voluntary scheme which would give a greater benefit at a lower age and still further encourage people to save their money for the benefit of their old age. I believe it is quite possible to combine health insurance and old age pensions for a start. We might have some place on the health insurance card where the stamp could be placed for the old age pension contribution and that by a small weekly contribution you could be able to raise the old age pension up to 20s., and give it at 60 That is extremely desirable. If that were brought into operation running parallel with the existing scheme of old age pensions I believe it would materially lighten the cost to the State in the long run. I believe it is worth while for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to investigate this matter. I have had actuarial statistics drawn out, and it appears to me a voluntary contributory scheme would be appreciated by the people as a whole, and it would lower the cost to the taxpayer. This matter has been neglected too long, and it is one to which all parties should lend their attention in the future.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Snowden)

I am sorry to deprive other Members who are anxious to take part in this Debate of the opportunity, but I suppose that they will expect the Government to have a word or two. As I listened to the speech of the hon. Member who moved this Resolution I was reminded of the days of my own irresponsibility. He spoke in an airy manner about the ease with which tens and fifties of millions could be got. The only comfort that I, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had during this Debate was given to me by the hon. Member who has just sat down when he dissented from the suggestion that there should be universal old age pensions. There is a good deal of ambiguity about the abolition of the means limit. The hon. Member himself used the phrase in quite a different sense from that in which he had used it earlier. There is no political party in this House which is pledged to the abolition of all the means limit. Each of the political parties in its last election manifesto was pledged to the removal of what was called the thrift disqualification. That figure had a place in the last King's Speech.

The Prime Minister, in announcing the programme of this Government for the present Session, said that pledge would be honoured. It is the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill at a comparatively early date. I am sure the House will not expect me to anticipate the proposals of that Bill. We accept the principle of the Resolution now before the House, and all I need say further is that, in drafting the Bill which we shall submit to the House, we shall make its provisions as generous as it is possible to make them in the present financial conditions.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

When I came down to the House I can assure hon. Members and the Chancellor of the Exchequer I had no intention of intervening personally in this Debate. But at the same time the brief but very important statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer leaves me in some doubt as to the attitude of the Government. I understood the right hon. Gentleman, in terms of genial remonstrance, and with encouraging reference to his own salad days, to repudiate the proposal for universal old age pensions, but to indicate the intention of the Government to deal with the present restrictions in the sense of modifying them and, no doubt, of making the administration or distribution of pensions more generous. With that statement I have no quarrel, and I should be perfectly content to await the proposals which the right hon. Gentleman will make at the proper time, and which I quite agree it would be unreasonable to ask him to produce on a Motion of this kind after such a very short Debate. But before he sat down he said, "We accept the principle of the Motion." What is the principle of the Motion? We are accustomed to talk about principles in politics very loosely, and on some of the large questions it is perhaps a little difficult to define or state the exact point at which principle arises and expediency ceases to govern the question. But when we are dealing with a Resolution of three and a half lines, it should be possible for the plain man to know what the principle of the Resolution is. Has the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who listened to the speech and repudiated the speech, read the Resolution, the principle of which he accepts? The Resolution is to the effect that the House is of opinion that steps should be taken not for the amendment of the present Act, not for the reconsideration of the limit, not for the removal of the thrift bar, not for anything the Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to do according to the earlier part of the speech—as, I doubt not, it does express his real meaning—but for the abolition of any means limit. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the two minutes which still remain add one sentence to the speech he has delivered, and say does the first portion of that speech express his real meaning, or are we to look for his real meaning in the second portion?

Mr. SNOWDEN

Hon. Members will recall that I said there was a good deal of ambiguity in the use of the term "abolition of the means limit."

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The Resolution uses the words "any means limit."

Mr. SNOWDEN

I pointed out that the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite had used the term in two different senses. What I meant when I said we accepted the principle of the Resolution was that we accept the idea contained in the Resolution that there should be some amendment of the law with regard to the distribution of pensions.

Mr. HUGH EDWARDS

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his consent and declined then to put that Question.

Colonel GRETTON

rose—

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood, adjourned.

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.