§ 91. Mr. JOHN O'NEILLasked the Financial Secretary to the Tereasury if he will authorise the payment of old age pensions by post?
Mr. GRAHAMPayment of old age pensions by post could only be made by sending to the pensioner weekly a postal order which, unless paid into a bank account, would have to be taken to the post office to be cashed like the pension orders in the book now delivered yearly to the pensioner. The proposal would thus involve a very large increase in the cost of administration without any practical advantage to old age pensioners, and I am not prepared to adopt it.
§ Mr. O'NEILLWould it not be possible, where people are frail and unable, as is often the case, to go to the post office to receive the money, to arrange by some means that the money is paid to them? What is the approximate cost of sending the pensions by postal order?
Mr. GRAHAMI cannot say what the approximate cost would be, but as regards the people the hon. Member has in mind, there is now an arrangement which enables them to get the pension. What the hon. Member had in mind in his original question was a general scheme.