§ Mr. R. DAVIESI beg to move, in page 4, line 7, to leave out the words "one hundred and four" and to insert instead thereof the word "twenty-six."
In moving this Amendment I am sure the Committee will agree with me when I say that I am dealing with what is a very important subject. Not only does this point deal with the financial transactions of the Bill but it is intended that persons will be brought within the scope of the scheme who are excluded by the Bill as it stands. Clause 5 deals with the statutory conditions to be complied with in the case of a person in respect of whose insurance 104 weeks have elapsed and 104 2696 contributions have been paid. I always thought, when I listened to the speeches of the Minister of Health and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, that it was the desire that all conceivable types of cases that had been connected at any time with National Health Insurance should be brought within the scope of this scheme. That is to say, the Government were very anxious to include within the four corners of this scheme all types of cases touched at any time by National Health Insurance. The Minister knows that there are thousands of cases —I do not exaggerate when I say there are hundreds of thousands of people— who have passed through National Health Insurance, but have gone out of the scheme and cannot come in again under Clause 5 if it passes as it stands. I can quote my own case, but am not arguing in order to bring myself within the scheme. In 1912 I was compulsorily insured, because my income was below £160 per annum. Fortunately for me, after I had paid 30 contributions under the insurance scheme, my income increased beyond that rate. Later on there was an Amendment passed to the National Health Insurance Act which increased the income limit from £160 per annum to £250 per annum and the income limit at this moment in respect of non-manual workers is £250 per annum or £4 16s. 2d. per week. Non-manual workers in receipt of an income above that automatically fall out of the insurance scheme. The Minister of Health will appreciate that there are thousands of cases like my own. There may be other Members of this House who have passed through the Health Insurance scheme who were not for two years continuously insured; and be cause they fall short of 104 contributions they will not be entitled, if they desire to become voluntary contributors under this new scheme, to do so.
The point I desire to make is this: I cannot see what connection there is between the benefits under the pensions scheme and the contributions that are paid in respect of insured persons under the National Health Insurance scheme Suppose a man was compulsorily insured in July, 1912, the date when the National Health Insurance scheme became operative. Up to 1914 he would have 2697 paid 104 contributions. He then fell out of the scheme and has never paid a penny since. He may come under the new scheme as a voluntary contributor. I cannot see how the new benefits are to be affected by contributions paid during the years 1912 to 1914. If there is no connection at all between the payment of those contributions for two years and the benefits paid under the new scheme, then I say that any person, no matter how long he may have been connected with National Health Insurance, ought to be capable of coming in under this scheme as a voluntary contributor if he desires to do so. It will be very difficult —I am sure the Committee will appreciate the point—for an approved society to find out whether a person has paid 104 contributions under the old scheme, and I am sure that the Minister and the approved societies will find themselves in a quandary in marking certain that persons who apply for membership under this scheme have passed through an approved society. This book which shows 104 contributions is really of no value at all in this connection, and the person who has paid 26 contributions under the National Health scheme ought to be included as a voluntary contributor under this scheme. That is the object of the Amendment. The actuarial calculations of the scheme will not be disturbed in the least if it is carried. We have appealed many times to the Government for some concession, but so far we have had hardly any at all. This proposal is put forward without any political spleen, and solely because some of us who will have to administer it are anxious that the scheme should work easily when it is the law of the land. I hope the Government will be able to meet us on this point.
§ Mr. J. BAKERI desire to ask one or two questions on this point. The first is this: Are the contributions referred to contributions under this Bill or under the National Health Insurance Act? Further, how can an exempted person qualify under this 104 weeks, seeing that an exempted person could not have paid any contributions at all!
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALI quite accept the hon. Member's suggestion that this Amendment is not proposed because 2698 of any political spleen. I think he has mixed up two different things. In the Clause we are discussing a provision is laid down under which a person is entitled to a widow's or an orphan's pension. It is not a Clause which deals with the rights of persons to become voluntary contributors. It is true that when we come to voluntary contributors he will find a similar Clause—Clause 18. This Clause applies to every person who is insured under the Bill and it lays down that the statutory conditions to be complied with in order to render widows' and orphans' pensions payable shall be that a certain number of contributions have been paid. The number we have taken is 104, and it is taken word for word from the National Insurance Act. It will not be disputed that the benefits are more valuable than those given under the National Health Insurance Act. We have taken what we think is a reasonable amount laid down in the Act of 1911, an Act which has worked satisfactorily for 14 years past.
§ Mr. R. DAVIESI am much obliged to the right hon. Gentlemen for his explanation. I quite see his point, but my difficulty is this. If we allow Clause 5 to pass without an explanation as to its meaning, when we come to Clause 13 I am afraid, having passed Clause 5, we shall be in a difficulty as to securing our rights in the later Clause. The statutory conditions refer to widows' and orphans' pensions. I am wondering whether children who are not orphans come in here at all. Why are they excluded from this Clause?
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALThose are additional allowances which are given with widows' pensions under Clause 1 and therefore it does not require a special mention of them here.
Mr. BECKETTI want to ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite to give this Amendment very sincere consideration; and for this reason. Since yesterday this Measure has become, not merely a Bill dealing with a Measure of social reform, but, in view of the efforts of the Minister of Health to lighten the burdens of industry, it has become a Bill which threatens to make very heavy demands upon some of the most sorely stricken areas of the country. Unless the Bill is so framed that it begins at once to lighten the terrible burdens which the ratepayers 2699 in these districts are bearing there is an imminent danger of a complete breakdown of the local government machinery. By accepting this Amendment, by making it somewhat easier for persons who have recently been insured under another scheme to benefit by his new scheme, by somewhat hastening the time in which the insured person will secure benefit, the right hon. Gentleman will be going some way to assist those many areas and local authorities in the country, such as we have in my own constituency, in Middlesbrough, and many parts of the north of England, Scotland and Wales. The position in those areas is terribly serious, and if this Amendment is accepted it will go some way towards enabling us to bear the additional burdens the Minister of Labour is placing upon us. We really do not know how we are going to face these burdens unless he makes some concession.
§ Miss WILKINSONIt is when we come to detailed Amendments like this— going into the most intricate detail-that you realise how very difficult it is to administer this business on the ordinary plan which proved perfectly successful in the National Health Insurance Scheme. When you were dealing with the scheme, you were asking individuals to insure a risk—against ill-health and accident—a risk that was definitely going to happen to the person that was insured. Therefore it was perfectly reasonable to suggest that the insured person should create for himself a reserve and that out of that reserve various benefits should be paid. If we were dealing with that type of case, obviously it would be perfectly reasonable to ask that 104 contributions should be paid in order to make up that reserve. But the Government, by insistence on making this widows' pension scheme a contributory scheme, are continually being brought up against contradictions. Here you are trying to carry out a scheme which shall provide for the widow and her children, which shall take them off the Poor Law and which shall give the children a start in life. A miserable sum is provided for that, but that, I take it, is the idea behind the whole scheme. Having got that, they are then faced with the position of the widow who had got young children and never had a chance to create a reserve under such a 2700 provision as paragraph (a) of this Clause. Therefore they bring that woman into the Bill on a non-contributory basis. They do not ask her to go through the conditions that are laid down by this paragraph (a). Having recognised that a non-contributory basis was the only way in which to deal with these unfortunate widows, they then have to come to the position of the woman who is left a widow after this Bill has been passed.
I am going to ask the Attorney-General what is the position of the woman whose husband is insured, but who has only paid 26 contributions? It is not everybody who comes into insurance at the age of 16. Persons may come into insured trades after they have spent a considerable amount of time in an uninsurable occupation. Then they come in after the Bill has been passed. They have less than 104 contributions since the date of the person's entering into insurance, because previous to that time they were in uninsurable occupations. Under present conditions of unemployment, there is a continual drift from one trade to another. People who are unfortunately thrown out of work try very hard to get jobs in any occupation. They may come to be insured, but they have not 104 contributions since the date of that entrance, because from the age of 16 until, say, 30, they were not in an occupation in which they could be insured. What is going to happen to that widow? You say she has not created a reserve. Neither has a reserve been created on behalf of the other widow. You are going to have a considerable number of cases of people who cannot qualify under this paragraph (a). What is the position of those who enter into insurance and cannot, although they are adults, qualify under paragraph (a)? This is the second position which is going to be created by this paragraph (a), and if we are going to have these women insured they have got to be dealt with in some other way. It is perfectly true they can go to the Poor Law. It is equally true, as has been frequently said, that they will possibly get considerably more from the Poor Law than they will get out of this scheme, but the point still remains.
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Suppose they have paid 100 contributions—almost the amount under the scheme. We know how rigid the law can be when it is trying to get money out of 2701 people. You have this unfortunate man who has only paid 100 contributions. He dies, and his widow has to go to the Poor Law, although the woman living next door, whose man may have been the victim of the same accident, gets a pension for herself for life and for her children. The first woman, for the trifling deficiency of 1s. 4d.—for a few pence—is left unprovided for. The Attorney-General, with that agility of mind which is as much one of his characteristics as his courtesy of manner, may say you have the same position if you have 26 contributions. That is perfectly true. But, obviously, the risk is smaller. I cannot see why you should not have this qualifying Clause at all. You say you must have reserves, but I have already pointed out that the bottom has been knocked out of that by the fact of the inclusion of so many of these pre-war widows. Hon. Members on the Government benches are continually quoting the National Health Insurance Act as a precedent for every one of these Clauses. I believe they are wrong in quoting that as a precedent, for two reasons. First of all, when the National Health Insurance Act was passed, and when you had this Clause, the position, as stated over and over again at that time, was that you were beginning an entirely new experiment in insurance in this country, and therefore it might well be argued that you had to have such enormous reserves as suggested in this Clause. But, if not on this Clause, on a previous Clause when the Minister of Health was speaking to our Amendment in regard to disablement benefits and so on, he pointed out that under National Health Insurance disablement benefits have now been increased to 20s. That is true, but what does that prove? The National Health Insurance scheme was admittedly an experiment that had never yet been tried, about which people had no knowledge. What is the result of that experiment? They have found that these enormous reserves were, as a matter of fact, not necessary, that people had been asked to pay far more than was needed under the Scheme, and it is because of that that they are able to increase the benefits enormously. If we had any guarantee from the Minister of Health that we were likely to increase 2702 the benefits in future to something like a reasonable amount that would enable a widow to bring up her children properly, we could see some sense in this paragraph (a), but we have no such suggestion at all. All we have is this amount that is to be paid.
Therefore we suggest that this Clause, as a matter of fact, is making exactly the same mistake as National Health Insurance made. It is asking for too much; it is making far too great a reserve. I cannot see why hon. Members opposite should be continually quoting National Health Insurance as though it were sacrosanct and as though it were in some way perfect, when it is admittedly experimental. Therefore, I suggest that these 104 contributions are far too many, and since the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend is merely to reduce the 104 contributions mentioned in this Clause to 26, it would be very much better if the Attorney-General or the Minister of Health accepted it—accepted it because of the experience they have gained under National Health Insurance, and accepted it on the still more important ground that it is necessary that these widows and children should be provided for. We want these people who are not provided for under the provisions for the pre-Act widow and those people who are not lucky enough to have got 104 contributions—we want these people provided for. It is not a question about their husbands; it is a question that they have got to live. I am going to ask the Minister of Health to consider the position of the woman who is going to meet the board of guardians and who, because of some technical flaw, and because there are not quite 104 contributions, has to explain this matter to a none too sympathetic board of guardians. What is going to be the position? "Why did not your husband do this, that and the other; why was your husband not insured; why did you not see he got an insurable occupation before he died?" It may seem that those are ridiculous questions to ask, but they are very much more sensible than very many of the questions that are asked by reactionary boards of guardians that are dominated by the friends of the party opposite. I therefore feel very concerned about these people. They must be provided for somewhere, and I suggest that this Amendment ought to be accepted.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAI beg to support the Amendment. I may point cut that the objection to this limit of 104 contributions is not merely on the strength of it being numerically too many weeks or months, but I submit that it entirely destroys what the Bill aims to be—namely, an insurance scheme. I have had the feeling from the first that this was not a bona fide insurance scheme at all. It was in the manner of a "put-and take" game, and like all "put-and-take" games, against the working class: they are expected to put in more and take out less. We have had pointed out to us the example of National Health Insurance. All first experiments are generally failures, and because there was some erroneous step taken in one Act it does not necessarily follow that we should do the same again. Between that time and now the chances of sudden death have considerably increased. Apart from street accidents, factory accidents, and mine accidents, everything that goes to impair the constitution and physique of the workmen is now in operation—low wages, periods of unemployment, anxiety, the hardships of life—and I submit in all seriousness that the chances of death to-day are far larger than in the days when the National Health Insurance scheme was contemplated. If this is an insurance scheme, why should it be different from other insurance schemes to which the more fortunate people in the country can resort? In that respect it should be a good parallel to the ordinary insurance scheme, without these harsh measures or these invidious distinctions between the two insurance parties. Surely persons insuring life and even property in the ordinary course of events insure against accidents or against destruction which may take place at any moment. That is the chief purpose of insurance. There is no set calculation about it. It is exactly to insure yourself against an event which you cannot foresee, and which you yourselves are not responsible for, and are not expected to bring about. That is insurance. That is the insurance which the well-to-do people take advantage of every day of their lives. That is the scheme under which ordinary property is insured. If a property is insured at a given hour it may just pay one premium before it is destroyed by fire or damaged in some other way, and the insured 2704 amount is immediately paid, so also the ordinary life insurance, and that is the spirit of insurance. That is the one factor which makes insurance insurance. If there is a calculation attached to it that a certain period should elapse and a certain number of payments should be made, it destroys the fundamental scheme of insurance which insures you against unforeseen circumstances. In a case like this, especially the death of the breadwinner of a young family, to bring in this discriminating Clause and to put the people to a disadvantage as against the rich people, after giving them false hopes of what the State is doing for less fortunate people, what the more fortunate can do themselves, is hardly fair play towards the working classes at all.
I certainly agree that mathematical arguments that can be applied to 104 weeks can be applied to 26. There is one reason for fixing some sort of a nominal time limit or payment limit. It is quite possible, as things develop in ordinary life, that if no time limit were fixed, there would be questions raised and arguments raised that a person was in a position to anticipate death and to insure at a time within a few days or weeks before his coming death, to avoid the raising of such arguments and remove any such suspicion. It might be fixed when every medical man and others, men of the world, might be quite sure that 26 weeks do provide more than the minimum reasonable limit against any such malpractice. But to go beyond that and to fix a money limit, and provide against unforeseen and sudden events, is altogether contrary to the very spirit of insurance and is playing falsely towards those citizens whom the State promises what their economic conditions do not permit them to do. After all, the position generally works round to the scheme being made contributory when the Government have all along the idea that it cannot work as a decent scheme and a contributory scheme at the same time. They have got to make it a contributory scheme in their desire to put forward a scheme for electioneering purposes without its being really a sound financial scheme. When they make it a contributory scheme, they now discovered they cannot give that protection. That is where one feels that the whole plan of insurance is nullified and frustrated by Clauses of this nature.
2705 I would also ask the Government that even with their limited outlook of human life, of the working classes, if they want to be fair and honest as the business men they always claim to be I put it to them that the very principle of common honesty to the working classes is ignored by this limit of 104 contributions. If the rich man can insure his life and property without such a limit and get his benefit after one single contribution why should the poor, honest, hard-working man be compelled to submit to such an unnatural scheme of insurance. Apart from human life if a fire insurance company put forward such a scheme or a marine insurance company put forward such a scheme that unless so many premiums had been paid no money would be paid towards the loss of property, I am sure that every Member on the opposite side would rise in uproar at this atrocious intimation in an insurance scheme and would say "the whole thing is a farce," and condemn it as no insurance scheme at all, and find ways and means of supporting private schemes of their own. They would not call it a bona fide insurance scheme if it were arranged to-morrow for any new property to be erected or a house built and destroyed by fire or aircraft and suffered that damage after a first premium was paid that the insurance company was not liable unless 100 premiums or a two year's period had elapsed. I am perfectly sure the hon. Gentleman who values property and wealth more than human life would see in his conscience that this is not a sound insurance scheme. They would at once realise it and visualise it that it does not afford protection against sudden and unforeseen calamity and they would condemn it as an insurance scheme. Then there is the question of land, or money or property.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI would warn the hon. Member that he cannot keep on repeating himself over and over again.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAI accept your ruling. With regard to this scheme, if the Government honestly mean it to be a life insurance scheme, they should realise that on the death of a person, which is not brought about, premeditated, and deliberately by the insured person' for the purpose of deceiving the State, the 2706 money becomes due and ought to be paid just as much after a few contributions as after the payment of many contributions. If it is to be an honest insurance scheme that ought to be provided for. When the Government were preparing this Act and the Budget they were thinking of the next election and not of the insured persons and human life. The Government themselves are aware of it. That is why they carry Closure after Closure. But now, here in the Committee stage, when we are deliberating on it and pointing out to the Government that because there was a previous figure of 104 weeks, it does not follow that this figure is also to be 104 weeks, and we put to the Government the points that they failed to consider. 1s it really too much to expect them to consider it and be bold enough to say that the limit we fixed arbitrarily and can be brought down to a period of 26 weeks? With regard to the application of the whole scheme, as the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson) also pointed out, after all, the country is not going to escape payment in some shape or another, but there is going to be one great difficulty, that the payment coming from this scheme after the unforeseen death to the person is to be of quite a different character from the payment a widow will secure through other sources available to her. It is not merely the misery and assistance attached to those sources of assistance given her but the stigma, the inferior moral conception and everything associated with that system of assistance which unfortunately prevails at the present moment. That could be removed partly, if not entirely, by making this Clause a little more reasonable than as it stands now. Had the Government, in following the original natioral scheme, put forward any actuarial figures to us and pointed out that so many deaths would have occurred before 104 contributions had been paid and the whole country overweighted with a ruinous amount, one could then have felt that the Government were entering into that calculaion, but here we see the Government have entered into no such calculations and have no figures at their disposal as to what would have happened for 104 weeks or 102 weeks. They see a faulty Clause and take it on. They have not even considered the factor of the risks in work, the risks of going to work, 2707 the risk of merely crossing the road going to work. The risks to human life are far greater to-day than a few years ago, and the Government have entirely ignored that point.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI must ask the hon. Member again not to repeat himself or I must ask him to resume his seat.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAI am making my final appeal to the Government that, bearing in mind the various points of consideration not in front of them when they framed this Clause, instead of flippantly casting them aside as coming from the enemy, they should put the matter right.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALI do not propose to take up time by rearguing this point but I do want to answer the questions that show real anxiety raised by the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Beckett) and the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson). They were both concerned about the position of the widows whose husbands died shortly after this scheme came into operation when less than two years had elapsed from the appointed date—January, 1926. The contributions here included are inclusive of contributions under the Health Insurance Act, so that, for instance, suppose a man insured for two years died in the first week of January, 1926, his widow would be entitled to a pension, because he would have contributed the 104 contributions by aggregating those paid under the Health Insurance Act before this scheme came into operation and the total insurance payment when the scheme began to operate. The 104 contributions need not be consecutive.
§ Miss WILKINSONI quite recognise that, but the point I wish to put is that suppose you had a man who for 10 years had been employed in an uninsurable occupation or had been getting more than £250 a year, suppose he then comes within the insurance scheme and has paid only 30 contributions and has never been insured before and has only paid 30 contributions since he entered the insurance, what then is his position?
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALIf any person has paid the 104 contributions, then he has fulfilled the necessary qualifications. There is to be an aggregate 2708 of 104 contributions and they need not be consecutive.
§ Miss WILKINSONThe position then is that a man who may have paid 100 contributions since his entry into insurance, owing to these reasons, his widow with children will be in a worse position than a widow left a widow previous to the Act who has not paid into the widows pension fund insurance at all.
Mr. BECKETTI am much obliged to the Attorney-General. The point I had in mind was not the gap period between insurance, but the necessity for speeding up the assistance that will come to local authorities under this scheme by reducing the number of weeks of people who paid 30 weeks.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSThe explanation of the Attorney-General rather emphasises the necessity for the right hon. Gentleman accepting this Amendment, the more so perhaps at this moment than at any other time over a period of very many years. It must be well known that the unemployment problem leads to change of occupation, the general changes that are taking place from Land's End to John o' Groats, and the necessity for the removal of men from their previous occupations, to new occupations through no fault of their own. If this pension scheme is devised to provide pensions in certain cases, it seems to me that if this limiting paragraph is going to be carried through in its present form, then quite a large number of people who otherwise are entitled to any benefits that may be forthcoming under the scheme are going to be deprived of what should be regarded as their legitimate payment in case of need. The hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Mrs. Wilkinson) put a very definite case of an individual through no fault of his own during the present year having to change his occupation from an uninsurable to an insurable occupation. For instance, by the time the insurance scheme commences and pensions are payable should he pass away before he has paid 104 contributions, then his widow and orphans, should there be any, are to be deprived of any benefits. It seems to me that while the right hon. Gentleman must have a line of demarcation he must say where he must start and where he must stop, it is obvious that in 2709 cases of this description they should be catered for, since the removal from one occupation or industry to another is more or less compulsory, due to industrial conditions over which the individual and even less that of the widow and orphans have no control at all apart altogether from other general conditions. I should like to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to re-examine this particular part of Clause 5. Not to do so would be to deprive tens of thousands of people. As the Prime Minister said on Monday, the number of people who are changing their occupation not from year to year but from month to month, must number tens of thousands who will be deprived of any advantages if this Clause remains as it is. For that reason he ought to at least agree to reconsider it from that point of view making it as broad and as comprehensive as possible, and to deprive as few people as can be in the circumstances of any advantages there may be under the Bill when it finally becomes an Act.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI rise for the purpose of drawing attention, if I may, to one or two what I regard dangerous features in the basis of the provision we are now discussing. It seems to me that the basis of this seems to be very objectionable and particularly in conditions such as we unfortunately find ourselves as a nation now. The basis of qualification is steady employment for a fairly long period. I know I shall be told that provisions are made in the Bill for protecting the victims of unemployment. But I hope to show in the course of my few remarks that this protection is quite inadequate and that, therefore, it is not something on which we are justified in resting for satisfaction. That being the case, I submit that we ought to take the basis without any potential protection or modification. The basis of the provision we are discussing is steady employment and I cannot imagine how the Government in the present circumstances came to adopt steady employment as the foundation of any statutory provision. Surely there was never in the history of the country a time when the adoption of such a foundation was less justified. The country at the moment is in a most unprecedented industrial condition. I suppose not a single person can recall a time when it was so difficult to rely on steady 2710 employment for a fairly long period as at present. I know and I am sure the Minister of Health and every one on the other side of the House knows that there are districts in which general unemployment is to be found — districts that used to be the centres of industries and industrial population and are now silenced because of the industrial collapse that has taken place within the past two or three years. If it was a temporary state of affairs one could take that into account in framing our legislation knowing that because of its transitory character by the time a Measure had received the Royal Assent and the machinery has been put into operation things would be quite different, it would then be found that the basis adopted was one justified by an intelligent anticipapation of industrial conditions in the country.
But we cannot take the view that this is a temporary condition of things, and seeing that we are taking regular employment as the basis we must necessarily in this House and at this stage and on this provision take into account the industrial prospects of the country. There is scarcely a day that passes in which thousands of people who have toiled in industry all their working years are not deprived by circumstances over which they and we have no control of any reasonable prospects of obtaining employment. I said there were several districts in the country in which industry had almost entirely collapsed. Take County Durham. That county in normal times employed about 150,000 miners. I understand that to-day 50,000 or 60,000 of these miners are on the books of the employment exchange, that is, if they are eligible to register themselves for the benefits of unemployment. These 50,000 or 60,000 people are deprived of the ordinary methods of finding a living and one does not hope, unfortunately, that within the next few weeks or months or even the next year or two, that things will be any better in the County of Durham: and that county is not singular in this respect. There is South Wales, where you have whole districts in which for more than a year all the people have been totally unemployed. He could tell you from the information he gets at the Ministry of Health of districts to-day; he could give the names of 2711 places in which, of the population of 5,000 or 6,000, scarcely a single person is employed. Yet in that condition of things the Minister of Health comes to this House with a provision that is based on steady employment.
Reference was made in the course of the Debate to another class of people who are likely to come within the scope of this Bill. This condition of unemployment, in which we now unfortunately find ourselves, does not only hit severely the ordinary manual workers. We are now dealing with one of the most important features of the Pensions Bill. I want to draw attention to a class of people who, because of these industrial conditions, are for the first time being forced—I use the word purposely—into insurable employment. Take the small shopkeeper class. The Minister of Health knows that in those districts to which I have referred it is not merely the miners who are suffering from unemployment. You have the population who, in normal times, live on the trade which comes from supplying the domestic needs of the mining population. The miners, deprived of the ordinary means of getting wages, have not the usual purchasing power, and that reacts on the shopkeeping population. That shopkeeping population cannot by any stretch of imagination, as those who understand the social conditions of this country will admit, be regarded as a wealthy class. They are poor people who struggle along and keep out of the wages system because they prefer independence to high wages. You have people in this country who are still in revolt against the system which puts them from day to day, from week to week, and from year to year, under the domination of a boss, and so they prefer to go on in a quiet way manipulating a small capital through a small shop to supply the domestic needs of their neighbours and to make a profit which, in the aggregate, is in many cases less than they would obtain in employment. They form an industrious and very worthy class which, in some respects, is the backbone of the community. That is the class who still believe in independence. If you think of it seriously and fundamentally, when a people loses its love of independence that people has lost its soul. The nation that cannot retain a decent proportion of its 2712 population in a state of independence is very low in the social and international scale. I am sure all Members of the House of Commons know it is impossible to retain that sense of independence if you are a member of the wage-earning class. Their conditions of employment destroy that spirit of independence. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am sorry that hon. Members opposite do not agree with me, but I have been there, and you have not. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes, we have!"] If you have, you have not benefited by your experience. I have benefited by my experience to the extent of understanding the influence of capitalistic domination.
I put this point to hon. Members for their serious consideration. Do they really think it is possible to retain a sense of independence when, day after day, they have no voice at all in the initiation of the work they have to do? I pardon the Minister of Health in his anxiety to take part in this discussion. I assure him we are not getting much enlightenment from the side of the House of which he is in charge. The very condition of the Government supporters during the whole of the discussion is the best evidence that you have very little sense of independence on that side of the House. The point I am making is this, that in those industrial districts you have the small shopkeeping class who manage to get sufficient to maintain their families in normal times, but who have not a sufficient income to enable them to provide against a long period of trade depression such as they are confronted with at the moment. Consequently, they are going under. It is not merely the wage earner, the people who have been wage earners for years and years who are going down under the present trade depression, but the small shop-keeping class is also going down and it has no reserves. They are being forced into insurable employment, and it is first of all to that class of the community to which the provisions laid down here will apply most severely. They must have 104 weeks of regular employment and 104 regular contributions. It is true—at any rate that is my understanding of the conditions under which the Bill will operate—that the Prolongation Act can ensure that the 104 contributions will be maintained if they have been in an 2713 insurable occupation and are out of employment, but are genuinely seeking employment.
May I remind the Committee that we are now dealing with a class of people who have never been in insurance? For the first time they are being forced into it. Just as the whole industrial population was forced in by Statute, these people are being forced in by the economic situation. But they are only being brought in when they can find employment. The obligation to find it is on them, not on the Government. It is easy for the Government to say that they must have 104 weeks of regular employment, or if they cannot find it then the Government will use the Prolongation Act and see that they get benefits. It is all right to say that to insured persons, but it is no use saying it to people who have not been insured. It is because the case of these unfortunate people appears to have been overlooked that I am justified in drawing attention to what is the folly of basing the scheme on steady employment. You are not justified in taking steady employment as your basis unless there is a reasonable prospect of these people obtaining steady employment. There is no such prospect. These small shopkeepers, in fact, find it more difficult to find employment than the ordinary manual worker. If a vacancy occurs, the employer will only accept a man who has had some experience of the work; he will accept him in preference to the man who has had no experience. The employer looks purely and solely from the point of view of the suitability of the worker. He cannot afford to show any sentiment. If he did and his rival showed none, his business would suffer.
Take the case of a miner in South Wales who has been in insurable occupation, and compare it with that of the small shopkeeper in South Wales who has never been in insurable occupation. The two go out in search of work, and contemplate a place where a man accustomed to some form of mining conditions is wanted. The small shopkeeper has no earthly chance of getting employment. His position is infinitely worse than that of the man who has been accustomed to manual work. If there were no other objection to this provision than that it puts an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the small shopkeeper; it 2714 is sufficient to justify the Amendment, and appealing to all reasonable Members of the Committee to support us in the Division Lobby. It is quite true—I am talking about insured persons—that if a person is insured and he falls out of employment, as people are doing now at the rate of 30,000 and 40,000 a week, then under this Clause it is possible to provide that he shall not be deprived of benefits, because of unemployment, if he is genuinely seeking work.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThe right hon. Gentleman was not here when I made an explanation earlier in the Debate and informed the Committee that I had been in error in regard to certain of the conditions of the prolongaion of insurance.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI accept the explanation. I admire the manner in which he rises in his place from time to time to explain to the Committee that when he told them this and that he was in error. I admire that attitude in the representative of the Government. It indicates at least that he has courage and that he does not know all about the Measure he has to pilot through the Committee. I do not think he should be expected to know all. I have been on that side of the House, and I have often been confronted with difficulties when trying to pilot delicate and intricate Measures through the House and endeavouring to familiarise myself with all the various points and their implications. I sympathise with the Minister of Health. I think that under the Prolongation Act it is possible, leaving out the qualification about genuinely seeking employment, to insure that the unemployed man will not suffer because of his unemployment. But how is it to be brought about? I want the Committee to understand this. You have here something that may only be a trap for the innocent working classes who think they are going to be protected by this Measure. First of all, he is kept in the National Health Insurance scheme, and that scheme is the basis of this Measure. A person must be in the National Health Insurance scheme before he gets the alleged benefits of this Bill.
§ 2.0 A.M.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI do not know that I have said or done anything that is out of Order. I do not want to do anything that is out of Order. These cries of 2715 "Order!" "Order!" whether they were directed against me, or against some other hon. Member, have the effect of disturbing one's trend of thought and disturbing the line of argument. I hope we will succeed in conducting our discussion on this Measure, which is of first-class importance, and of interest to millions of people, in an orderly manner and in a way creditable to the traditions of this Assembly. I was interrupted by the calls of "Order"—one of the few sounds which have come from the Government Benches since we have been discussing the Bill. It was, perhaps, because of the fact that we have had so little experience of noises from that side that I really felt a sense of alarm and wondered whether the House had been invaded by people to whom we were not accustomed. I have now passed away from the shopkeeping class—those coming into insurable occupations for the first time. I am attempting to deal with the position of people who have been for a fairly prolonged time in insurable occupations. They have been in insurance and insurable employment for perhaps 10, 20 or 30 years, but they may have been in and out of insurable occupations during that time. We know there is a very large section of people who for the greater part of their time are insured but, who, nevertheless, at frequent periods of their lives are not insured. I think I can favour the Committee with one or two examples of such people. I dealt in my opening remarks with people who are coming down the scale. A well-known litterateur in this country has stated that we have no middle-class; that we are all going up or coming down. I was dealing in my opening remarks with people who are coming down—the small shopkeeper class who, with the trade depression, find themselves driven out of the shopkeeping community and driven in search of what employment they can find. I had dwelt upon the spirit of independence which still, notwithstanding all efforts to suppress it, has a lingering existence in the minds of a large section of the British people.
§ The CHAIRMANThe right hon. Gentleman must relate his observations to 104 weeks or 26 weeks.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI am sorry I had not made my point quite clear. You have people trying to get out of insurable employment into non-insurable employment. They are the very cream of our population. Every self-respecting man wants to get out of the position in which the working-class is submerged today. I think it is to their credit. They utilise every opportunity that comes their way to escape from the conditions associated with wage earning to-day and get into that independent state of society where they will not be subject to humilating legislation such as that which we are now discussing.
§ The CHAIRMANEvery hon. Member can show his appreciation of the argument as he thinks proper.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYIf I have sent one hon. Member asleep I have awakened a hundred others who, so far as this Bill is concerned, have been asleep since it began. They have not contributed a single idea to the improvement of the Bill. It comes very bad from them to draw attention to the fact that after 40 hours of continuous employment on the part of the small body of Members on this side of the House, one of them should have succumbed to the claims of sleep. I was drawing attention to the fact that you have people struggling to get out of insurable employment. They get out when trade is good. They make their escape, and all who understand the working-class conditions can only congratulate them. Many of the Members here have escaped. But then a trade depression, such as that which overwhelms us to-day, comes along, and they are deprived of the ordinary means by which they get their livelihood outside insurable occupations. They may, for instance, have been successful collectors for an insurance company, as many respectable people in this country are, and in that way they have been able to make £6, £7, £8, £9 or £10 a week for a considerable period. Then, when the trade slump comes along, they are no longer able to maintain themselves, and they want to get into insurable employment again. What is the—I will not say fate—but what 2717 is the trap that is actually laid for these people when they are forced to come back and seek insurable employment? The Minister of Health lays it down in his Bill that they must have been in continuous employment for 104 weeks and must have made 104 contributions. [Interruption.] There is one great advantage, and only one that I know of, in discussing business at this hour of the day or night, and that is that one's sense of humour gets highly developed, and people who could not be tempted or bribed to work up an ordinary smile in an ordinary working hour can be driven into the realms of hilarity by a remark.
Mr. ERSKINEOn a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman, I believe, has spent quite half his speech in lecturing and giving his views about how the rest of the Members should behave. Has that anything to do with the Amendment he is supposed to be supporting? I have been here 10 minutes and have heard nothing but abuse. Whether we smile at his remarks or not, is it in order?
§ The CHAIRMANI do not think the right hon. Gentleman's progress will be expedited by other hon. Members rising.
§ Captain WATERHOUSEOn a point of Order. Is it not a fact that the other half of the right hon. Gentleman's speech would be much more applicable to Clause 13 than to this Clause?
§ The CHAIRMANI have not been here quite long enough to have grasped the trend of events, but I gather that the right hon. Gentleman is about to come to the question of contributions.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYBefore resuming the thread of my argument, I thank you for the protection which you have given me. I think that, as representing the Opposition and the minority in this House, it is due to the Chair that when we are protected against a hostile and oppressive majority we should generously acknowledge the protection which we receive. I must say that the present occasion is not an isolated one. We always receive in this House, from the Chair at any rate, not merely justice—
§ The CHAIRMANMy conduct in the Chair is not relevant to the Question before the Committee.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI am sorry if, in my desire to pay a compliment and express a feeling, I have transgressed. But an hon. Member interjected a question to which I would like to reply before proceeding further with my argument. I have complained repeatedly in the course of the evening about questions from this side of the Committee receiving no attention from the Government side, and so it would ill become me if—
§ Mr. DIXEYOn a point of Order. I want to ask, with respect, whether I am entitled to move the Closure.
§ Mr. J. JONESYou can move the furniture, if you like.
§ The CHAIRMANAny hon. Member can move the Closure.
§ Mr. DIXEYrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"; but the CHAIRMAN withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYOne may call spirits from the vasty deep, but will they come? The question that was put to me by an hon. Member below the Gangway was "Why did I not deal with this point on Clause 13?" Well, I belong to a very superstitious race. They always regard number 13 as being unlucky, and I do not expect we shall reach Clause 13 to-night, and I want to give the Committee the benefit of my views on this point while I can do so relevantly and within the Rules of the House. I was dealing, when I was interrupted, with the class of people who get out of insurable employment and into non-insurable employment, and when the trade depression comes along are pushed back and are compelled to go in search of employment. These people, by the provisions to which we are objecting in this Bill, are entirely deprived of any benefit, and they must have—
§ Mr. G. BALFOUROn a point of Order. I have listened to the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and this is at least the fifth time he has reiterated this same argument. It is at least the second time since you came into the Chair. The right hon. Gentleman is deliberately obstructing by constantly repeating.
§ The CHAIRMANIf I come to the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman 2719 is guilty of what, I think, is described as vain repetition of his argument, I should be able to deal with it.
§ Mr. SPENCERIs it in order for hon. Members constantly to rise in the House for the purpose of putting the right hon. Gentleman off his speech? It is quite evident that the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite is that particular purpose.
§ The CHAIRMANI cannot read the hearts of men and I cannot enter into the motives which inspire hon. Members to raise points of Order, but I am bound to say that I think the points of Order are likely to keep the right hon. Gentleman longer.
§ Mr. SPENCERIs it not evident that the right hon. Gentleman has been visibly perturbed?
Mr. BECKETTIs it in Order for hon. Members who have apparently no desire to take part in the Debate to use un-Parliamentary expressions such as "obstruction" to those Members who do wish to discuss it
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI do submit that I am entitled to some consideration if i do repeat arguments, in the midst of the difficult conditions in which I carry on my criticism and consideration of this Bill —difficult conditions that are quite intentionally created by hon. Members on the Government side. I think they might quite well—as you have very properly rebuked them in saying—leave the conduct of the business of the Committee in the capable hands in which the House has placed it.
It is very difficult for those people who have been on uninsurable employment— [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite would have a good deal more sympathy with the unfortunate people who are victims of it if they had been unemployed. These people want to get the benefits of this Bill. They have not been in insurable occupations, and consequently they are not insured. They cannot get into this Bill until they have had 104 weeks of regular employment and have made 104 contributions, and they cannot obtain regular employment or make the contributions because of the disastrous industrial conditions under which we are now going through—[Interruption.] With a 2720 little indulgence I will reach the end of the contribution which I want to make. After all, this is only the second time I have spoken on this Bill, and I am the Leader of the Opposition in this discussion. I am entitled to some consideration from the party who are supporting the Government. It has. been argued with a good deal of force that, if people are in insurable employment, they can get out of this provision about which we have protested, that is, steady employment and the 164 consecutive contributions. I understand that the only course by which they can be protected is that the approved society of which the man is a member will take him under its wing and see that he is protected during this unfortunate period. The insurance society in most cases—and I think it may be said to their credit—have extended the very utmost consideration to their members who are the unfortunate victims of unemployment. I want to show you the weakness of this alleged protection on which the Government have based this provision. The protection is through the action of the approved society towards its unfortunate members; but you cannot leave out of account the effect which unemployment has on these approved societies. An approved society can be as generous as it is possible for a society to be, but if the means are not there— [Interruption.] I think one should be protected from unseemly interruptions from the Front Bench, which are unjustifiable and inconsiderate. Well, the condition of the approved society, which is the protector of the person on whom this condition in this Bill is being imposed— the condition of that protector cannot be left out of account when we are considering whether this condition may be imposed on its members or not. That is the question before the House—whether the 104 contributions and the steady employment should be imposed on them. The approved societies have acted very generously up to now to their members. They cannot be expected to be as generous towards their members within the next twelve months. They cannot possibly be as generous as they were during the past few years. You have to keep that in mind when considering the fairness of this provision of the Bill.
But there is something else you have to bear in mind which is far more important. 2721 The approved society acts on advice received from the Employment Exchange. I do not know whether members of the House are familiar with what happens. An approved society applies to the Employment Exchange to supply it with the opinion or if possible a guarantee that the member is not a malingerer and that he is genuinely seeking employment, and the Ministry of Labour makes provisions which enables the Employment Exchange to give the approved society that information. The point I want to make clear is this. The Employment Exchange is directly under the control and under the influence of the Government. We know that at the present moment the Government are extremely anxious to strike off people from the register of the Employment Exchanges. We have had evidence of that in this House in replies to questions and in discussions within the last few weeks. We then have to bear in mind the attitude and the interest of the Government towards the reply which in future will be given or is likely to be given to the approved society which will make this application in regard to the genuine activities of its members. [HON. MEMBERS: 'Divide!"] If the Government is interested—[Interruption]—the Government will have a double interest in seeing if a man who is not registered is genuinely seeking employment. First of all if they can strike him off they save on the unemployment insurance benefit and they also save on the benefits that would accrue to the man through being uninsured for the purpose of the Bill. We are discussing. We may reasonably assume, knowing their attitude towards the employment exchange, we may be justified in being afraid that they will not act fairly and that they will act unfairly
§ and exercise undue influence on the employment exchange when questions like this are sent for opinion. I come to— [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up!"] If hon. Members will insist on interrupting and if one deprives his neighbour of the pleasure of hearing my voice at this hour of the morning, you are really carrying on mutual destruction of your pleasures. The other point, and the most important point of all, I want to draw your attention to, is the condition of the million and a quarter people, mostly insured who would come under this scheme. It is not necessary that I should occupy the time of this Committee in reminding it that we have a million and a quarter—
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The Committee proceeded to a Division.
Mr. BECKETT(seated and covered)—May I call attention to the fact that earlier in this Debate the Attorney-General had listened to several points with regard to our constituencies, brought forward by the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson) and myself. He did not reply, owing to the fact that he was to reply to speeches at the end. He was due to give us an explanation of the questions, and we have had no opportunity of hearing him reply on that point.
§ The CHAIRMANThat is not a point of Order.
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 160; Noes, 74.
2723| Division No. 245.] | AYES. | [2.30 a.m. |
| Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby) | Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Doyle, Sir N. Grattan |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Burman, J. B. | Edmondson, Major A. J. |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, E. | Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith |
| Astor, Viscountess | Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer) |
| Atkinson, C. | Chamberlain. Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Everard, W. Lindsay |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Christie, J. A. | Fairfax, Captain J. G. |
| Balniel, Lord | Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Fermoy, Lord |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Cooper, A. Duff | Finburgh, S. |
| Bethell, A. | Cope, Major William | Fleming, D. P. |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Couper, J. B. | Ford, p. J. |
| Blundell, F. N. | Courtauld, Major J. S. | Foxcroft, Captain C. T. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft. | Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L. | Fraser, Captain Ian |
| Bowyer, Captain G. E. W. | Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Gadie, Lieut.-Colonel Anthony |
| Brass, Captain W. | Curzon, Captain Viscount | Ganzoni, Sir John |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Dalkeith, Earl of | Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham |
| Brittain, Sir Harry | Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Goff, Sir Park |
| Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I. | Dixey, A. C. | Grace, John |
| Gunston, Captain D. W. | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Nelson, Sir Frank | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir B. (Eastbourne) | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Univ., Belfst) |
| Hall, Capt. w. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.) | Nuttall, Ellis | Skelton, A. N. |
| Hanbury, C | Oakley, T. | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Haslam, Henry C. | O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Henn, Sir Sydney H. | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.) |
| Hennessy, Major J. R. G. | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by) | Penny, Frederick George | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St. Marylebone) | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Strickland, Sir Gerald |
| Holt, Capt. H. P. | Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Homan, C. W. J. | Philipson, Mabel | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Pielou, D. P. | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.) | Power, Sir John Cecil | Tasker, Major R. Inigo |
| Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton | Templeton, W. P. |
| Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Preston, William | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Jacob, A. E. | Raine, W. | Tinne, J. A. |
| Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth) | Ramsden, E. | Wallace, Captain D. E. |
| Kidd, J. (Linlithgow) | Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Knox, Sir Alfred | Reid, D. D. (County Down) | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Loder, J. de V. | Rentoul, G. S. | Wells, S. R. |
| Lynn, Sir R. J. | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| MacAndrew, Charles Glen | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | White, Lieut. Colonel G. Dairymple |
| Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A. | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Macintyre, I. | Rye, F. G. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| McLean, Major A. | Salmon, Major I. | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) | Womersley, W. J. |
| Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Sanders, Sir Robert A. | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Margesson, Captain D. | Sanderson, Sir Frank | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde) |
| Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K. | Sandon, Lord | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Meyer, Sir Frank | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. | |
| Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Savery, S. S. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Moles, Thomas | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) | Major Sir Harry Barnston and |
| Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew, W.) | Mr. F. C. Thomson. |
| Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Snell, Harry |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Slivertown) | Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe) |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Sutton, J. E. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Taylor, R. A. |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bliston) | Kelly, W. T. | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Barnes, A. | Kennedy, T. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P. |
| Barr, J. | Lawson, John James | Varley, Frank B. |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Lee, F. | Viant, S. P. |
| Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith) | Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan) | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Broad, F. A. | Naylor, T. E. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Paling, W. | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Clynes, Right Hon. John R. | Ponsonby, Arthur | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Potts, John S. | Welsh, J. C. |
| Duncan, C. | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Westwood, J. |
| Fenby, T. D. | Riley, Ben | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Ritson, J. | Whiteley, W. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Grundy, T. W. | Saklatvala, Shapurji | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Salter, Dr. Alfred | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Scurr, John | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | Windsor, Walter |
| Hastings, Sir Patrick | Sitch, Charles, H. | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Hayday, Arthur | Smillie, Robert | |
| Hirst, G. H. | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. |
| Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Hayes. |
§ Question put accordingly, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
2724§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 161; Noes, 74.
2725| Division No. 246.] | AYES. | [2.40 a.m. |
| Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby) | Bethell, A. | Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y) |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Burman, J. B. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Blundell, F. N. | Butler, Sir Geoffrey |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, E. | Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) |
| Astor, Viscountess | Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) |
| Atkinson, C. | Brass, Captain W. | Christie, J. A. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Briggs, J. Harold | Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. |
| Balniel, Lord | Brittain, Sir Harry | Cooper, A. Duff |
| Barclay-Harvey C. M. | Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I. | Couper, J. B. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Courtauld, Major J. S. |
| Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L. | Knox, Sir Alfred | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Loder, J. de V. | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Curzon, Captain Viscount | Lynn, Sir N. J. | Sanderson, Sir Frank |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | MacAndrew, Charles Glen | Sandon, Lord |
| Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Dixey, A. C. | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Savery, S. S. |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Macintyre, I. | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) |
| Doyle, Sir N. Grattan | McLean, Major A. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.) |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) |
| Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.) | Margesson, Captain D. | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Mason, Lieut.-Col. Glyn K. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) |
| Fairfax, Captain J. G. | Meyer, Sir Frank | Skelton, A. N. |
| Fermoy, Lord | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Finburgh, S. | Moles, Thomas | Smithers, Waldron |
| Fleming, D. P. | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.) |
| Ford, P. J. | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Fraser, Captain Ian | Nelson, Sir Frank | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Gadie, Lieut.-Col. Anthony | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Strickland, Sir Gerald |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Nuttall, Ellis | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Oakley, T. | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Goff, Sir Park | O'Connor, T J. (Bedford, Luton) | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Grace, John | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | Tasker, Major R. Inigo |
| Gunston, Captain D. W. | Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William | Templeton, W. P. |
| Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Penny, Frederick George | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.) | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Tinne, J. A. |
| Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne) | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Wallace, Captain D. E. |
| Hanbury, C. | Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Haslam, Henry C. | Philipson, Mabel | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Henn, Sir Sydney H. | Pielou, D. P. | Wells, S. R. |
| Hennessy, Major J. R. G. | Power, Sir John Cecil | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by) | Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton | White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple |
| Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Preston, William | Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham) |
| Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Raine, W. | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Holt, Capt. H. P. | Ramsden, E. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Homan, C. W. J. | Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington) | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Reid, D. D. (County Down) | Womersley, W. J. |
| Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.) | Rentoul, G. S. | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney, N.) | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde) |
| Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A. | |
| Jacob, A. E. | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth) | Rye, F. G. | Major Cope and Mr. F. C. |
| Kidd, J. (Linlithgow) | Salmon, Major I. | Thomson. |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Snell, Harry |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Slivertown) | Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe) |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Sutton, J. E. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Taylor, R. A. |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Kelly, W. T. | Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P. |
| Barnes, A. | Kennedy, T. | Varley, Frank B. |
| Barr, J. | Lawson, John James | Viant, S. P. |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Lee, F. | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith) | Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan) | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Broad, F. A. | Naylor, T. E. | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Paling, W. | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Clynes, Right Hon. John R. | Ponsonby, Arthur | Welsh, J. C. |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | Potts, John S. | Westwood, J. |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Duncan, C. | Riley, Ben | Whiteley, W. |
| Fenby, T. D. | Ritson, J. | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W. Bromwich) | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Saklatvala, Shapurji | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Grundy, T. W. | Scurr, John | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Windsor, Walter |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Sitch, Charles, H. | |
| Hastings, Sir Patrick | Smillie, Robert | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Hayday, Arthur | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. |
| Hirst, G. H. | Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley) | Hayes. |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
§ Mr. WALSHI beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again."
I Move for the purpose of drawing attention to an act on the part of the 2726 Minister of Health, which I believe to be unprecedented in the history of Parliament. For the first time, and I myself have been a Member of this House for 20 years, I know no occasion 2727 on which a Privy Councillor land a Member who has occupied the position of Minister of Health speaking to a most important Clause has been closured by the Minister (responsible for the Bill. It is quite true—and there is no attempt to deny it—that there has been a good deal of speaking. At the same time, this is a Bill upon which every Member and Certainly a Member who has held a responsible position like his right hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) is entitled to speak at length in order to draw attention to the conditions under which this Bill is being prosecuted in this House and presented to the country. I should have thought myself that the ordinary chivalry animating the two right hon. Gentlemen, each of whom have occupied similar positions would have at least prevented the Minister in charge of the Bill from closuring a hon. Member on his feet. I do not think there is any precedent for it. In the case of private Members there is.
§ The CHAIRMANI have heard similar points continually raised, but it has been laid down by successive Speakers that what has been accepted by the House it is not in Order to continue. Therefore I am not able to accept the Motion moved by the right hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. WALSHI am not criticising the Closure, but the fact that this is without precedent in the annals of Parliament. It is one further example of the manner in which this Bill is being pushed without regard to all precedent, thus making it difficult, if not impossible, for the Bill to be conducted in the spirit in which such a Bill should be passed in this House. It is calculated to develop a spirit on both sides of the House to make it impossible to negotiate a Bill of this calibre as it should be negotiated.
§ The CHAIRMANI am not able to accept that Motion, as the Closure has been accepted.
§ Mr. MACLEANAn Amendment has been moved and debated and the speakers, including one of the leaders of the official Opposition, who was upon his feet addressing the Committee on a question that is of some importance to the people of the country. A Motion for the 2728 Closure coming from those who are in charge of the Bill furnishes what constitutes something that is not only unprecedented, not only a slight and an insult to the party on whose behalf he was speaking, but also an insult to all the traditions of this House. That insult has been put upon this House by the Minister of Health.
§ The CHAIRMANI understood the hon. Gentleman was submitting a. point of Order. He is making a statement. If he will submit the point of Order, I will listen to it.
§ Mr. MACLEANI am trying to put my point of Order in the plainest possible terms. It is that we on these benches consider it not only a slight upon the speaker of the moment, not only a slight on the official Opposition, but a slight upon Parliament; and I am asking you as the Chairman in charge of the proceedings and as one who has in your care the rights of all the Members, whether front bench Members or private Members, to preserve the rights of these Members by accepting the Motion to report Progress so as to discuss what is really a dastardly, a cowardly attack which can only come from an individual who is a cad.
§ The CHAIRMANThat expression is not in Order and I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw it.
§ Mr. MACLEANI used the term with deliberation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw"!] A position such as has been taken up by a Minister of the Crown in an attack of this character upon a Member tan only be described as a caddish action.
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member has been a considerable time in this House and he must know that expressions of that kind are not in Order. However strongly he feels on this matter, he must recognise that he is not entitled to use it and I will ask him to withdraw it.
§ Mr. MACLEANI have already said that I used the word with deliberation. The position that has been adopted in this House by the Government during the last three hours is sufficient to justify any term that I may have used to describe the conduct of the right hon. Member who moved the Closure. I say again, Mr. Hope, that I have used the term with 2729 deliberation, and I repeat that the right hon. Member is nothing but a cad.
§ The CHAIRMANI have already asked the hon. Member twice, and I ask him for the third time to withdraw that expression.
§ Mr. MACLEANIt is a thing I do not like to do. I am feeling too strongly in the matter, but in the interests of the House I withdraw the expression used, and I shall say this: that the action taken by the Minister of the Crown is one which I consider does not show him to be worthy of the high office which he holds. I think in the interest of fairness to the Members of this House, and in order that there should be a proper ventilation of the feelings of the House, so that it may not lead later to more unseemly things being said that you should accept the Motion that has been moved, so that we may get from the Government one promise at least that this perpetual way of getting rid of their difficulties and getting out of what is actually their duty and responsibility will be dropped. They must explain matters so that people outside will understand, not only the technical parts of the Bill, but the effects certain parts of the Bill will have. If Ministers of the Crown are not going to reply to points raised, the people outside will not appreciate what the effects will be. I hope, therefore, that you will allow the Motion to report Progress to come before the Committee so that the matter can be fully discussed.
§ 3.0 A.M.
§ The CHAIRMANThe Motion to report Progress was made on the ground that the motion for the Closure was unwarrantable. I have heard similar questions discussed many times during the last 21 years and successive Speakers have always ruled that a Motion having once been, accepted and voted upon cannot be reviewed by the House. Therefore, in accordance with repeated precedents, I cannot accept the Motion.
§ Miss WILKINSONOn a point of Order. Earlier in the discussion on this Clause I referred to an Amendment I desired to move and the Attorney-General was good enough to say that the point had considerable substance, but instead of being able to move it another hon. Member went on with his 2730 speech. I and the hon. Member for Caithness intended moving the Amendment as soon as the Minister of Health had finished. I realise that the Motion for the Closure having been voted upon cannot be discussed, but I desire to point out that I raised my point before the Motion for the Closure was made. In the circumstances I feel that we should have some reply from the Attorney-General.
§ The CHAIRMANThat is not a point of Order. Nor will the hon. Member in any way be helped by the Motion to report Progress.
Captain BENNI realise that it would be out of Order to discuss the Motion for the Closure or its acceptance by the Chair. I understand that to be the practice of the House. But may I call your attention to a ruling by the Deputy-Chairman (Captain FitzRoy) that whilst it was out of Order to discuss the conduct of the Chair in accepting a Motion, a discussion might be allowed on the conduct of a Minister in moving the Closure. Such a discussion took place earlier in the evening. I am informed that though it is not in accordance with the practice that has prevailed for the last 20 years, it is in accordance with the practice of the House before that. Is the older practice of the House going to be reverted to?
§ The CHAIRMANIt is not competent in Committee on a Bill to reverse the practice of 20 years, and I can only suggest that if the hon. and gallant Member desires to receive a general ruling he should ask Mr. Speaker for it.
Captain BENNI am perfectly satisfied with your ruling. I was pointing out that you are in the same position as the Deputy-Chairman earlier in the evening.
§ The CHAIRMANI must see the ruling and the exact circumstances under which it was given.
Mr. BECKETTOn a point of Order. I raised a matter of considerable importance to many of the people I represent, but through an accident the Attorney-General was not able to deal with the point. Am I not able to raise it now? If not, Debates in this House are going to be reduced to a farce—
§ The CHAIRMANThat is not a point of Order.
Mr. BECKETTI am putting this forward as a reason why you should accept the Motion to report Progress.
§ Mr. MACLEANMay I draw your attention, Mr. Hope, to the fact that although we are debating a Bill which is under the control of the Minister of Health, there is not a single representative of that Department present in the Committee. I ask you, therefore, to accept the Motion.
§ The CHAIRMANThat is not a point of Order. Mr. Johnston.
§ Mr. R. DAVIESBefore you call on the hon. Member for Dundee may I point out that I have a second Amendment on the Paper. I have been wondering whether you did not call my second Amendment because you believed it consequential on the one which was discussed earlier. If that was the case, I desire to represent to you that they are quite distinct, separate and apart.
§ The CHAIRMANI had fully in my mind the discussion on the contributions as well as weeks, and in the circumstances I did not see my way to select the Amendment.
§ Mr. SPENCERI beg to move, on behalf of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston) in page 4, line 10, to leave out from the word "insurance" to the end of the Clause.
It is not unreasonable to expect that for the first four years a contributor shall have made contributions equal to three 26 weeks' contributions, but surely as the scheme proceeds this will operate very harshly indeed against an individual contributor. I desire to know what is the significance of the word "deemed." We were told that if a person who is a contributor under this scheme is unable during the last three years to continue his contribution, provision has been made under another Act to retain his membership as a contributor to the fund, and he would continue in membership for benefit under this particular Act. If that is not correct it means that a contributor under this Act may pay for 10 or 20 years, but during the last three years he may be unable to pay, on the average, 26 contributions each 2732 year. If my reading of this is correct, and he fails to pay these average contributions for three years before he dies, or three years before he ceases to pay on attaining a certain age, then his wife and children would be deprived of advantages under this Act. If that is so, it is a serious handicap against the contributor, and it does not take adequately into account the previous contributions he has made. I would think that it was more advisable, and more in accordance with the principle of equity, to have said that, as the scheme proceeds, we shall take into consideration not merely the payment made during the last three years, but also the payments made during the life of the scheme. It does seem to me that the payments which have been made in a long period would not be taken into account at all. We should like to know the real effect of these words, and whether they do mean that, notwithstanding the fact that a man may not actually have paid these contributions, he may still be entitled to the benefit if he complies with "A." That is to say, that if he has made 104 contributions, and afterwards during three years, on account of unemployment, is unable to make 26 contributions per year, his widow and children will still be entitled to the provision in this Clause.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALI am very glad to have the opportunity of answering the question and making this matter, I hope, clear. Paragraph (b) deals with the case where an insured person has entered into insurance more than 208 weeks. In that case it is necessary to have some assurance of his really having remained an insured person up to the date the claim arises, otherwise the person who has been in for two years, and for many years afterwards, will be able to say "I have done my 104 weeks; I am an insured person." Provision has to be made to provide that the person who is making a claim shall not take advantage in that way and shall be compelled to show that he really is an insured person. He will either have to show that the contributions paid have been 26 weeks on the average, or are "deemed" to have been paid in accordance with regulations under this Bill. If the hon. Member will look at Clause 29, he will find power given to the Minister to make regulations to provide, where a 2733 person is prevented by incapacity or unemployment to keep up his contributions, that he shall be "deemed" to have kept up his contributions.
Captain BENNIt is impossible to pass this Clause without seeing the regulations. If the regulations are very harsh, many will be disqualified under this paragraph. It is clearly necessary that we should know what these regulations are going to be. A charge is to be put on insured persons and their employers for the benefits under this Bill, as well as other benefits under the existing old age pensions. If you are merely reimbursing contributors then, clearly, you must not make regulations which may have the effect of depriving some man of his money which he has contributed for years for benefits. A man may have contributed for 30 years under this Bill and then, because he happens to have less than an average of 26 contributions in the last three years, or because the regulations were sufficiently harsh to exclude him, then it may well be that he will be deprived of benefits. I doubt whether the Sub-section could be left out with effect, but there is great substance in the point, and it is clearly necessary that the Attorney-General should tell us what the Regulations are and when they are going to be laid. Will they be laid before the Report Stage, or will they be laid before the Bill finally passes the House? Per haps a little later he will give us some definite information on what I venture to think is quite a relevant point.
§ Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being present—
§ Mr. WALSHI beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
I think it is perfectly scandalous that in the discussion of one of the most momentous Bills ever presented to this House, there is not a single representative of the Department specially associated with the Bill and that the Government finds itself incapable of keeping a House. There is supposed to be a relay system and they are supposed, at least, to pay attention to what is going on, even if they do not discuss it themselves. But all they do is to vote blindly, and for more than an hour there has not been a single representative present of the Department specially pre- 2734 senting the Bill. Surely, there never was such a condition of things known in the history of this House. I can imagine nothing more discreditable, nothing more calculated to bring the proceedings of the House into contempt than what has been taking place during the last four or five hours. When an attempt is made to debate on this side of the Committee, Members are closured. When there really ought to be an attempt by the responsible Minister of the Crown to present the case, they themselves are absent; and not only that, but all those faithful henchmen that they are supposed to have in reserve are absent too. Is not this a condition in which we can with perfect propriety ask that the Committee shall report Progress?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI can tell the right hon. Gentleman at once that I cannot accept that Motion. It was proposed only two minutes ago, and was refused.
§ Mr. WALSHIt was turned down on a point of Order. The mere Motion in itself fell to the ground, and it was an entirely different point. My first Motion having been refused by your colleague in the Chair, is no longer before the Committee, and, indeed, did not come effectively before the Committee. But this is upon an entirely different point. First of all—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI cannot accept it.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYOn a point of Order. The Motion which was properly rejected by the Chair within the last 15 or 20 minutes was one that should be now left out of account altogether. I think we are in a position that we would have been in if that Motion had never been submitted. I was present when the Chairman gave his ruling on that, and I think he was influenced by the grounds that were submitted in its support. The grounds were the moving of the Closure while an ex-Minister was on his feet, and other reasons. These did not appeal to the Chairman, but the conditions are different now. In view of the exhausted state of the Houses—evinced by the fact that we had not 40 Members present only a few moments ago—and the fact that the representatives of the Ministry are in such an exhausted state that they have to leave the House during the dis- 2735 cussion of a Measure in which they are the Department primarily interested and have had to be assisted back, are we not now in order in asking that at this hour of the morning we should postpone the discussion of this important Measure?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe point of Order the right hon. Gentleman raises only convinces me that I was wrong in giving any reasons for not accepting the Motion. I am not obliged to give reasons. I cannot accept the Motion.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODI do not think you are fully seized of the fact that the previous attempt from these benches to move that we report Progress was never moved. As soon as it became obvious to the Chair that the opportunity for a Debate on such a Motion might cause comment upon the decision of the Committee to closure the business, your predecessor said that we could not debate that question. With all due deference, I think you are perfectly correct in saying when the Motion was now moved, that if the Motion to report Progress had been requested a little time before and refused, that thereby you would be justified in refusing it now. But I do not think that is actually the case.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANWithout having regard to the ruling given just now in regard to a similar motion, I cannot accept this Motion.
§ Colonel WEDGWOODIn that case, we had better get on with the discussion, but I do not think it will hasten discussion. This is a most important Amendment on Clause 5, and I do hope it will not be rushed. I do not know whether I shall be allowed to get out my first sentence, because it is a fear ever present with Members on this Front Bench that they will be closured before getting out a word. This is really one of the most important Amendments of the whole Bill. I hardly think the Attorney-General was quite frank in dealing with this Amendment. He spoke of these paragraphs (a) and (b) as being alternative. It must have been a late hour of the night that made him use those words. They are not alternative; they are supplemental To get your widow's pension you have got to do two things under this Bill as it stands. First of all, you must have made your 104 2736 contributions, and then it must be more than four years since you had a personal interest in insurance. That is to say, in the vast majority of the cases, in any case, where you have been insured for more than four years before the Bill comes into operation you have got to show that during those four years you have got to have an average of 26 contributions per year. So that you have got to be in employment for at least two years out of the last four. This is a very serious position. If paragraph (a) stood alone I should think there was some justification for the necessity mentioned. A man may have been insured for 40 years, and just at the tail end he may have been an unfortunate man in the coal or iron or steel trade. If he is out of work for more than a certain period in the last four years, he loses all the money he put into this scheme. We are not only dealing with a scheme for the first time; this is operative 20 or 30 years hence. If people who have been paying for 40 years lose their employment for 18 months, they may forfeit all right to get benefit.
That certainly was not what I understood of the Bill when the Second Reading was debated, and we ought to have from the Minister some adequate explanation of why these two provisions are put in, what he exactly means by this penalising Clause for the unemployed man and, more particularly, what are going to be the "26 contributions calculated in the prescribed manner." We do not know what the prescribed manner is. We should like to know how they are calculated. For all those reasons I think we want a very careful scrutiny of this particular Clause. There was just one thing in the Attorney-General's speech which gave us some sort of illumination. He made it quite clear that in drafting this Bill the greatest care had been taken to see that there should not be any danger of a man getting his pension under false pretences. Well, if you are going to go into every Measure of this sort and try to block up every loophole to stop a man getting a pension where, a cording to the theory of the claim, he ought to get it, you are going to make it very much more difficult for the just case in your efforts to stop the unjust case. This provision, like so many others, always seems to assume an 2737 inveterate malignity on the part of the working classes, whose original sin seems to have impressed the drafters of the Bill and makes it full of these safeguards, but also full of pitfalls for the ninety and nine just men to make him suffer for the prospective failing of the bad man. We ought to be very careful in our desire to make a water-tight and fool-proof scheme not to place additional obstacles in the way of a just reward to the man who has paid his contribution. I think my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) said that ought to be driven into the heads of the Government in this Debate to realise that this is not something given to the working classes. This is not spoon-feeding the deserving poor. It is an insurance scheme which they are not merely asked to join, but forced to join. If it were a voluntary scheme then I should say make your terms as you like. But here you have an insurance scheme which ought to be of its nature a voluntary scheme. You are making it a compulsory scheme, and if you are fool enough or unfortunate enough to lose your job all those fourpences and fivepences you put into this scheme in 40 years will go away. The very fact that it is a compulsory scheme ought to make us more careful to see that every contributor gets justice, and, above all, to see that he does not have on the top of the inequity and injustice unemployment added, injustice on the part of the Government.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAParagraph (b) makes the whole Clause quite an intolerable one. The Government do not seem to realise the full effects of the operation of this Clause as they have made it. Previous speakers have pointed out already the general hardship that appears on the reading of the Clause, but when we go further and study the full effects of many of the words, I submit that this is not only bad law but a positive piece of deliberate injustice aimed at the working classes under the false disguise of an Insurance Act to get out of their miserable pittance every week anything and everything by hook or by crook.
The system of contribution, and the unjust system of contribution, of the low earnings is getting it out of them by hook, and these two paragraphs, especially the last one, is to get it out 2738 of them by crook. It is not a question of safeguarding against any malpractices under the Bill by the insured persons and it is not only safeguarding the insurance funds, but this is making a deliberate attempt against the persons who have in a bona fide way, in a fair and square manner, paid their contribution, to simply seize their contributions and deny to their heirs the ultimate benefit when the time arises. The whole Clause is arbitrarily framed. The process adopted having a connection with the substance of the Clause, we see the Government are quite eager that even their own followers should be absent from the Committee and not listen to the counter arguments, but merely come in and vote tamely for these Clauses. The Government are very nervous throughout the whole proceedings that any argument should be brought forward that the public should realise, and therefore they are moving Closure after Closure to stifle genuine argument.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI cannot allow discussion on that point.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAIt is a belief on the part of the Government that these Clauses are so badly framed that they cannot stand the searching discussion by the Committee and open the eyes of the public. Here we find that when such Clauses are put into operation another evil is bound to result. The employers will be the class of persons of whom the present Government are the representatives—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThis has nothing whatever to do with the Amendment. The hon. Member really must base his remarks on some connection with the Amendment.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALALet me submit that it has a very close connection with the Amendment and that very grave harm will follow.
§ Sir GRATTAN DOYLEI beg to call attention to the position of the Liberal party.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAThe Government are introducing this paragraph (b), and I submit that they come from the class who are going to operate this Clause as employers. Let me point out that it will be in the hands of the employers to throw 2739 men deliberately out of its operations so that 26 weeks' contributions will become impossible. It will be not only an inducement, but in keeping with the practice of the class, to throw people out of employment.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYOn a point of Order. I want to draw your attention to the fact that several Members on the other side of the House used the word "rot" in reference to the speech of the hon. Member. Is that a Parliamentary expression?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI did not catch the remarks to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYFurther, to that point of Order. May I draw your attention to the fact that the Minister of Health himself, the Gentleman who was presumably in charge of the House, interjected the remark that it was true.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYIf the original remark escaped your hearing, and an hon. Member now admits that it was true—
§ Mr. WHEATLEYI want to know if it is a Parliamentary expression.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI did not hear the expression.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAI do not know if you will permit me to show my illustration, the correctness of my argument, in answer to the challenge thrown in the shape of interruptions, but I hope I will not be charged with an attempt to keep hon. Members opposite up, because it is my honest desire to keep them down. The real position is this, that we just now find in the operation of unemployment benefit and in the operation of pensions and so on, that deliberate attempts are made to disqualify persons from their dues by manipulating figures of unemployment. There is not the slightest doubt in the 2740 minds of the working class and their representatives that on a large scale deliberate measures are from time to time adopted by the employing class to cheat the poor workers of the little they are entitled to under the law by taking advantage of the technicality of the law. It will not only deceive the men themselves but even the helpless families, and there will be temptation for Chancellors of the Exchequer to show a larger balance in hand to the credit of this scheme, and their friends themselves would have it in their power to exercise control over the period of contribution. I put it to the Committee, comrade FitzRoy—
§ Mr. FORDOn a point of Order. Is the hon. Member entitled in addressing the Chair to use the term he has chosen?
§ Mr. WHEATLEYMay I ask if an hon. Member who described the speech of the hon. Member to whom he refers as "rot" is entitled to raise this objection?
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAI agree that the word was true, but it described the mentality of the interjector. I was pointing out that, taking the realities of life, this Clause is one that is going to operate against the workers by its legal defect. It carries with it elements of persecution of the workers at certain periods of their life. Not only will their dependents be deprived after death, but on account of the temptation of putting them under the disability imposed upon the workers by this Clause, these poor men and women will be made miserable during their period of work and of service. We cannot be merely side-tracked with the idea that such things do not happen, that the gentlemen of England do not carry out such plans. Men by the thousand suffer to-day by such trickery. It is too patent for people in the country not to believe that it is an open practice and an extensive practice carried out by the mastering class of employers,
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 154; Noes, 70.
2741| Division No. 247.] | AYES. | [3.51 a.m. |
| Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby) | Gunston, Captain D. W. | Rentoul, G. S. |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne) | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.) | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, E. | Hanbury, C. | Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint) |
| Astor, Viscountess | Haslam, Henry C. | Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Henn, Sir Sydney H. | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Balniel, Lord | Herberts, (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by) | Rye, F. G. |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Salmon, Major I. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Bethell, A. | Holt, Captain H. P. | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Homan, C. W. J. | Sandon, Lord |
| Blundell. F. N. | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.) | Savery, S. S. |
| Bowyer, Captain G. E. W. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) |
| Brass, Captain W. | Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. O. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.) |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Jacob, A. E. | Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) |
| Brittain, Sir Harry | Kidd, J. (Linlithgow) | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Knox, Sir Alfred | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I. | Loder, J. de V. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst.) |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Lynn, Sir R. J. | Skelton, A. N. |
| Burman, J. B. | MacAndrew, Charles Glen | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Smithers, Waldron |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | Macintyre, Ian | Stanley, Lord (Fylde) |
| Christie, J. A. | McLean, Major A. | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Cooper, A. Duff | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Strickland, Sir Gerald |
| Cope, Major William | Margesson, Captain D. | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Couper, J. B. | Meyer, Sir Frank | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Sugden, Sir Wilfred |
| Courthope. Lieut.-Col. George L. | Moles, Thomas | Tasker, Major R. Inigo |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Templeton, W. P. |
| Curzon, Captain Viscount | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South) |
| Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd) | Nelson, Sir Frank | Tinne, J. A. |
| Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Newman, Sir R. H. S. O. L. (Exeter) | Wallace, Captain D. E. |
| Dixey, A. C. | Nuttall, Ellis | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Oakley, T. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Doyle, Sir N. Grattan | O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton) | Wells, S. R. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | Wheler, Major Granville C. H. |
| Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith | Penny, Frederick George | White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Fairfax, Captain J. G. | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Fermoy, Lord | Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Finburgh, S. | Philipson, Mabel | Womersley, W. J. |
| Fleming, D. p. | Pielou, D. P. | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Ford, P. J. | Power, Sir John Cecil | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde) |
| Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Fraser, Captain Ian | Preston, William | |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Raine, W. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Ramsden, E. | Captain Douglas Hacking and |
| Goff, Sir Park | Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington) | Major Hennessy. |
| Grace, John | Reid, D. D. (County Down) |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Slivertown) | Sutton, J. E. |
| Alexander, A. V (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Taylor, R. A. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Kelly, W. T. | Varley, Frank B. |
| Barr, J. | Kennedy, T. | Viant, S. P. |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Lawson, John James | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Broad, F. A. | Lee, F. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan) | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Naylor, T. E. | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | Paling, W. | Welsh, J. C. |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Ponsonby, Arthur | Westwood, J. |
| Duncan, C. | Potts, John S. | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Whiteley, W. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Riley, Ben | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Grundy, T. W. | Ritson, J. | Williams, T. (York. Don Valley) |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R. Normanton) | Saklatvala, Shapurji | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Scurr, John | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Windsor, Walter |
| Hayday, Arthur | Sitch, Charles H. | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Hayes, John Henry | Smillie, Robert | |
| Hirst, G. H. | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. A. |
| Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Snell, Harry | Barnes. |
§ Question accordingly put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
2744§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 153; Noes, 69.
2745| Division No. 248.] | AYES. | [10.40 p.m. |
| Allen, J. Sandeman (L'pool, W. Derby) | Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne) | Reid, D. D. (County Down) |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Bad.) | Rentoul, G. S. |
| Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W. | Hanbury, C. | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, E. | Haslam, Henry C. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Astor, Viscountess | Henn, Sir Sydney H. | Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint) |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Herberts, (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by) | Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A. |
| Balniel, Lord | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Barclay-Harvey C. M. | Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Rye, F. G. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Holt, Captain H. P. | Salmon, Major I. |
| Bethell, A. | Homan, C. W. J. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Blundell, F. N. | Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.) | Sandon, Lord |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Bowyer, Captain G. E. W. | Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Savery, S. S. |
| Brass, Captain W. | Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) |
| Brigg's J Harold | Jacob, A. E. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl.(Renfrew, W.) |
| Brittain, Sir Harry | Kidd, J. (Linlithgow) | Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) |
| Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I. | Knox, Sir Alfred | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Londer, J. de V. | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C.(Berks, Newb'y) | Lynn, Sir R. J. | Sinclair, Col. T.(Queen's Univ., Belfst.) |
| Burman, J. B. | MacAndrew, Charles Glen | Skelton, A. N. |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Smithers, Waldron |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Birm., W.) | Macintyre, Ian | Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.) |
| Christie, J. A. | McLean, Major A. | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Cooper, A. Duff | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Strickland, Sir Gerald |
| Couper, J. B. | Margesson, Captain D. | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Meyer, Sir Frank | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L. | Mitchell, S. (Lanark Lanark) | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Moles, Thomas | Tasker, Major R. Inigo |
| Curzon, Captain Viscount | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Templeton, W. P. |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Davidson. J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd) | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.) |
| Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Nelson, Sir Frank | Tinne, J. A. |
| Dixey, A. C. | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Wallace, Captain D. E. |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Nuttall, Ellis | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Doyle, Sir N. Grattan | Oakley, T. | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton) | Wells, S. R. |
| Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Penny, Frederick George | White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple |
| Fairfax, Captain J. G. | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Fermoy, Lord | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Finburgh, S. | Peto, Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple) | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Fleming, D. P. | Phillipson, Mabel | Womersley, W. J. |
| Ford, P. J. | Pielou, D. P. | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Power, Sir John Cecil | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'ge & Hyde) |
| Fraser, Captain Ian | Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Preston, William | |
| Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Raine, W. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Goff, Sir Park | Ramsden, E. | Captain Douglas Hacking and |
| Grace, John | Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington) | Lord Stanley. |
| Gunston, Captain D. W. | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Hirst, G. H. | Shiels, Dr. Drummond |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Hudson, J. H. Huddersfield | Sitch, Charles H. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Jones. J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Smillie, Robert |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) |
| Barr, J. | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Kelly, W. T. | Snell, Harry |
| Broad, F. A. | Kennedy, T. | Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Lawson, John James | Sutton, J. E. |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Lee, F. | Taylor, R. A. |
| Crawfurd, H. E. | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Naylor, T. E. | Varley, Frank B. |
| Duncan, C. | Paling, W. | Viant, S. P. |
| Graham. D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Ponsonby, Arthur | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Potts, John S. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Grundy, T. W. | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Riley, Ben | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Ritson, J. | Welsh, J. C. |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O.(W. Bromwich) | Westwood, J. |
| Mayday, Arthur | Saklatvala, Shapurji | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Hayes, John Henry | Scurr, John | Whiteley, W. |
| Wilkinson, Ellen C. | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) | Windsor, Walter | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. A. |
| Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) | Barnes. |
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ Mr. ATTLEET wish to make one or two observations as to why this Clause should not stand part of the Bill and I do so because I have always been closured before I was allowed to speak. I object to this Clause because it lays down certain statutory conditions which are going to react very harshly on certain categories of persons, particularly a large number in my constituency. I have in my own constituency a large number of people who are unemployed part of the time. They never in any one year reach the 26 weeks, and it is very unlikely that they will benefit under this Bill. I strongly object to this attempt to prevent constituents of mine from getting the widows' and orphans' pensions. These conditions lay down 208 weeks, which is, in our opinion, a great deal too steep. I want as many people as possible to qualify for pensions. It is said very often that marriage is a lottery, and this Bill also seems to be a lottery with the Minister of Health running away with most of the prizes in the shape of benefits under the Bill. This Clause and the two preceding Clauses, so far as I can see, are all endeavours to prevent people getting into this insurance or getting the pensions, as the case may be. I think it should be made as wide as possible.
It is rather difficult to argue the case against this Bill because it is sometimes treated as a pensions scheme in which people are being given something for nothing and that it is therefore proper to lay down all kinds of conditions. On the other hand, whenever we want to extend the benefits we are told that it is an insurance Bill and regulated strictly by the amount paid. I have listened to the Debate as long as I could stand it, and I have heard several replies from the Government side, but I have never managed to catch any justification for this Clause on financial grounds. This Clause will act like a pair of scissors, one part being paragraph (a) and the other paragraph (b). The first paragraph lays it down that 104 weeks must have elapsed and 104 contri- 2746 butions paid. I gather that the contributions are to be paid once a week, and I cannot see, therefore, how it is possible to have 104 contributions unless there has been 104 weeks of insurance. The first qualification is that people who are coming into insurance must have a high average, something like 100 per cent. of contributions. In the second place, there is a series of Regulations in which they have to put in 26 contributions. It is quite clear that the earlier the husband dies the greater the hardship on the widow, and the Bill deprives them of a pension if the husband dies in the first two years. If a family has been unlucky and there has been a great deal of unemployment, it comes down heavily on the widow. Representing, as I do, one of the poorest constituencies in London, I think we should look after the most helpless people, those who cannot possibly get employment, whose nerves have been exhausted by working at an early age, and who have gone into blind alleys of employment. We have along the north and south sides of the Thames masses of people who are in casual employment. These are the people we are deeply concerned about. It is their children who, happily, are looked after by the guardians, and the cost swells the rates in poor districts like Poplar, Stepney and West Ham. It is these families who should come under this Bill, but who will, under these drastic Regulations, be cut out of it altogether.
There is no possible reason why there should be all these elaborate qualifications—a qualification of time and a qualification of pay. I have heard nothing from the financial side and no reason from the social side why this should be the case. Therefore, a vast improvement would be effected if this Clause were cut out of the Bill. The Minister of Health has not had time to consider in detail the considerations put forward from this side of the Committee, but I hope between now and the Report stage he will do so and perhaps make some alterations. If we cannot sweep this Clause away altogether, he might be able to substitute a scale which would act with greater equity than the present scale. There is another point. There 2747 are people who enter insurance late in life, large numbers of small traders, like costers. The coster business is likely to be lees followed in the future than in the past because the great growth of motor-cars has pushed the costers off the roads. Many of these who are now old and who have been exposed to all kinds of weather will have to go into some ensured occupation, and many will probably die before they can make this qualifying period. It is in the interests of people like this that I suggest we should do away with paragraph (a) and paragraph (b). They will hit a large number of the poorest people in the community very hard. The only reason for inserting such provisions as these is that provisions of this kind were inserted in previous insurance Bills. Therefore I am opposed to adding this Clause to the Bill.
Mr. BECKETTDuring the Debate on this Clause the Attorney-General was courteous enough to give us the exact meaning of this Clause as it stands, but unfortunately he did not have the time, owing to the action of his colleague, to tell us why it is impossible for the Government to make the terms on which these new benefits are obtained a little less onerous. I want once more to stress the great importance to many of the black areas of the country of making these new benefits obtainable as quickly and as easily as possible in these areas. If that is not done you will swell the rates and give no corresponding return to these localities. You are adding to the burden of these local industries and making it difficult for them to compete in the world's markets without any quid pro quo. I have not been able to work out the figures, but if the Government are not able to give us a period of 26 weeks perhaps they can make it a period of something less than the two years. It would not add very much to the financial burden of the Bill and it would certainly be of incalculable assistance to local authorities who have to deal with these poor people whom these benefits are supposed to assist. If the Government consider that the original proposal was too wide surely it is possible for them on Report stage to give us something, a little nearer what we are asking.
§ Mr. SPENCERIt is quite logical for those who conceive this scheme as a direct contributory scheme to make some provision against any abuses that might arise. In answer to a question I put, the Attorney-General said that paragraph (b) was designed to protect the scheme against a person who might have 104 contributions and then go out of insurable employment altogether, or, alternatively, pay a week or two for the purpose of keeping himself in touch with the scheme, not having made a legitimate contribution. In so far as it is designed for that end one cannot reasonably complain—if we are to accept the principle of a direct contributory scheme. But the Minister for Health was asked to answer a question about a man who had paid for, say, 25 years and then, four years before the man died, he falls ill. So far as this Clause stands at present, it does appear that the wife of that man will be deprived of benefits. That is a reasonable question. The Attorney-General drew my attention to Clause 29 and said that with regard to certain persons Regulations would be made-Are Regulations going to be made to meet the case I have mentioned.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINSome of the questions put appear to me to be eminently reasonable and proper, and I rise at once to answer. The hon. Member supposes a case of a man who has been a contributor for 25 years and then ceases to be a contributor for four years, at the end of which period he dies. He asks whether the widow of that man will be entitled to a pension. The answer is "yes," provided that during these four years he was genuinely seeking work, or had proved incapacity owing to infirmity.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINI cannot answer off-hand. I think the hon. Member may take it that a fair test would be imposed and reasonable evidence would be expected.
§ Mr. WHEATLEYThe Minister has raised a very important point. The whole thing hinges on what is a reasonable test to be imposed. Clearly the Minister has something on his mind, and I think he ought to let us know what his intentions are.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINAs the Regulations are not yet drafted, it is impossible for me to state particular phrases to be employed in these Regulations. They will be laid on the Table of the House and the House will have an opportunity of examining them.
Mr. BECKETTWould the Ministry of Health be asked to get them or would they be got by the Employment Exchange?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINI think the application would probably be made to the approved society and the society would be asked to obtain the evidence. I cannot help thinking the Member for Gates head (Mr. Beckett) is still under a misapprehension about this Clause. There are many misapprehensions existing, and none are more deep rooted than those in the somewhat protracted observations of the right hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley). He said over and over again that this Clause was based upon "steady employment." It is nothing of the kind. There is no such word in the Clause as "regular" or "steady" employment. These 104 weeks need not be continuous weeks. I think he has been under the impression that the whole 104 contributions have to be paid continuously after the beginning of the operation of the Bill. We are asked to reduce the period because, it is said, it is desirable to speed up the time when these people would come off the poor rate. In the great majority of cases the 104 contributions have already been paid. We have only got to deal with a minority of cases and under these cases it will be a varying number. It may be 10, 20, or 30. The whole case about these contributions has been grossly exaggerated in the speeches of hon. Members opposite. I need only mention this one particular, that in the year 1924, the average number of contributions paid of every one of the 15,000,000 contributors under the National Health Insurance Act was 44 during the year. That was the average number, and, as 104 is the total number to be paid in two years, I think hon. Members will see that there is really no hardship in this comparatively brief waiting period.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSI rise to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question, as distinct from making any lengthy speech He has given definite replies to one or two 2750 submissions that have been made, but he still fails to make any real reference to the minority of cases that he now refers to. These are cases where real hardship is likely to step in. There is the case of a person who, through no fault of his own, is compelled to leave an uninsurable occupation to enter an insurable occupation and who, prior to the expiration of 104 weeks, happens to pass away. There will be a definite hardship, and I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he does not think, rather than deprive even a minority of people of what should be a legitimate right, that he would be well advised to consider at least minimising the number of stamps required. The very exceptional industrial situation carries thousands in its train, and, although there may not be tens of thousands of hard cases, I do think there will be many hard cases which could be disposed of if a reduced number of stamps is required before the benefits can be received. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to tell us whether or not he does not think that this minority of cases are well worthy of further consideration.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINNo, Sir. I cannot take that view. The hon. Member is supposing two things. First, that you have a number of men who are entering upon insurance for the first time; and, secondly, that these men die before they have succeeded in paying 104 contributions. I suggest that the number of men out of this limited number who die before they have made up their contributions is very small; and when he asks me whether it is a hardship that they should die before they have paid their contributions, my answer is that precisely the same argument will apply if you make the number 26 instead of 104.
§ Mr. A. V. ALEXANDERThe reply of the Minister of Health will confirm most of us on these benches in our opposition to the Motion that the Clause stand part. He very courteously offered to meet the hon. Member for the Broxtowe Division (Mr. Spencer) with regard to a person who had been insured for a very long period, and then was unable to keep up his contributions owing to various circumstances for the next four years, but I think his reply totally fails to meet the situation. He said that under certain conditions and provided 2751 certain things happen, the widow of a man in these circumstances would be able to get a pension. We are told again and again that this is not a scheme for distributing social benefits, but is an insurance scheme to which the workers are contributing for the benefits they will get afterwards, and my hon. Friend raised a point where contributions to the extent of 8d. a week over 25 years will have been paid—4d. by the worker and 4d. by the employer—and yet it is quite possible, from the reply that has been given, that the whole of these contributions would have been totally lost to the people for whom the worker would imagine that these compulsory insurance contributions were being taken from him. Let me point out to the Minister how entirely different that is in effect to what this House has laid down in other directions in regard to insurance. The Minister's reply was that if the ordinary contributions of the employer and the employed person lapse, benefits would still be paid to the widow provided certain things happened. We have nothing before us to-night as to what proof will be required.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Member is assuming either that this person is not incapacitated from work by reason of illness or that he is not genuinely seeking work. If either of these conditions exists, it seems to me he does not deserve it.
§ Mr. ALEXANDERI will come to that in a moment, but I want to speak first in regard to the danger of the whole of the contributions in any case being lost, even if the man is shown in the final four years not to be genuinely seeking work or not to be in ill-health. The contributions have been paid. Take industrial insurance. We have an enormous business in this country in industrial insurance. We take 2d., 4d., or 6d. a week from the worker. There have been immense scandals in the past, but in 1923 this House laid it down that if a policy had been in existence for five years — not 25 — and then, from any reason at all, the worker was unable to maintain his contribution, it should be a statutory obligation upon the insurance society or company to provide a free paid up policy, or a surrender value, 2752 to the worker who had contributed his 2d., 4d., or 6d. a week, so that the whole of his contributions will not be lost. Is there not a marked contrast between this scheme of so-called insurance now before the Committee and what this House has laid down in the past with regard to other people in the insurance business, and seeing that some value shall accrue to those who have kept up their contributions for a given period. On the point that the right hon. Gentleman made when he interjected a moment or two ago, let me refer to the absence of the information as to what proof is going to be required as to whether a man is genuinely seeking employment or has been prevented from keeping employment by ill-health. Representing the workers as we do, have we not had sufficient experience in our constituencies to know that this kind of Clause is breeding already and will continue to breed any amount of suspicion in the minds of the workers? In another form of insurance (Unemployment Insurance), people are turned off from benefits for no real cause whatever, and if you are going to leave the benefits which ought to accrue under a scheme like this to be tested ultimately on similar tests, I am perfectly certain that the working-class constituents who sent us to this House will feel that we are absolutely justified in opposing any Motion that this Clause stand part of the Bill. Just one other point. I think the Minister will admit that we are under a great disadvantage in discussing this Clause in not having concrete particulars before us with regard to the Regulations. He said that when the Regulations were made they will be put before the House and plenty of opportunity will be afforded to criticise and discuss them. He knows as well as I do that those Regulations, when they are made, can only be objected to in fact on an Address to His Majesty, which can only be taken after 11 o'clock at night. Here we are with a Bill with all these immense possibilities of wrong, of suspicion, of hardship being forced through the House of Commons in four days without any real information as to the vital regulations which are going to be used in working the Bill and which, when they are laid before the House, can only be discussed on a Motion to His Majesty, which can 2753 only be taken after 11 o'clock at night. It is a most serious position for the House to be in in discussing Bills of this importance. One other thing I would say. It brings us up once more against the fact that this Bill is calculated not only in its general operation but in its particular operation, to omit very large numbers of people who are just the kind of people who ought to come in any State scheme of insurance of this character. I sometimes wonder whether some of the people who discuss a Bill of this kind from the purely academic point of view have any experience of the life of a widow of a victim of industry. Although I think there are many who have been the children of widows, I do not think any Member of the House can speak with a more wide experience of what it means to the working-class home of a widow whose husband is the victim of industry than myself. My father was a victim to industry when I was still an infant in arms. My mother was 28 years of age when she was left with four children without any resources. The whole of my early life was cramped, almost blighted, by the conditions under which we lived—not conditions of real hunger or hardship for myself, because of the enormous devotion and self-sacrifice of my old mother, who I believe to be the best citizen in this State to-day yet living. The impression on my mind of the sufferings of my mother and the handicap with which I have had to fight all my life makes me feel that I have something against this system of Society which I will neither forget nor forgive.
§ Mr. WALSHI feel compelled to draw attention to this Clause because I speak of what I know when I say it will have the effect of cutting out the widows of tens of thousands of miners in Lancashire already. Let me show how it works. The latter part of the Clause is really the most important. Speaking of the three years prior to the death of the worker, it points out that the contributions must be on the average not less than 26, calculated in the prescribed manner in respect of each of those three years. Let me draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to what took place in 1921. First, all the adult miners of the Kingdom were out of employment, over a million of them. Every one of those miners had been insured since 1912. They 2754 had all, therefore, complied with the first condition when it speaks of where 208 weeks or more which elapse since the date of the entry of the person into insurance. Every one of them had been insured since 1912 so that four years or more had elapsed in every case. Now the requirement of the Section is that for the three years immediately preceding the death of the worker that workman must have had 26 contributions each year at least for three years. What happened after March, 1921, was that after 31st March until the 1st July in that year they were all out of employment, and then when the pits recommenced tens of thousands in every county practically, but certainly 25,000 in my county alone, were unable to obtain employment for at least 12 months. There are thousands upon thousands of them out now who have never obtained employment since the recommencement of the pits at the 1st July, 1921.
These people have every one of them paid years and years of insurance. They have every one of them qualified for the four years or more, and yet in the three years immediately preceding the death of any one of those people, they would not have paid for the six months in any one of the three years, because, let it be remembered, that if that condition is violated, if it is not maintained, one year out of the three, the average is broken down. Let me carry the calculation further. My right hon. Friend says that, having regard to all the millions of the people in insurance the average is 44 weeks. Well the average in the case of the miners before 31st March, 1921, would have been 52 weeks in 1920, 52 in 1919, but only 13 weeks in 1921. That will give an average, if you are going on the average of twice 52 and 13, practically of 39 weeks. But then they play right away from 31st March and many of them are playing right on till now and yet they have paid from 1912 to 1921—they have paid ten years. They have paid nothing since in many cases. There are thousands of them out now. If anyone of those were to die, although the reserve value they have created has been very great, not a single one of their widows would come into benefit under this Bill. If I am wrong in that, it is through the imperfect wording in the latter part of the Clause. 2755 It says: "For the three contribution years …"
§ Mr. WALSHBut we must have regard to the words that go before that—
Immediately prior to his death … represents on the average not less than twenty-six contributions calculated in the prescribed manner in respect of each of those three years.The average must be 26 contributions in respect of each of those three years. If that be the case, whatever must be the prescribed manner of your calculation, if it is to be in respect of each of those three years, then you will deprive thousands of widows in Lancashire. If one could say that the framing and wording of the Regulations were such as to do away with the inevitable fear, one can only construe the drafting of these Clauses in accordance with the ordinary usage of the English language.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINI think this is a mistake. It is on the average, and if in the three years there are 78 contributions made, that is at the rate of 26 contributions made in each of three years.
§ Mr. WALSHThat is what I desired to educe from the hon. Gentleman. I accept the explanation with the greatest satisfaction and pleasure, but I am quite sure that a legal mind could define this entirely differently from the answer given. However, I cannot have an answer more explicit nor more satisfactory, and, therefore, I accept it with the greatest pleasure.
§ Mr. TAYLORI rise, not to prolong the discussion but in order to get a clearer and fuller explanation from the Minister than that which bears the satisfaction of my right hon. Friend the ex-Minister of War. This Clause, as I see it, in the light of the Minister's explanation—and I hope he will correct me if I am wrong—provides that in those cases where an insured man has been employed for four years and cannot establish an average for three years prior to death of 26 payments, his widow has no claim on the fund. Is that correct?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThat is where the "contributions calculated in the prescribed manner" come in. In 2756 that case, if the man has not been able himself to make the contributions then, provided that he has been handicapped by illness or genuinely seeking work, it will be counted as though he had paid the contributions he practically had not.
§ Mr. TAYLORThat is exactly what I desired to stress. In the constituency which I represent this will affect hundreds of families. During the trade depression of the last four or five years large numbers—hundreds I might say— of skilled artisans, particularly aged men between the ages of 45 and 55, who have been under national health insurance ever since its inception, have as a result of prolonged unemployment and the practical impossibility of getting back into industry at their normal occupation drifted into various channels of earning a livelihood which in normal conditions they would never have gone into. Take, for instance, a thing like hawking, or a thing like poultry farming, or the men who have gone into little businesses and that kind of thing—here are men, skilled artisans, who have spent the whole of their life, when they have been able to get work, in an insured occupation, but who as a result of trade depression have for the time being passed out of that occupation and gone into other channels. I take it that the widows of those men will not be eligible for benefit. I think we may reasonably assume that if a man has been unemployed for four years, or even five years, and if he is a man over 50 years of age, there is very little chance of him regaining his place as an artisan in industry. Whilst he may have been genuinely seeking work all the time, he may have the utmost difficulty in establishing that before the Employment Exchange authorities; therefore, under this Clause as modified, it seems to me large numbers of people who are going to be deprived of benefit, and particularly the widows of men who most need help.
5.0 A.M.
There is another point in this Clause to which I hope the Minister will give consideration. I hope he will see his way clear to reduce the qualifying period below 104 contributions. Take an example, which is not infrequent, of the young men who were taken into the Army at the age of 18 in the latter years of the 2757 War from, an insured occupation, many of them engineering apprentices and so on. Those men who were taken at 18, it is perfectly true, were kept in insurance during the time they were in the Army, but many of them were only in the Army for a period of six months. They were discharged and perhaps got back to an insured occupation for five or six months. Then the slump came and these young men who were taken at a young age have now reached the age of 23 or 24. They will not be able to establish a claim if you are going to insist upon this necessity of 104 contributions. Here again many of these ex-service men—young ex-service men—have had to go to other channels than that of normal trade. Many of them have not been able to complete their apprenticeship, but their families will be equally in need, and I hope from that point of view the Minister will give some consideration to this point. Another point you will find in other industrial centres is this: There are large numbers of young men from 19 to 21 years of age who have never been able to get into industry at all during the last four or five years. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are they in your party?"] I beg your pardon. I hope some serious consideration will be given to this length of the qualifying period and I hope we are going to get some more definite satisfaction from the Minister with regard to the position of these men who have been out of work for a long period. I happen to know a good many of these men who have never been out of work before in their lives, but who find it impossible to establish a claim before a Labour Exchange, Committee, and I do appeal to the Minister to give us a definite assurance that in the case of men—of middle-aged men particularly—who have been in insurance ever since its inception, and who have always had their contributions credited to them until the years of exceptional trade depression—I do hope that these cases will be met and not left to the interpretation of the Regulations when drawn up.
§ Mr. MORGAN JONESMy difficulty arises in regard to a class precisely similar, though not for the same reasons, as that referred to by the previous speaker. In my division I have a number 2758 of miners, and there are a large number of them who were out of work in 1921. Most of them returned to employment in 1921, but in one particular portion of my constituency, after having returned to work for a period, industrial depression set in and the older pits in the area were closed down. The consequence was that in one or two corners of the constituency there is absolutely no opportunity for some of these poor miners to return to work for some considerable time to come. It is a fact that in that area miners have been out of work for over two years. If under this Clause it is understood that out of three years immediately preceding the death of the man an average of 26 weeks must be provided, then I cannot understand low any of the dependants of those miners can possibly qualify for benefit under this Clause if the interpretation given by the right hon. Gentleman is the right one, namely, that the man has been in employment for an average of 26 weeks for three years. It means this, that he must have been in employment for 18 months. Whatever your Regulations may be and whatever your prescribed manner may be, I cannot see how you can get your average of 26 weeks for each of the three successive years immediately preceding the death. I cannot see how the answer of the right hon. Gentleman covers the point.
§ Mr. J. BAKERI only want to ask what is the position of a man under this qualifying Clause who has been turned down by an Employment Exchange or unemployment committee as no longer employable in an insurable industry because he is 60 years of age, and what is the position of a man whose wages were raised to a point during the war period that brought him over the limit and ruled him out of insurance, but whose wages are now reduced to below the limit to come into insurance.
§ Mr. SAKLATVALAIt is quite a known fact in the textile, engineering and mining trades that men who have long experience in particular trades in this country are sent abroad for periods of three years, two years or four years to commence operations, say, in the mines of India, or Africa, or in the cotton mills here and there. What will be the position of these men if they go abroad for a period 2759 of three years after paying contributions in this country for 10 or 20 years?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINI cannot undertake to answer all the conundrums that any hon. Member can think of. As long as I make the meaning of the Clause clear then hon. Members can answer the questions for themselves. The point I was answering when I was speaking to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) was the actual number of contributions required in a particular year or in three years. But now an hon. Member says that in this particular case these men could not make the necessary number of contributions in those three years, because they were not able to get work for a sufficient period to enable them to do so, and the reason why was because the pits had closed down upon which their employment depended. They come under exactly the same conditions which we intend to prescribe in the Regulations. That is the point I endeavoured to make to the hon. Member for Lincoln of people genuinely seeking work. In that case it will be accounted to them as though they had paid contributions, even though in fact they had not done so.
§ Mr. PALINGI think the Minister has done his best to explain the points. In spite of that, there are still things with which we are not entirely satisfied. I should like to press for more elucidation. In regard to the case of the man who has been ill for four years, the Minister of Health answers that satisfactorily. Of course, if he died his widow and children would get their benefit. I would like to ask whether that would obtain benefit for any member provided that over the number of years he could have been proved to be a genuine case. There was a second point raised, namely, the position of the man who is just leaving an uninsured trade, I mean the smaller craftsman and the small shopman. It is not so small a matter as the Minister of Health anticipates it will be. The small craftsmen and shopmen are being driven out of the trades they have been in for years past, and they are going into wage work. It means that there will be thousands coming into the insurable trades every year, and some of these, although the number may be relatively small compared with the number of insured people, are 2760 sure to be handicapped by the present disqualification as the Clause stands. I suggest to the Minister that, although he said that if it was brought down to the 26 weeks there would still be some left out, there would, nevertheless, be less than in the other case, and we want to make the number of hard cases as small as possible. I think he might consider it from that point of view. My last point has been spoken of before, but it ought to be pressed. The Minister of Health has said time after time that a man genuinely seeking work is a man who should be properly treated, but the fact remains that there are in the country at the present time thousands of men who have been out of work two, three or four years and have been reported by the Employment Exchanges as not genuinely seeking work. The Regulations which have been forced on these exchanges have compelled them to report the men as not genuinely seeking work, and because of that report, presumably, all these people are going to be put out. The right hon. Gentleman's Bill will take in most people, and those who are left out will mostly be of the £250 limit. The hardest cases of all are those of the men who have been out of work so long and who have been reported as not being genuinely unemployed, but who, nevertheless, are genuinely seeking for employment and cannot find it and who have thus lost their moral and become poverty-stricken and sold everything belonging to them in order to live. I recommend these cases to the Minister of Health so that he might consider them still further. They are not unemployed in the sense that they would not work under any circumstances. Some of them have proved in the past years that they could work, and that they had done the best work this country has ever had. They have almost been made into unemployables, but because they have suffered these hardships I do not see why they should be put out of this Bill. I hope that the Minister, if he can see his way clear, will give us something of the nature of which we are asking in this Amendment, and that he will take it into consideration on the Report stage.
§ Mr. WHITELEYBefore you put this question, I would like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman an answer to one or two of the questions to which he has not replied, and particularly the 2761 question with regard to the people who have been declared by Employment Exchanges not to be seeking work. We have scores of cases of these kind of men who have been regularly insured from 1912, and who during the last three years have been genuinely unemployed. We are anxious to receive an answer to this question, because these people will be cut out of the Bill. We think they are genuine workmen and ought to have the privileges of being included in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer further the important point which arose earlier in the Debate with regard to those people who have been in employment, but who, through the depression in trade, have been unable either to secure other kinds of work which will bring them into the three years' average or within paragraph (b) of Clause 5. These people
§ are entitled to have some consideration, because they are being brought down from small businesses and other occupations. All their savings have gone because they have been unemployed. If they succeed in getting employment they will be cut out because they cannot get within the qualifying conditions. We are entitled to know exactly what the position of these people is. To us Clause 5 is really one of the most important Clauses in the Bill and I think we are entitled to have a full explanation.
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 148; Noes, 67.
2763| Division No. 249.] | AYES. | [5.20 a.m. |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Hanbury, C. | Rentoul, G. S. |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, E. | Haslam, Henry C. | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Henn, Sir Sydney H. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Balniel, Lord | Hennessy, Major J. R. G. | Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint) |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Herbert, S. (York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by) | Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Hogg. Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Bethell, A. | Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Rye, F. G. |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Holt, Captain H. P. | Salmon, Major I. |
| Blundell, F. N. | Homan, C. W. J. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Howard, Capt. Hon. D. (Cumb., N.) | Sandon, Lord |
| Brass, Captain W. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Savery, S. S. |
| Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I. | Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Jacob, A. E. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W.) |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Kidd, J. (Linlithgow) | Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) |
| Burman, J. B. | Knox, Sir Alfred | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Loder, J. de V. | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | Lynn, Sir R. J. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | MacAndrew, Charles Glen | Skelton, A. N. |
| Christie, J. A. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Smithers, Waldron |
| Cooper, A. Duff | Macintyre, Ian | Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.) |
| Cope, Major William | McLean, Major A. | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Couper, J. B. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Strickland, Sir Gerald |
| Courthope, Lieut.-Col. Sir George L. | Margesson, Captain D. | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Meyer, Sir Frank | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Curzon, Captain Viscount | Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Moles, Thomas | Tasker, Major R. Inigo |
| Davidson, J.(Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd) | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M. | Templeton, W. P. |
| Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Dixey, A. C. | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Tinne, J. A. |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Nelson, Sir Frank | Wallace, Captain D. E. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith | Nuttall, Ellis | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Oakley, T. | Wells, S. R. |
| Fairfax, Captain J. G. | O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton) | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Finburgh, S. | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple |
| Fleming, D. P. | Penny, Frederick George | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Ford, P. J. | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Fraser, Captain Ian | Philipson, Mabel | Womersley, W. J. |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Pielou, D. P. | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Power, Sir John Cecil | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde) |
| Goff, Sir Park | Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Grace, John | Preston, William | |
| Gunston, Captain D. W. | Raine, W. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Ramsden, E. | Mr. F. C. Thomson and Lord |
| Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne) | Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington) | Stanley |
| Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.) | Reid, D. D. (County Down) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West) | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Sutton, J. E. |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Kelly, W. T. | Taylor, R. A. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Kennedy, T. | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Lawson, John James | Varley, Frank B. |
| Barnes, A. | Lee, F. | Viant, S. P. |
| Barr, J. | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Naylor, T. E. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Broad, F. A. | Paling, W. | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Brown. James (Ayr and Bute) | Ponsonby, Arthur | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Potts, John S. | Welsh. J. C. |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Westwood, J. |
| Duncan, C. | Riley, Ben | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Ritson, J. | Whiteley, W. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Grundy, T. W. | Saklatvala, Shapurji | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Scurr, John | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Windsor, Walter |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Hayday, Arthur | Sitch, Charles H. | |
| Hirst, G. H. | Smillle, Robert | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. |
| Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Hayes. |
| Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Snell, Harry |
§ Question put accordingly, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
2764§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 148; Noes, 68.
2765| Division No. 250.] | AYES. | [5.27 a.m. |
| Applin, Colonel R. V. K. | Hanbury, C. | Rentoul, G. S. |
| Ashmead-Bartlett. E. | Haslam, Henry C. | Rhys, Hon. C. A. U. |
| Balfour, George (Hampstead) | Henn, Sir Sydney H. | Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y) |
| Balniel, Lord | Hennessy, Major J. R. G. | Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint) |
| Barclay-Harvey, C. M. | Herbert, S.(York, N. R., Scar. & Wh'by) | Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A. |
| Barnston, Major Sir Harry | Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) | Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth) |
| Bethell, A. | Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard | Rye, F. G. |
| Birchall, Major J. Dearman | Holt, Captain H. P. | Salmon, Major I. |
| Blundell, F. N. | Homan, C. W. J. | Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney) |
| Bourne, Captain Robert Croft | Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.) | Sanders, Sir Robert A. |
| Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W. | Howard, Capt. Hon. O. (Cumb., N.) | Sandon, Lord |
| Brass, Captain W. | Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.) | Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |
| Briggs, J. Harold | Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose) | Savery, S. S. |
| Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I. | Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H. | Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W. R., Sowerby) |
| Broun-Lindsay, Major H. | Jacob, A. E. | Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D. Mcl. (Renfrew, W) |
| Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks, Newb'y) | Kidd, J. (Linlithgow) | Shaw, Capt. W. W. (Wilts, Westb'y) |
| Burman, J. B. | Knox, Sir Alfred | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley |
| Butler, Sir Geoffrey | Loder, J. de V. | Shepperson, E. W. |
| Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.) | Lynn, Sir R. J. | Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfast) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) | MacAndrew, Charles Glen | Skelton, A. N. |
| Christie, J. A. | Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.) | Smith-Carington, Neville W. |
| Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D. | McDonnell, Colonel Hon. Angus | Smithers, Waldron |
| Cooper, A. Duff | Macintyre, Ian | Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.) |
| Cope, Major William | McLean, Major A. | Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland) |
| Couper, J. B. | Makins, Brigadier-General E. | Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H. |
| Courtauld, Major J. S. | Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn | Strickland, Sir Gerald |
| Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L. | Margesson, Capt. D. | Stuart, Crichton-, Lord C. |
| Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick) | Meyer, Sir Frank | Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn) |
| Curzon, Captain Viscount | Mitchell. S. (Lanark, Lanark) | Sugden, Sir Wilfrid |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Moles, Thomas | Tasker, Major R. Inigo |
| Davidson, J. (Hertf'd, Hemel Hempst'd) | Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon B. M. | Templeton, W. P. |
| Davies, A. V. (Lancaster, Royton) | Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr) | Thompson, Luke (Sunderland) |
| Dixey, A. C. | Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. | Tinne, J. A. |
| Dixon, Captain Rt. Hon. Herbert | Nelson, Sir Frank | Wallace, Captain, D. E. |
| Edmondson, Major A. J. | Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter) | Warrender, Sir Victor |
| Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith | Nuttall, Ellis | Waterhouse, Captain Charles |
| Everard, W. Lindsay | Oakley, T. | Wells, S. R. |
| Fairfax, Captain J. G. | O'Connor, T. J. (Bedford, Luton) | Wheler, Major Sir Granville C. H. |
| Finburgh, S. | O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh | White, Lieut.-Colonel G. Dairymple |
| Fleming, D. P. | Penny, Frederick George | Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield) |
| Ford, P. J. | Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings) | Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George |
| Foxcroft, Captain C. T. | Perkins, Colonel E. K. | Wise, Sir Fredric |
| Fraser, Captain Ian | Philipson, Mabel | Womersley, W. J. |
| Ganzoni, Sir John | Pielou, D. P. | Wood, B. C. (Somerset, Bridgwater) |
| Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham | Power, Sir John Cecil | Wood, E. (Chest'r, Stalyb'dge & Hyde) |
| Goff, Sir Park | Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton, | Woodcock, Colonel H. C. |
| Grace, John | Preston, William | |
| Gunston, Captain D. W. | Raine, W. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.— |
| Hacking, Captain Douglas H. | Ramsden, E. | Mr. F. C. Thomson and Lord |
| Hall, Vice-Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne) | Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington) | Stanley. |
| Hall, Capt. W. D'A. (Brecon & Rad.) | Reid, D. o. (County Down) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, Rt. Hon. w. (Fife, West) | Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) | Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe) |
| Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock) | Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd) | Sutton, J. E. |
| Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro') | Kelly, W. T. | Taylor, R. A. |
| Attlee, Clement Richard | Kennedy, T. | Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow) |
| Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston) | Lawson, John James | Varley, Frank B. |
| Barnes, A. | Lee, F. | Viant, S. P. |
| Barr, J. | Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan) | Walsh. Rt. Hon. Stephen |
| Beckett, John (Gateshead) | Naylor, T. E. | Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline) |
| Broad, F. A. | Paling, W. | Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
| Brown, James (Ayr and Bute) | Ponsonby, Arthur | Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah |
| Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R. | Potts, John S. | Welsh, J. C. |
| Day, Colonel Harry | Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring) | Westwood, J. |
| Duncan, C. | Riley, Ben | Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J. |
| Graham, D M. (Lanark, Hamilton) | Ritson, J. | Whiteley, W. |
| Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan) | Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich) | Wilkinson, Ellen C. |
| Grundy, T. W. | Saklatvala, Shapurji | Williams, T. (York, Don Valley) |
| Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton) | Scurr, John | Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe) |
| Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil) | Shiels, Dr. Drummond | Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow) |
| Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon | Short, Alfred (Wednesbury) | Windsor, Walter |
| Hayday, Arthur | Sitch, Charles H. | Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton) |
| Hirst, G. H. | Smillie, Robert | |
| Hirst, W. (Bradford, South) | Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.— |
| Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield) | Smith, Rennie (Penistone) | Mr. Allen Parkinson and Mr. |
| Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown) | Snell, Harry | Hayes. |
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[Mr. Chamberlain.]
§ The Committee proceeded to a Division.
§ Captain Hacking and Major Hennessy were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but there being no Members willing to act as Tellers for the Noes the Chairman declared that the Ayes had it.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.
2766§ The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
§ It being after half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at Twenty-one Minutes before Six o'Clock a.m.