DISABLED EX-SERVICE MAN'S PENSION. (Hansard, 27 February 1929)

§ Mr. POTTS
I hope the House will excuse me, because I am in rather a difficult position to speak, but I am rising, in accordance with arrangement, to put the case of Ernest Gillett, who resides in my borough. This man served for four years in the Army, and came back from the War Al, as he entered. He enlisted a second time during the Great War, and during the second period he was sent to Ireland. At a rifle practice in Ireland, he received an injury to his knee. Following thereon, other ailments developed in the man's leg, and the second paragraph of the Minister's letter, which I received on the 20th March, 1928, when I was dealing with the case, reads as follows: It would appear that the writers of the medical certificates forwarded by you are under the impression that the functional 2145 paralysis came on Shortly after Mr. Gillett's discharge, but, as pointed out in the letter addressed to you on the 25th August last, it was not until some years after his discharge that he developed functional paralysis and chronic arthritis in the left leg, which subsequently extended to the right leg. I am going straight to the issue, because I want to give the Minister as much time as I have myself. The Minister says that the functional disorder arose in the left leg, and ultimately extended to the right leg, for which they are not responsible. When I was dealing with the case in March, 1928, I was not able to get certain certificates which, during the last few months, I have been able to get, and which I now have in my hand. The Minister cannot very well go back on his statement in the letter I have just read, and it has been repeated more than once, that chronic arthritis appeared in the man's left leg, and ultimately went into the right leg. I am not going to say that the Minister and his Department are wilfully or designedly making any statements which they do not honestly believe, but the documents in my hands absolutely disprove the statement that it arose in his left leg. In September, 1921, I find that it was assessed at 50 per cent. I have the Ministry's own document which I will hand to the Parliamentary Secretary when I have finished. The statement is contained in all the documents. I have 33 certificates, and these words are in certificate after certificate, In 1922 the documents say "chronic arthritis due to War service." When I get to 1923 find "chronic arthritis in the right knee due to War service." I have consulted doctors, in order to be sure of my position. I have taken advice and I find that chronic arthritis is paralysis or inflammation of the joints. I have a letter which is most convincing, dated 14th July, 1926: With reference to your letter of recent date. I am directed by the Ministry of Pensions to inform you that in view of the fact that you are aware of the nature of your disability and entitlement, namely, chronic arthritis in the right knee, attributable to service, further notifications to this effect are considered unnecessary. Therefore, I say they have been holding out all the time in all the documents and in all the statements made, that it arose in the man's left leg. He used a calliper to the right leg for some considerable time and had to give it up. He then had to walk on two crutches, with 2146 the left leg in use, within my knowledge. You do not find the left leg named anywhere. If there are any more documents the man ought to have them, but he has not got any. If an injustice has been done to him, let it be put right. The doctors tell me this man has a good case and is entitled to a permanent pension. I have consulted three doctors in my own town and one in the House of Commons, and got the same information from all four.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Lieut.-Colonel Stanley)
I am sorry the hon. Member has to speak at a disadvantage, but I think I have all the points he was making. I have never disputed the fact that the man had chronic arthritis in the right knee. That has been accepted from the beginning. But the hon. Member said he got it at rifle practice. At the time he was injured there was an inquiry, and the man said he was not on duty at the time. After being discharged he said he got it at rifle practice. If he was at rifle practice he was on duty. That was not his statement at the time. We endeavoured to get confirmation of this fact from a comrade of his, who gave a different version altogether. I do not want to go into that matter, because the Ministry accepted the chronic arthritis of the knee as due to the service, and he was therefore pensioned for it. The demand is not for a further pension for the chronic arthritis of the knee; the demand is that because he now has the left leg bad this also is due to his War service, and that is the point on which we differ from the hon. Member. The contention that has been put forward by the British Legion is that the man used a caliper splint and that that was apparently responsible for the affection in the left leg. Their second contention is that the left leg condition is possibly due to the extension of the trouble in the right knee through the spine to the left knee. That is a contention put forward by his advisers that no medical officer of the Ministry nor, I fancy, any other competent doctor would accept as a proper suggestion. The view of the Ministry's medical officers is that this condition is purely functional, and that is borne out by a certificate which was sent by the British Legion, the certificate of a very well-known specialist in 2147 Leeds, who had the man under observation for some three weeks at his hospital. His certificate is to the effect that the paralysis is purely functional. There was a condition—I will not attempt to pronounce the word—but it means deformity of the spinal cord, which probably had nothing to do with the present condition. The specialist went on further to state that the fact that the paralysis was functional would be the only way in which there could be any possible connection with the original accident. He went on further to point out that there was an absence of any desire or intention on the part of the man to make a real effort. What does that mean? It means that the original accident could only indirectly be connected with his present condition by the fact that the man, who is, unfortunately, naturally a somewhat hysterical subject—a fact which had been noted in every medical board he has been before—might therefore have been led into imagining a general inability to use his other leg. That had to be rejected because even this remote possibility is held not to be really relevant, because of the lapse of time since the accident. The hon. Member has said a great deal about the fact that we had said that it was not until some years afterwards that we heard anything more about the paralysis. That is perfectly true. We have never disputed that he has had an injury to the right knee. In accepting that, it is only fair to say that we had given him a considerable benefit of doubt, and we pensioned him for that. [An HON. MEMBER: "Is he getting a pension now?"] Yes, for the injury to his right leg. [An HON. MEMBER "What proportion?"] I am coming to that if the hon. Member will allow me to say it in my own way. We have never disputed that he had an injury, but what we do dispute is that the paralysis of the left leg is in any way due to the injury he had to his right leg some years before. He was injured in 1917 and he has been continuously pensioned at varying rates for that injury. It was not until 1926, some nine years afterwards. that this disability in the left leg began to appear. The medical officers of the Ministry do not agree that that is in any way connected with the original injury.
2148 I have been asked about the pension. The man has, for the injury to the right knee, a pensionable disability of 20 per cent., which is based on the degree of disablement found by the medical board in 1923. This assessment has been confirmed by two subsequent medical boards, one in March, 1926, and another on 31st May, 1926. A report by the Area Deputy Commissioner of Medical Services, who made an examination in November, 1926 in connection with the deterioration claim, indicated that no further treatment was then necessary for the right knee condition, and that it had not deteriorated since the last medical board. The only pensionable disability for which we are responsible is the injury to the right knee. We contend, and it is borne out by the specialist who examined him on behalf of the British Legion, that the disability to the left leg has nothing whatever to do with the disability in the right knee. For the latter injury we pension him, and that pension he has and will continue to have, but we cannot accept any liability for any further disability which has appeared in his left leg and which is now incapacitating him.

§ Mr. POTTS
Can the hon. and gallant Member explain the letter from the Department which I have in my possession? There can be no doubt how the accident arose. Here is his own writing; no matter what the Minister now says.

Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY
If the hon. Member wants to know why I made the statement, it is because I have had the opportunity of seeing the certificate which he signed at the time that the injury took place, in which he wrote, in his own handwriting, that he was not on duty at the time. That is why I said it.

§ Mr. POTTS
I will inquire into that statement. I will not dispute it at the moment. Can the hon. and gallant Member answer this letter, in which the Department says that the trouble arose in the left leg and ultimately went into the right leg? That is quite contrary to what the Parliamentary Secretary states now. As a matter of fact, the man says it arose in the right leg, went into the right arm, and then went into the left leg. Those are the facts.

Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY
I say that the accident happened to his right leg and the trouble is in his left leg. It was the right leg in which the injury took place.

§ Mr. POTTS
You said that it took place in the left leg.

Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY
No, I said it was the right leg.

§ Mr. POTTS
His pension is 8s. a week, with 2s. for the wife. They had a pension of 28s. a week for the two, which was reduced to 10s. a week for the two, and they have to live with her father and mother, two old age pensioners. This is not a permanent pension but is simply a conditional pension carried on for a few years, as the case may be, and from time to time reviewed. I hope that the Department will reconsider the matter and find out the actual facts of the case, and do justice to this man.

Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY
I have given the hon. Member all the actual facts. If it is a conditional pension the man can 2150 always claim deterioration for the injury to the right knee. The Department is only responsible for the injury to the right knee; and for nothing else.

§ Mr. POTTS
The arthritis arises out of the accident. On the hon. and gallant Member's own showing, the Department is paying for arthritis now.

Lieut.-Colonel STANLEY
We are paying for the injury to the right knee, and we say that the paralysis of the left leg has nothing to do with the right knee. The disability to the left leg has no connection with the injury he received to his right knee. We pension him for his right knee but for this further disability which has supervened we are not entitled to pension him.

§ Mr. POTTS
If a man gets a slight injury somewhere and dies, are you not responsible for his death?