ADOPTION OF CHILDREN (WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION). (Hansard, 13 December 1933)

§ Mr. GALBRAITH

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further and better provision as to the status of adopted children and of their relatives by adoption, for the purposes of the enactments relating to workmen's compensation. The object of this simple Bill is to remedy a defect in the Adoption of Children Act of 1926 which has been disclosed by a recent decision of the Court of Appeal in this country. That defect is this: Whereas an adopted child in Scotland obtains the benefits of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1925, in England the adopted child does not. Let me explain shortly how that very curious state of the law has arisen. Under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1925, where a workman suffers a fatal injury in the course of or arising out of his employment, and leaves behind him members of his family dependent upon his earnings, those dependent members of his family are entitled to compensation as provided by the Act. The words "members of his family" are used in 377 the Act in a popular sense, and are defined to include, in addition to children both legitimate and illegitimate, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, brother or sister, stepson or stepdaughter, half-brother or half-sister.

Before the year 1926 there was no provision on the Statute Book of this country-enabling children to be adopted. Before that year there had been many attempts made to get a Statute of that kind passed, but they had all failed. In the year 1926 I was fortunate enough to win the first place in the ballot for private Members' Bills, and I then introduced into this House a Bill which had been annexed to the Schedule of the Report of an inquiry dealing with this matter, which had taken place and was known as the Tomlin Report. The Bill was most cordially received by Members in all parts of the House. It passed its Second Reading without opposition and then it was adopted by the Government of the day, the Prime Minister of which was the present Lord President of the Council, and with the unanimous approval of the House it passed through its various stages and became law.

I think I am entitled to say that that Act has proved a complete success and has been made use of by an increasing number of persons in all ranks and walks of life in the population. In 1930 an Act on similar lines was passed for Scotland and while that Measure was passing through Committee some ingenious person, out of the abundance of his caution, inserted in the operative Section—which states what is to be the effect of an adoption order—a provision that for the purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1925 an adopted child should be treated as if it were the natural child of the adopting persons. Under that state of the law the case which has caused the present difficulty arose.

The facts are shortly these. In 1932 a workman and his wife who lived in the north of England adopted a child under the Act of 1926. Eighteen months later the man suffered an accident as a result of which he died. His widow made a claim for herself and the adopted child under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The county court judge of Durham, sitting as an arbitrator under the Workmen's Compensation Act, decided that both the widow—there was no question 378 with regard to her of course—and also the adopted child were entitled to compensation. That decision was based on two grounds, first, that the effect of the Act of 1926 was to make the adopted child, for all purposes, the child of the adopting persons and secondly, that the adopted child had in any case become a member of the workman's family. The Court of Appeal rejected both these contentions and it is interesting to note, having regard to the high reputation of Scottish logic and of Scottish economy even in words, that two members of the Court referred to the fact that it had been found necessary to insert in the Scottish Act the provision that an adopted child should be treated as the child of the adopting persons for the purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Act. It was argued that a similar provision must have been omitted from the English Act by inadvertence. That is the state of the law and I think the House, generally, will agree that it is quite absurd that the law should be different in this respect as between the two countries. I ask for leave to introduce this simple Bill for the purpose of making the law the same in both countries and thus remedying another injustice to England.