HC Deb 21 February 1933 vol 274 cc1682-710

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Captain Margesson.]

7.48 p.m.

Mr. BATEY

I want to raise the question of the administration of the means test by the commissioners in the county of Durham. I will begin by explaining that Durham is not in a normal condition. There are 76,667 fewer men employed in Durham to-day than there were in 1924, and with that big army of unemployed we are in the position of a distressed area. We are in an extremely bad position, because apart from mining there is no industry in which men can get work. Although the position in Durham was so bad, the Minister thought it wise to bring commissioners into Durham to administer the means test. They started on 1st December, and the Minister has told us that during the first month of their administration they reduced transitional payments in more than 10,000 cases and abolished them in more than 3,000 cases. Some of the decisions of the commissioners one can describe only as being brutal and inhuman, and as we have plenty of time I will give the House some samples of them. First I will take the case of a strong, able bodied man living in Page Bank. He is in receipt of a service pension of 5s. 3d. per week, is married and has a wife and two children. He pays 8s. a week rent. When he received his service pension on 4th January the commissioners wanted to know how he had spent it, and when he satisfied them on that point they reduced his transitional payment by 7s. 3d. per week, leaving that man, with his wife and two children, and with 8s. to pay in rent, with only 20s. per week and his pension. Here is the case of another man whom I know well as a good worker. His wife died and he went to live with his married daughter. The daughter's husband had been killed and she received compensation. Because the married daughter was receiving compensation for the death of her husband they reduced the father's benefit by 5s. 3d. per week. A letter was sent to me by one of our miners lodges. The miners' secretary wrote: Sunnybrow stopped work temporarily on 16th April, 1932, and they have had to apply for transitional benefit. The owners have not charged the men any rent and have allowed them coal at 1s. per cwt. We as a lodge protest against the area officer at Bishop Auckland cutting the benefit on account of the men not paying rent. The cuts are as follows: Man and wife and child, 3s. 3d. per week; man and wife and three children 4s. 3d.; men on compensation, light-work rate 9s. 3d. per week; men who have a lad working and his wage is 10s. per week have "lost 15s. per week, all based on the free house. Surely this cannot be justice—to take advantage of the generosity of the owners, who allow the men to live in the colliery houses until the pit starts, when they will pay double off-takes. I will not weary the House with cases, and the next I select is that of a man and wife with five children. The Minister can have these letters and the names and addresses of the men if he wishes. This man says: I was receiving unemployment pay of £1 13s. 3d. and 8s. 4d. per week compensation For my accident, making a total of £2 1s. 7d. for seven of a family—my wife and myself and five children, ages ranging from 13 years and six months down to three years. But the means test man came to my house and took all particulars of my case and on the 22nd December, 1932, they took 5s. 9d. off my unemployment pay, leaving me to draw £1 7s. 6d. There is a man with a wife and five children reduced to £1 7s. 6d. and 'his compensation, which is a breach of the Act of Parliament passed by this House dealing with the 50 per cent, men receiving workmen's compensation. I will return later to that Act. Then here is the case of a man who says: I am a widower with a child over 14 years of age. I have a widowed mother and also a nephew who is living with me who is 23 years of age, in work and receiving £1 13s. per week, but I might state that he is just managing to keep going to pit He is weak. He was born seven months after his father was killed at Stanley Pithead 24 years next month, and with his mother, my sister, getting such a fright at that time left him as white as driven snow, and the commissioners clerk says his wage has got to keep me, his uncle and my daughter and his grandmother. I was receiving £1 5s. 3d. dole for mother and child, and seven weeks since they took 9s. 9d. and this week other 10s. 6d. leaving me with 5s. per week. We understood that transitional payment would not be reduced unless means were going into the house. Here is a case of a man and his wife receiving 23s. 3d. per week, and they have taken 3s. 3d. off, although there is no other income going into the house, a clear, distinct breach of what was intended when transitional payment was made. Here is another case of a war widow's pension being taken into account. This lad says: My mother is a War widow and there are two of us out of work. I would tell hon. Members that it is no uncommon thing for two sons in a mining family to be out of work. Sons follow the father into the mine, and when the pits stop both father and sons, it may be two or three or more, are all out of employment together. The letter goes on: We were getting 15s. 3d. per week each, but the means test has reduced this down to 9s. for one and 7s. for the other. I have been to see the commissioners and they say they are allowed to take all of my mother's pension into account. There are four of us in the house, my mother, sisters and brother. My mother has to keep my sister at home on account of ill-health. They have reduced these two sons by 16s. per week, and they expect a war widow's pension to be used towards keeping those sons. I have given those cases merely as a sample—there are many more of them—of the inhuman and dastardly work of the commissioners in the county of Durham. The trouble is that the commissioners are so savagely cutting the transitional payment and men have no appealing. The cuts are made not by the commissioners themselves but by the clerks whom they employ. If the men go to the clerks and say, "We do not agree with the cuts, we want to see the commissioners," the clerks hold up their hands in horror and say, "What, see the commissioners! Oh, you cannot do that." They refuse the applicants the privilege of seeing the commissioners. I hold that when a man's benefit has been cut he is entitled to an appeal somewhere. If a man in receipt of standard benefit has his benefit reduced or abolished, he always has an appeal to the umpire. These men have no appeal. They are subject to the decision of the clerks, and those office boys make reductions or abolish the benefit, and the applicants cannot get to the commissioners.

I have a letter from the secretary of a branch of the British Legion in my Division in which he gives the names of seven men who made application to see the Commissioner and it was refused in every case. The Minister can have this letter, too, and can investigate the matter if he wishes. I submit to the Minister that it is absolutely wrong for anyone to reduce transitional payment and then refuse an application to appeal to the Commissioner. I understood when the Commissioners were sent down, and especially when they were so well paid— and they are well paid—that an applicant who had been unfairly treated would be able to have an interview with them and put his case. Our experience is, as this letter shows, that when men see the Commissioners they are refused permission to put their case. I want to complain strongly that these men have no appeal. I want to submit that they are entitled to appeal, and that they find it impossible to appeal to the Commissioners.

I want to carry that matter a step forward, and to complain that the Minister refuses to answer questions in this House in regard to the decisions of the Commissioners. I hold that the Minister ought not to try to drop responsibility. He is responsible for appointing the Commissioners and he ought to answer in this House for any of the decisions of the Commissioners. These Commissioners are administering State funds; that was the argument used by the supporters of the Government when the means test was decided upon. Seeing that the Commissioners are administering State funds, I claim that any hon. Member is entitled to put a question to the Minister of Labour, if he wishes to know what the Commissioners are doing in regard to those State funds.

Not only do I claim that the Minister should answer any question and is wrong in refusing to do so, in regard to decisions of the Commissioners upon questions of transitional payments, but I complain that I put a question last week to the Minister which he should have answered and did not. The question which was on the Order Paper, and which the Minister refused to answer, dealt with the situation which exists in the county of Durham. A number of miners' daughters in that county have come to London and have gone into domestic service. The area officer has instructed officials, who were going to miners' houses, to get the addresses of those daughters in domestic service, for the purpose of writing to the employers of the daughters to know what wages the daughters were receiving. That information was required in order that the wages might be used to justify a reduction in the payments to the fathers. I submit that that is a mean action on the part of the Commissioners, and I am surprised that the Minister of Labour did not at once either deny or condemn it. If certain girls are in domestic service in London, and, it may be, are earning 10s. per week, and if that sum is to be counted in order to reduce the payments to the fathers, the result will be that you will not be able to induce girls to go into service. It is just about one of the meanest things, to get the addresses of the people who are employing miners' daughters in. order to reduce the fathers' allowance.

I want to say a word about the Bill that was passed dealing with the 50 per cent. War pension and the 50 per cent, workmen's compensation. This House believed that it had at last safeguarded 50 per cent, of the War pension for ex-service men and 50 per cent, of the compensation for workmen who had been injured. I will give the House the case of a man who was receiving 8s. 4d. per week in workmen's compensation, and whose money has been reduced by 5s. 9d. That is more than 50 per cent., and is a clear breach of the Act of Parliament. I have been informed by many men in Durham that when they go to the Commissioners and complain that their rates of benefit have been reduced, they are told: "We are not interfering with your War pension; we are just reducing your dole." That is the answer that those men receive from the clerks in the offices of the Commissioners. This House did not understand that, when the Bill was passed. It believed that 50 per cent, of the War pensions and 50 per cent, of the workmen's compensation would be safeguarded.

I put one other thing to the Minister and did not get a reply. In Durham, we have a lot of men living not far from a temporary Employment Exchange. Because they are living in a certain district, if they are not in when the inspector or the official visits them, the visitor leaves instructions that the men have to present themselves the next day at an Exchange 12 miles away. It seems to me foolish that the official should expect men to be in the house when he comes. A man who is out of employment ought to be away seeking work. I submit that if that is the way the officials are administering the benefit in that area, they should be prepared to pay the omnibus fares of those men. To expect them to travel 12 miles there and 12 miles back simply because they did not happen to be in the house when the official called, seems to be a ridiculous proposition, and I want to hear what the Minister of Labour has to say about it. We have every justification for complaining of the way that the means test is being administered by the Commissioners in the County of Durham. It is being administered, I say again, in the most inhuman and brutal way, and I expect the Minister to give us some satisfaction on these matters.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. CURRY

I believe that it is well that the Government should know that the feeling of anxiety which the administration in Durham is causing, is not confined to the political supporters of the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey). Throughout the whole of the county there is a feeling of anxiety lest there should exist among the people, through no fault of their own, a hardship which might be avoided by a wider and more tolerant administration. So far as I can judge public opinion, the people of Durham are as keen as ever they were to obviate waste in the administration of public funds, and they are exceedingly anxious to prevent people who do not need assistance from taking unjustifiably from the public purse. Alongside that desire, runs a very strong feeling which will not tolerate hardship being suffered by people who are already suffering through no fault of their own, from the misfortunes of the times, and who are, we know, honest and decent people.

I have received numerous letters from my constituents. I have interviewed the commissioners in Durham more than once, and I find that they are exceedingly anxious that the administration should be fair and just. They are more than willing to consider any case that may be put up to them, and I am glad to think that I have personally been able to secure the revision of cases with the result that determinations which had been made have been increased. This administration is, however, going deeper than that. In Durham County we have a mass of population suffering long-term unemployment. The commissioners have started to work a scale which is lower in some respects than the scale normally worked by the public assistance committees. I am firmly convinced, from my own knowledge of the district, that the scales which the commissioners are working are not adequate to meet the needs of the people. If that is so, then that administration cannot be justified on any grounds, because it is administration primarily to meet the needs of the unemployed.

Looking at it from another point of view, I believe that we cannot go on in the Durham County without a great deal of social discontent, if we are to have the anomaly of two different scales operating at the same time. It is quite impossible for two different authorities to work two different scales in connection with people who are living in the same district and in the same street. The experience of the public assistance committees in Durham County taught them that the scale which they were working was not too great, having regard to the conditions of living. I want to impress upon the Minister that the scale which is being worked by the commissioners is far too low to meet the needs of the applicants.

I sometimes wonder if this House realises just what unemployment means to coal-mining districts like Durham. It is not a question of providing a man with a little bit of money to carry him through two or three weeks of unemployment. He could carry on, on those scales which the Commissioners are operating, if he was only to be unemployed for two or three weeks. He could get food, but when it comes, not to two weeks or months, but to years, he is left with no margin for the renewal of underclothing, boots, ordinary household utensils, or bedclothes. There is a gradual depression of the standard of life of the people, a depression which has become so terrible that some of us in the county of Durham are almost giving up hope. This is not, with us, a question of politics at all. I do not want to try to make political capital; I do not want to score political points off hon. Members opposite; but in this county, which I have seen in prosperous times, in which I have lived for many years, and where I have moved about among the people, I have seen them going lower and lower. This cannot go on if we are ever to keep our people in a position in which they can resume their ordinary place in the industrial activities of the world. That is one claim that I make—that the scales are too low having regard to the nature of the district, and that you cannot compare that district with districts other than coal-mining districts, because of the long periods of unemployment suffered by a very high percentage of the population.

I want to say a word in reinforcement of the hon. Member for Spennymoor with regard to pensions. I do not know of a case where the Commissioners have taken more than 50 per cent, of a pension—that is to say, of a pension that is laid down in the Act; but there are other things kindred to pensions which it is very difficult to explain are not really in the same category, such as the dependant's pension. I have a case which I could give to the Minister, and which I have taken up with the Commissioners — that of a dependant's pension, a widow's pension, of 26s. 8d. a week. She has two sons who fall idle, and, I suppose, remain idle for a good while. They go before the Commissioners, and are awarded 6s. per week each. I am making no complaint against the Commissioners; I know that that is above their scale. You cannot complain of the Commissioners, and it is somewhat unfortunate that we can hardly complain of this House, but the fact remains that, when the House passed the Pensions Act leaving 50 per cent, of pensions untouched, the great majority of us thought that it was pensions, and that there was not going to be the fine distinction as to whether it was a disability pension or a widow's pension. Of the two, I think that, if we are to choose in degrees, it is the more terrible to take the widow's pension.

There is another point which has come out in connection with this administration, and which I think is a violation of the principle of the Poor Law. I may be wrong, and, if I am, I hope the Minister will put me right. I have a case where a man is living in the household of his brother-in-law. The brother-in-law is in work; the applicant is the person who is lodging in the house, the head of which happens to be his brother-in-law; and, in determining his need, the Commissioners take into account the income of the household. I say that in law, so far as my knowledge takes me, the head of that house cannot be made responsible for his wife's relations, that in this case the applicant is entitled to be treated by the Commissioners as an able-bodied single man applying for Poor Law relief, and that they have no right to take into account what is coming into the household. Nevertheless, I am told, when I take up this case, that the Minister has no authority to question or interfere with the decisions of the Commissioners. If that be the position at which we have arrived, we have drifted, as a House and as a public authority, into a very dangerous position. I always thought that the central point of our political liberties lay in the fact that the control of the public finances rested in this House, and there is a great deal of difference between the House delegating its responsibility to an elected authority like a Public Assistance Committee and its delegating its authority to a government-appointed triumvirate in regard to which the public have never been consulted, and the qualities of which nobody knows except the Department that administers it.

I want to enforce upon the Government the consideration of these three things: first, that you cannot go on in the County of Durham and maintain social peace and contentment unless you are prepared to bring up the scales of the Commissioners to the level of the previous scales for the Poor Law; secondly, that the scales applicable to the less depressed areas cannot in any sense be regarded as sufficient for an area whose depression has lasted for 10 years; and, thirdly—and this is my most important point on the matter of good government in this country—that you cannot go on allowing the administration of public funds, an administration which penetrates quickly to the hearts and homes of the people, to continue without a proper, responsible control of that administration in this House through the elected representatives of the people and through the Minister in the Government who is responsible for the administration.

I put forward these three points in no spirit of partisanship. I make the appeal because I know the people on whose behalf I am appealing. I am not here, as my hon. Friends know, in any sense as a Labour man, but it would be a bad day for this country if we confirmed by our actions or policies in this Parliament a belief, which is held in many quarters, that the working people cannot find friends except in the party opposite. We are in this House as the trustees of the whole of the people. Let us appeal to the conscience of the whole of the people to prevent injustice to the few, and those the most unfortunate.

8.23 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON

My hon. Friend who has raised this matter to-night has not only rendered a service to the County of Durham in doing so, but has given us an opportunity of considering one of the most important questions that this House can face, namely, the question which has just been raised by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Curry). To-night we are considering an administration which, according to the answer to a question this afternoon, involves an expenditure, for one week that was taken, of £800, representing, on an average, about £40,000 a year; and all the calculations that have been made and all the figures that have been given by the Minister seem to indicate that the cost of the administration is going to be round about that figure, I have been wondering where are the watchdogs of finance and expenditure and extravagance on the occasion of a discussion of this description. Here is a chief commissioner who receives £1,200 a year, and he has two deputies who receive £700 a year each. I have never heard any criticism or demand for economy in reference to people of this description. Their work is to administer, in the name of the Minister, the transitional payments covering, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, some tens of thousands of people. It is a very important point for the House to consider whether we have simply to take chance opportunities to overhaul their administration and expenditure or whether we have to make up our minds that a definite opportunity is going to be given to consider this matter in its entirety. The Minister refuses to deal with cases. He refuses to have any responsibility for them. Every time he has stated that he has no responsibility with reference to the administration in this county, all that it has done is to stiffen the commissioners in their administration. As a result of their almost insolent administration, in six weeks they have saved £15,000 from people who are in the main the poorest in the country. My hon. Friend has been very eloquent in his description of the condition of these people. I know nothing more lamentable in my experience than to see the decay in the style of clothes and in their bearing, to see men whom I knew at the mine and whom I knew when they marched in all their pride to enlist, and to see them to-day unemployed and broken. It is no wonder that one of them said to me, as we talked about an old friend who was killed in action, that he was lucky to have gone down rather than face what my friend himself was facing.

How has this £15,000 been saved? By taking in the income of a son of 25, 30 or 35, who was, it may be, saving up to get married. Some of these men are getting 6s. and 7s. a day. My friend described how they travelled in the omnibuses. At one time they lived close to the colliery and the employers engaged them at their door. They do not do that now. They take on whom they like, and they take men from distant parts. I have seen these men on that shoulder where my hon. Friend lives, in raw Alaskan weather, travelling on omnibuses soaking wet. Some of them would actually make more on unemployment benefit if they were idle than they are getting from the pit. £15,000 in six weeks has been taken from these people. It is shameful that administration of that kind should be allowed to go on. How has it happened? I gave the right hon. Gentleman some typical cases. I know it is true, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said, that the commissioner will meet him and will meet me, but I do not want him to meet me and I will not give him the chance. What I want him to do is to meet the representative men on the spot who can deal with the men's cases. He will give us cases but what is his attitude towards the people themselves? The fact of the matter is that they have been cutting and slashing right and left on the assumption that the average man has not sufficient personality and cannot put his case and will not appeal. I can give the case of a very able young secretary who could not meet the chief so he went to some deputy or other to deal with the case of an ex-service man who had been left 10s. of transitional payment. After they had argued and talked, the clerk who was doing the business said in a supercilious tone that he would reconsider it. He reconsidered it all right but he took the 10s. off the man. An arrangement has now been made for some meeting in this case, but it is indicative of what is going on generally throughout the county.

They take a man's gross wages. The right hon. Gentleman saw the pay notes and how they reckoned the income. There are sometimes four or five shillings to be taken off. There is money in connection with the man's work for buying powder or sharpening his picks and things of that description. He really gets what they call at the bottom of the note the net income. That is a thing that ought to be put right, and it ought never to have happened under proper administration. In some cases a man's income is reckoned on what he had last week, but this week he is sick. In another case the son's transitional payment was assessed on what his father had last week, but he has his sick benefit this week and, when that is pointed out, there is no attempt to put the matter right. It is really a wrong calculation of the man's income.

In another case which ran for something like three weeks they had to admit that their calculations were wrong, and that the man ought to have been getting 3s. a week more. The 3s. was restored, but not for the weeks during which he had actually been robbed of it. That sum might not seem very much to Members of this House, but it is a very big thing to a man who has to live upon a few shillings a week. I wish to emphasise that the Minister will really have to take note of the point about pensions. They exclude 50 per cent, of the pension when calculating a man's income. But the amount going into the home is so totalled up that on the average income the man actually loses more than half of his pension. I believe the House is under the impression that a man was to get 50 per cent, of his pension on the top of whatever transitional payment he received. At any rate, that is not taking place.

I will give the example of another case. I received a letter—and I am prepared to give it to the right hon. Gentleman— from a soldier who had been out of the Army for about 12 months. He was receiving 23s. 3d. for himself and wife. He also received, I believe, £4 10s. per quarter as Reservist pay, and when that fact was discovered he lost 8s. a week for five weeks. He is a man who is-seriously troubled with malaria, and he is now left with only £2 10s. of his quarterly Reservist pay. When he went to see the commissioner or whoever was acting in his place, the official said: "If we had really known what you had we would have taken 3s. more a week off you." That is the spirit in which this-matter is being dealt. It has almost amounted to insolence in some cases. I do not say that it is general. Certainly, the refusal of the right hon. Gentleman to accept definite responsibility in this House for the overhauling and proper supervision of cases, and give the House an opportunity from time to time of really considering specifically the administration and the money which is spent, has had the effect of giving a sort of independence to the men who are in charge.

In bringing forward the matter to-night we have done our best to keep within the limits of the administration, and I am glad that we have had a protest from another quarter as well as from the party to which my friend and I belong. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that indignation is by no means limited either to the Liberal party or the Labour party. It is not limited to ordinary secular organisations. I have seen great church organisations express indignation about the administration. The disturbance and the indignation are widespread in the county of Durham, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will adopt some fresh method of handling those cases. I want to see the Commissioners out altogether. The administration which was carried on voluntarily by some 360 members certainly made for peace. But if the Commissioners are to stop in at a cost of something like £40,000 a year in administrative charges, in addition to the payments which the Commissioners themselves are receiving, I hope that they will deal with a population which certainly merits kindness and most generous and sympathetic consideration. The right hon. Gentleman must really take hold of this matter himself, otherwise not only Durham, but the country will become indignant concerning the results of that administration.

8.41 p.m.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton)

I am glad that we have had a discussion upon this question to-night, and I think that the House is entitled to it after the questions which have been asked and the answers which have necessarily been given at Question Time. I wish to express my personal regret that the hon. Gentleman who initiated the Debate to-night was disappointed the other night when he and I, through no fault of our own, had to wait for four hours for a discussion for which he and I were anxious. I thank him also for his courtesy on one occasion, at any rate, when he agreed to postpone the discussion to suit my convenience. I want to clear away one or two misconceptions, and I think that as a result of this Debate hon. Gentlemen opposite will feel that they have been justified in raising the matter in the way they have raised it. I want to explain, first of all, my position as the Minister of Labour. As the House will realise, it is my duty to carry out the obligations imposed upon me by the Acts passed by this House. I have no authority to do otherwise than to carry out, to the best of my ability, the specific obligations imposed by the Acts passed by this House and I am bound, therefore, to do my best to fulfil the duties which the House places upon me. May I remind the House exactly what those duties are? They are comprised in the Order in Council which, of course, has the authority of an Act of Parliament of 7th October, 1931. The Order in Council says in effect: The applicant for transitional payment must fulfil the following conditions:

  1. (a) that he is normally employed in, and will normally seek to obtain his livelihood by means of, insurable employment, and
  2. (b) that he would but for the operation of the preceding paragraph of this article have been entitled to benefit."
It goes on: And also proves that his circumstances are such that whilst unemployed he is in need of assistance by way of transitional payments. That, of course, is the statutory authority for the imposition of the means test. Then the Order goes on to say that any question arising on this question of the means test shall be remitted to the council of the county or county borough in which he is resident and shall stand referred to such committee or sub-committee of the council as may be prescribed. So that hon. Members will see that the duty of assessing this need is, in fact, imposed upon the appropriate committee which is the public assistance committee of the county of Durham. The Order goes on as follows: Subject as hereinafter provided, a determination of a commitee or sub-committee under this paragraph shall be final. The determination of the committee or sub-committee shall be final.

Mr. LOGAN

That is only applicable to a public assistance committee.

Sir H. BETTERTON

Yes, but the Order goes on further, and in Sub-section (4) of Section 1 it says: A committee, or sub-committee, in determining any question under the last preceding paragraph, shall make such inquiries and otherwise deal with the case as if they were estimating the need of an unemployed able bodied person who had applied for public assistance, but as if such assistance could only be given in money. The only other paragraph to which I need refer raises the point mentioned by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan). That is Section 7, and I ask the House to follow the wording of this Section: If in the opinion of the Minister any council, committee or sub-committee do not, or do not efficiently carry out the duties imposed on them by, or by virtue of, this Order, the powers and duties conferred or imposed on them as aforesaid shall be exercised and performed in their stead by such person or persons as the Minister may from time to time appoint. That, of course, refers to the Commissioners. I need not go through the very long and patient negotiations which I have had with those responsible in the county of Durham, and I need not assure the House that the last thing I wished to do was to appoint commissioners. But the whole thing came to a head when the county council itself said definitely that they were not going to proceed with this administration.

Mr. LAWSON

On the conditions laid down by the Minister.

Sir H. BETTERTON

The position I was in, therefore, was this, either that I had to appoint commissioners or else, as the local authority refused to act, if I did not appoint commissioners there would have been no transitional payment for anybody. My position was perfectly clear, and my duty was perfectly clear, after the 1st December, 1932, when I received this resolution of the Durham County Council: This council hereby approves the action of the public assistance committee in refusing to administer transitional payments in accordance with the requirements of the Unemployment Insurance (National Economy) No. 2 Order, 1931. A question has been raised to-night by several hon. Members with regard to the administration of the commissioners. According to my information the action of the commissioners has been, if I may use the words, more generous—I do not use the words in the sense that those who are getting these payments are receiving anything which is over lavish—what I mean is that according to my information the scale of the commissioners in Durham is more favourable than the scale in most industrial areas in England. In regard to the question of responsibility, the Order says clearly that my position in relation to the commissioners is exactly the same as my relation in regard to the public assistance committee. The Order says: The commissioners shall exercise the powers and duties of the public assistance committee. Therefore, my rights and my duty in regard to the commissioners are exactly the same as they are in regard to the public assistance committee.

Mr. LOGAN

Does the right hon. Gentleman contend that a public assistance committee, which is elected by the people, can be compared to commissioners who are granted plenary powers and who are appointed by the Minister, and that there is to be no right of appeal from a body who are vested with plenary powers?

Sir H. BETTERTON

That argument, which has been courteously advanced by the hon. Member, would have been relevant when the Order was under discussion, but I am bound by what the Order says. The Order says that a decision of a public assistance committee shall be final, and under the Poor Law legislation the Minister of Health is not entitled to call for the reasons why a public assistance committee gives a particular allocation in a particular case. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) raised a variety of cases and instances of which he complained. I confess that I do not understand the point he raised with regard to the appeal. I accept what he has said as being the information he has received, but, in fact, there have been quite a number of appeals from what he called the local commissioners to the commissioner him self, and I am unable to understand how this misunderstanding should have arisen between those for whom he speaks and the commissioner. I was sorry to hear the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) speak of superciliousness and arrogance on the part of the com missioners; and that is a matter on which I should like, and shall endeavour to get, further information. As a matter of fact, most of these local people, who have been described as clerks, are officials of the Ministry of Labour, and it is the first time I have ever heard as a reproach of the officials of the Ministry that they are either supercilious or arrogant. When we come to general responsibility —

Mr. BATEY

Are you leaving that point there?

Sir H. BETTERTON

I am going to say something about it later on. When we come to general responsibility, of course, the Minister stands in the same relation to the Commissioners as to the public assistance authority, that is to say, that if he is satisfied that the commissioners are inefficient, or not carrying out their duties, he has a responsibility, and it is a responsibility of which I have not the slightest desire to divest myself.

Mr. BUCHANAN

Will the right hon. Gentleman meet this point; it has been raised many times. The local body increased the scales and were superseded because they paid too much. That is the charge, they were giving more than they were entitled to pay. The complaint we make is that these commissioners are paying less than they should pay. Are we to understand that the local body, the public assistance committee can be superseded if they pay too much but that there is no interference with a body which pays too little.

Sir H. BETTERTON

The hon. Member has anticipated a point with which I proposed to deal. There has been a general charge against the administra- tion, that it is not administration which would be approved by the Minister or this House if all the details were known. That is the point that the hon. Member makes. I am not at all sure whether I am empowered to call for a report, but, whether that be so or not, I am going to do it. I am going to call for a report from the Commissioner, and I am going to ask him to make a report on his general administration, at the end, say, of four months—

Mr. BATEY

Twelve months.

Sir H. BETTERTON

No, four months, or three months. I do not mind. Any reasonable time, so that we shall have an opportunity of seeing the whole picture. Hon. Members need not assure me about the distressed conditions in the county of Durham. Perhaps they will believe me when I say that, although I do not live there and am not brought face to face with the conditions as they are, I am only too conversant with the terrible conditions in the county. I know that there are parts of the county where one half, or much more than one half, of the whole population are out of work. I am going to call for a report from the Commissioner of his general administration, and when I get that report I will lay it on the Table of the House, or publish it or deal with it in whatever is the appropriate manner, in order that hon. Members may see the report of the Commissioner, which I should like to see myself. We can discuss the question with the facts before us. From my information and from what I know of the Commissioner, I cannot accept the charges that have been made, but at the same time I am anxious that a report should be made and that both I and the House should see it.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I should like to raise one point, and I hope some light will be thrown upon it in the report. It seems to me that a man not normally in insurable employment may become, according to the decision of the court of referees, chargeable to the Poor Law. I am anxious to know whether if a man is disallowed by the court of referees, he will not then be more generously treated by the public assistance people, and would it not be to the advantage of such men in a large number of cases to be deliberately cut off from benefit at the Employment Exchange? I should like the report to give us some information on this matter.

Mr. LOGAN

In regard to cases which have ceased to get transitional benefit and would be entitled to Poor Law or institutional relief, will the Minister make inquiry to see if institutional treatment is offered to those people rather than that which they would get from public assistance relief?

Sir H. BETTERTON

I cannot answer that question without going further into it. I am not sure whether that is or is not a question upon which the Commissioner might be fairly asked to make a report. If it is, I am sure that he will make it, but if it is not, he cannot be expected to make it. I think I have done my best to satisfy hon. Members that I am just as anxious as they are that these doubts and misconceptions should be set at rest, and I am equally anxious that the House should have a clear picture of what is going on in Durham.

9.0 p.m.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL

This Debate has been raised by hon. Members from the county of Durham. If I intervene it is not in order to say anything in regard to the local aspects of the matter, of which I know nothing, but rather as a good Parliamentarian, as I hope I am, concerned to make sure that this House does in no way derogate from its position as the place where the grievances of the people may be ventilated in order to secure redress. That is the important principle that is raised by this Debate. When the system of transitional payments to be administered by local authorities was instituted, it was recognised that it brought with it certain dangers. The money that is disbursed is Treasury money. It is not money drawn from the local rates. One authority, the State, pays, and another authority, the local assistance committee, spends. Therefore, there is the obvious danger of serious abuse, and it was essential to provide that there should be some recourse to a remedy if that abuse occurred. So there had to be appropriate measures taken for substituting an authority representing the Government and the Treasury for a local authority if there were flagrant abuses.

Whether there were in this particular case flagrant abuses or not, I do not know. I am sure that everyone agrees that it is an unfortunate thing that the local public assistance committee should have had to be superseded. The position once they have been superseded is different from what it was when the matter was under the administration of the local authority, whatever the letter of the Order in Council may say, whatever the strict legal position may be. The local authorities were given power of administration because it was recognised that there were local variations. You could not lay down by Act of Parliament exact scales for the whole country. There had to be local differences of scales to meet local variations of circumstances. Conditions in the north of Scotland, for instance, might be different from those in London. There were differences between one county and another, the customs of one district and the customs of another varied, and you had to allow for those local variations.

If any citizen in any particular place were aggrieved by a decision and that decision arose out of action by the local authority, he could complain to his elected representative on the local authority. If the grievance arose from the terms of the Order in Council, he could complain to his elected Member of Parliament, and the matter could be raised here. But when a local authority is superseded by Commissioners, then, if there is a grievance, the citizen if his grievance arises out of the Order in Council can refer to his Member of Parliament, but if it arises out of a local matter as part of the administration then, according to what the Minister has said, in principle, there is no right of recourse to anybody. A Commissioner is put in place of the local authority, the local authority's decision, in principle, is final, and therefore, in principle, the Commissioner's authority is final. Whereas the citizen could, through his vote as a local elector, have taken action and have complained to his town councillor or his county councillor, in the present case the citizen can complain, so I understand, legally, to no one. Am I wrong?

Sir H. BETTERTON

I have already stated the position. I have pointed out that the obligations which this Order in Council imposes upon me are the obliga- tions placed upon me by this House, and I have to carry them out.

Sir H. SAMUEL

My right hon. Friend does not dispute the story that I have just told, that, however the matter may be legally, in point of fact the citizen did have, by the administration of the local authority, means of redress through the constitutional system of government in this country, through his local representative on the town council or county council. Now he has no redress legally through anyone. That fact does place an additional and great responsibility upon the Minister, because it is only indirectly through this House, and through hon. Members and through questions such as they put and Debates such as they raise, that now the aggrieved person, whose grievance may be legitimate or not, can have some machinery through which he can secure redress. I am happy to say it will not happen, but suppose, theoretically, that half the local authorities of the country had to be superseded and the Minister had to carry out the supervision of transitional benefit over a vast area. It would be impossible to say here that he had no responsibility for the way in which that was administered once the Commissioners had been appointed. The country and this House would not tolerate it.

Mr. MARTIN

Is the right hon. Gentleman arguing that every case, in which there is supposed to be a grievance ought to be allowed to come direct to this House?

Sir H. SAMUEL

I am coming to that, and perhaps the hon. Member will have patience. On the general principle these Commissioners cannot be regarded in the same light as judicial officers are regarded. By Statute a judge of the High Court gives a decision which is not open to challenge. A judge's decision cannot be reviewed in Parliament. A similar practice prevails, in almost the same degree, with regard to county court judges and stipendiary magistrates. There are certain statutory functionaries, like umpires under certain Acts, whose decisions are not called in question in this House. But these commissioners are not, I think, in that category. The Minister of Labour says that they have the powers and duties of the Committee which they have superseded under the Order-in-Council. The Committees who have been superseded were entitled to give decisions which were final. Therefore, the commissioners are entitled to give decisions which are final, and no one can challenge them. But my right hon. Friend, most wisely I think, has said to-day that whatever may be the legal aspects of the case, whether he is empowered to do so under the Act or not, he proposes to call for a, report, to place it upon the Table of the House and to allow these decisions, if not to be reviewed at all events to be discussed by Parliament. But if they are absolutely final in law and cannot be challenged by anyone, what is the use of putting the matter before Parliament? Parliament may debate, and the commissioners can snap their fingers and go on as before.

Happily in this country we are not hidebound by legal formulas, and we deal with such a matter in a common sense way, as my right hon. Friend to-day is dealing with it, when he says, "Whether I am empowered under the Order or not, I recognise that it is necessary that these matters should be discussed generally, not particular cases, in the House of Commons, and I therefore am going to ask for a report, to lay it on the Table, and give an opportunity for discussion." I think the House will be very satisfied with what my right hon. Friend has said.

Sir H. BETTERTON

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for that statement, but he must not read into my speech more than I said. I must not be taken to admit that this Order-in-Council gives me power to review individual cases, because it gives me nothing of the kind.

Sir H. SAMUEL

I agree. I was just coming to the point raised by the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Martin). Of course whatever the law may be, whether it admits it or not, it would not be feasible for this House of 615 Members to debate day by day and week by week individual awards, particular sums granted to particular families. There might be 100 cases put on the Order Paper in a week, and possibly 100 in a day. Obviously such a procedure would be out of the question, and I do not for a moment think that hon. Members opposite would desire to suggest it. But what they do suggest is that there should be some means of considering categories of cases, and general rules, and that the Commissioners should not be regarded, whether they administer well or ill, as being absolute authorities whose decisions no one in any circumstances can challenge. That my right hon. Friend now admits.

Let me repeat that I think he is exceedingly wise to admit it, because necessarily the administration of the means test must give rise to great unpopularity. These people are suffering extreme hardship month after month and sometimes year after year, living in grinding poverty, and if the small sums given to them are cut down still further inevitably that must give rise to a more serious sense of grievance. The matter from the point of view of the Minister and from the point of view of the general relationship between the Government of the day and the general population, must be handled carefully and tactfully and sympathetically. If the people are told, "No matter what your grievance, these Commissioners are absolute and no one can challenge anything they can do, even in Parliament," that must increase the unpopularity and sense of grievance. I rejoice that my right hon. Friend has not taken that ultra strict view, but realises that the matter may be brought in general terms, in regard to categories of cases, before the House of Commons, and that he proposes in due course to give opportunity for that to be done.

9.13 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I rather differ from the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken regarding the publication of the report. My own view is that as far as administration of the means test is concerned, the publication of a report will not have any great effect on the commissioners, because by the time a report is published this Parliament will almost have finished the task of passing a new Unemployment Insurance Bill. The report might give Parliament an idea whether the powers contained in this Order should be extended in any new Act, but the report in itself will be of little value in connection with the means test as we know it. The means test is due to expire by the end of June of this year. The new Bill must be passed. The Minister says the report is to be published in two or three months. Let us say three months. That means May or June. Parliament is bound to be in the midst of discussing the new Bill then. Therefore, so far as the commissioners in Durham are concerned, the report does nothing.

In the very nature of things the Minister must defend the commissioners. The commissioners were appointed for one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to cut down the expenditure of the Durham Public Assistance Committee in connection with transitional benefit. They were bound to cut it down, and in the nature of things they must cause terrible hardship. There is another grievance which I think is more important than the question of the report. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) said that in Durham they had tried to get the administration carried on by the public assistance committee and had been defeated. They had not the power in this House to carry their point and the commissioner had been appointed. The hon. Member said that they regretted that fact but now that the commissioner had been appointed, he asked why the Minister should not give an applicant or an applicant's representative the right of personal appeal to the commissioner. Why does not the Minister do the humane thing? It is said that the procedure with the commissioner is the same as with the public assistance committee.

Sir H. BETTERTON

I do not think that any responsible official of any union will have any difficulty in getting before the commissioner in order to ask him to explain any decision.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I heard the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Law-son) say that representative men had been refused that right. What is to hinder the Minister from doing what I suggest? I want to have the report published in so far as it will show how the system works but what is to hinder the Minister from meeting this grievance? What is to prevent him from seeing if there is not any method whereby the Secretary of the British Legion, for instance, or officials of the Miners Union or officials of other organisations—anybody with any kind of standing—should have the right of approaching the commissioner? Why cannot the commissioner say in any case in which a person feels aggrieved "He will have the right of personal appeal; I will consider his appeal myself or failing that I will meet any representative of any responsible body." The public assistance committees did so. It was not always successful but if people made complaints the committee met the representatives of any body of the kind I have suggested and discussed the matter.

Mr. MARTIN

In the case of Durham-a scale is laid down by the commissioner. Does the hon. Member suggest that anyone who feels that the scale is wrong should appeal, or that anyone who feels that his case has not been based on that scale should go to the commissioner?

Mr. BUCHANAN

I know Glasgow which has a population of 1,000,000 or more and in Glasgow every person who feels aggrieved against his transitional payment has a right of appeal from the local committee to the main committee— dealing with public assistance.

Mr. MARTIN

My experience in Durham has been that whenever a case has been based on the scale laid down by the commissioner and there has been some flaw in the arguments based on that scale, the commissioner has willingly reheard the case.

Mr. LAWSON

May I intervene to put the hon. Gentleman and also the Minister right on this matter. In fact, any man who wanted to appeal from the public assistance committee did so. I knew of numerous cases of appeals when the public assistance committee was in operation.

Mr. BUCHANAN

That is the point which I want to put. There is, for instance, the question of soldiers' pensions. It was the intention of this House that the 50 per cent, provision was to apply to the whole pension, but the authorities are not carrying out the intention of the House. I think that when the House passed the 50 per cent, provision with regard to soldiers' pensions, they meant that the whole lot of the pension should be brought into it. Otherwise, we certainly should have raised the point. But I have a case of a man with a pension of 8s. a week and 2s. for his wife. The 50 per cent, is being allowed on the 8s. and he gets his 4s. all right, but his wife's 2s. is taken fully into account in assessing means. I think the Minister in cases of that kind should see whether he has not power to put the administration on a more humane and generous footing.

As long as the means test lasts there are bound to be serious complaints. I I want the Minister to note the anomaly which exists in Durham. A man goes to the court of referees or to the Employment Exchange and, being three years unemployed, he is put off for not being normally in insurable employment. He decides that he is not going to fight his case—that he is going to lose it— and he then becomes chargeable to the public assistance committee as an able-bodied person. If he does not fight his case, he and his family will possibly be better treated that if he fought it. In many case it will be to the man's interest to become chargeable to the Poor Law. [HON. MEMBERS: "It was the same before!"] No, I say that the public assistance committee administered these provisions more generously than the Commissioners. That is undoubted in the case of Durham. If a man refuses to fight his case he becomes chargeable as an able-bodied citizen and he will receive more generous treatment than if he were receiving transitional benefit under the Act. Therefore, it is to his interest not to become a State charge but to become a charge on Durham.

That is the point, and I say that it is indefensible and shocking that the incentive should be to become a charge on Durham. There might have been the semblance of a case against Durham if Durham had been treating their able-bodied people less generously than those who were asking for transitional benefit. But Durham treated both the same. They carried on the generous treatment for the able-bodied and I think that reflects credit on the Durham committee. I say, frankly, to the Minister that while we shall read this report with interest, nobody need expect too much from it. It will be drafted by the Commissioner. It is not supposed to be polite to say such things in this House, but the fact remains that there will be no control over the Commissioner in regard to this report. A town clerk who is drafting a report has a committee working with him who have control over him, but the Commissioner who drafts this report will be free from any restraint or any interference.

Of course, we shall have a report published which will tell us about the abuses which formerly went on. For my part, I think the only good thing about the Commission is that it has proved that you cannot have a means test unless it is mean. The cost of administering this is £40,000 a year for a small county like Durham. I am perfectly certain that if you tried to run a means test on a generous scale you would not get the cost of administration back. I am only satisfied from the one point of view that the country has to choose between a miserable, shockingly, badly administered means test or no means test at all.

9.26 p.m.

Mr. McKEAG

As Member for a division which is the centre of Durham County and representing, as I do, the city from which these commissioners operate, I propose to add my voice to the protests against any possible abrogation of the authority of the House of Commons in this matter. I do not propose to indulge in any vilification of the commissioners. I choose rather to remember that the commissioners are carrying out a very difficult task in very difficult circumstances. I do not share the view voiced by certain hon. Members opposite that they are some vile thing which should not be touched with a barge pole. On the contrary, I have had numerous occasions to go to the commissioners to submit to them cases which have been put before me, and I have received from them every courtesy, and they have been most helpful to me in those cases. I do not think it is right to cast any reflection on the commissioners themselves, but, although I do not do that, I do not desire that they should be set up as despots and demi-gods, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. I cannot stand idly by and see any three men appointed as the final arbiters of the bodies and souls of thousands of people in the Durham district, people who have been unemployed for many years. Dissatisfaction has been expressed to-night over the administration. I, too, have been far from satisfied with what is going on. I am not satisfied over the scale which is being operated.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Curry), in a very powerful speech a little while ago, called the attention of the House to the great mass of poverty existing in that district. He rightly said that unemployment benefit, transitional payment and public assistance payment can assist unemployed people over a difficult, short period, but as time goes on they become more and more impoverished. There are thousands of people in Durham County who have been unemployed, not for one or two years but for four, five, six and even seven years. As clothing wears out they are unable to replace it and as boots wear out they are unable to replace or to repair them. Indeed, there are people in my constituency whose crockery has gone gradually and who are now reduced to the position of having to drink tea out of jam jars. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) gave several examples of the administration. I believe I am correct in saying that in calculating the needs of any family they even take into account whether a man has a few hens in his back yard or garden and a sum is deducted approximating to one penny per week per head. I only mention that to indicate the lengths to which the calculation of family incomes can be taken. There can be no question that there are cases of grave hardships prevailing in that district.

I feel that the Commissioners are endeavouring to do their job as humanely as possible, but it is not right that any three men should be placed in a position of wielding an autocracy such as is now placed in their hands. It would be a lamentable thing if this House divorced itself from its ultimate responsibilities in matters of this kind. We must retain inviolate the prerogative of this House to operate as a final tribune. If it were otherwise, I suggest we might as well sound the death knell of Parliamentary government.

9.36 p.m.

Mr. CAMPBELL-JOHNSTON

The first thing I would impress on the House is that these Commissioners are highly trained men who have been trained in the administration of public assistance and have had years of experience. I know some of them myself, men who have been in my profession and at the Bar and who have had training in it and have a high knowledge of it. The second thing I want to suggest is that there is a certain amount of misunderstanding on this subject. There is no such thing in the administration of public assistance as scales. The public assistance committees are given powers under certain rules and regulations—but not scales—to give what they consider fair, with the exception of transitional relief. Transitional relief is a flat rate but in public assistance they can give whatever they think the circumstances and needs of the applicant requires.

Mr. CURRY

It is a matter of common practice to lay down scales for their guidance.

Mr. CAMPBELL-JOHNSTON

I can only speak about London where I have administered public assistance myself and have had extensive experience of the public assistance committees. I simply know that the Minister of Public Health has time after time stated that he will not lay down scales. The commissioners have certain limits laid down by law as to how they shall administer transitional relief, and, if they supersede one of these committees, they have their regulations and limits within which they administer public assistance. I submit with all respect that, being, as they are, in the position of public assistance committees, all that they can be called upon to do is to exercise that discretion according to the law of the land. As the Minister said just now, these commissioners stand absolutely in the position of the public assistance committees and they have no more powers and no less powers, nor are they any more responsible or any less responsible to this House than the public assistance committees.

Mr. LOGAN

The hon. Member says that they are superseded by the commissioners. If they are superseded by the commissioners, is it not because of excessive scales laid down?

Mr. CAMPBELL-JOHNSTON

They are superseded by order of the Minister when they do not administer the ordinary relief, not according to the scales, but according to the law.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-six Minutes before Ten o'Clock.