HC Deb 09 December 1938 vol 342 cc1563-70

Order for Second Reading read.

3.37 p.m.

Mr. Stephen

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

I introduced this Bill just before the end of last Session in the hope that the Government would take the opportunity in the King's Speech of the present Session and promise legislation on the matter. The Government did not take the hint and, therefore, I have brought the Bill again before the House and hope it will receive a Second Reading on this occasion also. The House unanimously gave me leave to bring in the Bill; there was not a dissentient voice, on that occasion and I hope there will not be a dissentient voice to-day. The purpose of the Bill is to increase old age pensions from 10s. to £1 a week. The Bill will apply to those who are under the old scheme of pensions, the 70 year old pensioners, and also to those under the scheme of the Act of 1925. Provision is made for an increase in each of these cases. I do not want to labour the need for this reform. It is well known to hon. Members that throughout the country there are old people who are in the impossible position of trying to live on 10S. a week. It has been said that they can supplement this income in various ways, but there are many thousands of old age pensioners who cannot get any addition at all and who have to live on the miser- able figure of 10s. a week. One of our daily newspapers, which had its interest aroused in this question, sent one of its journalists out to see how he could manage to live for a week on 10s., and he reported to his paper, the "Daily Express," that he had managed it only by borrowing from his rent for the following week.

The opinion in the country, I am convinced, is strongly in favour of this reform. There is a Clause in the Bill which has as its object the taking away of the statutory condition which makes a certain stamp qualification necessary for the receipt of a pension. The Bill allows the contributory system to remain so that employers and workpeople will be under the obligation of paying their contributions, but in many cases men have been deprived of their pensions because there has been a deficiency of one or two stamps. There are very many of the older people who have been unemployed for a long time who have drifted out of National Health Insurance unknown to themselves because they have not noticed that they have had a form served upon them by their friendly society. There are the cases of widows who are making application for pensions and who find that owing to certain slackness there has not been a proper return of the cards, and so they are deprived of pensions. In order to avoid these hard cases I have introduced into the Bill a Clause which does away with the statutory stamp qualification.

In view of the time I do not want to take long in presenting the Bill. I want simply to impress on the House the greatness of the need of these people. The financial provision in connection with the Bill is the only financial provision that a private Member is able to introduce. In one Clause I have increased the contribution of the employers. As I pointed out in asking leave to introduce the Bill under the Ten Minutes Rule, I was confident that the employers of the country would have sufficient influence with the Government at a subsequent date to secure the introduction of the necessary Financial Resolution to make the charge a charge upon the Treasury. The only way in which I could present the Bill was to make financial provision otherwise than by putting the burden on the Treasury.

I hope I have made the matter clear and that the House agrees that the financial burden should be upon the Treasury. It is absolutely disgraceful that local authorities in so many of the distressed areas have had placed upon them the burden of supplementing these 10s. a week pensions. Some of them have found it almost impossible to do this because of the rating burden that it entails. It is time that these old people had their pensions increased, and it is time that the Government, even at this late day, made the necessary provision to bring about a reform which would bring so much comfort and happiness to many old people in the winter-time of their lives.

3.43 p.m.

Mr. A. Bevan

I beg to second the Motion.

I would congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) on having the opportunity of bringing this very important Measure before the House. The House cannot complain that it has had no other opportunity of discussing this proposal, not this particular Measure but the principle which it embodies, because on a number of occasions recently the House has debated the question. Permission having been given to my hon. Friend to introduce the Bill, one may confidently assume that the principle contained in the Bill has the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House. If there are parts of the Bill which do not meet with the approval of hon. Members the Government can introduce the necessary Amendments in Committee.

It ought to be unnecessary for any Member to say anything in support of the general principle of the Bill. The Bill proposes to raise the rate of old age pensions. Yesterday afternoon I had an opportunity of addressing a most unusual meeting in my own constituency. It consisted of 400 to 500 men and women over 65 years of age. There is growing up in this country—hon. Members will have to pay regard to it—a very powerful organisation of old people. They are becoming politically conscious in their old age, and they are beginning to organise themselves for the purpose of bringing before the country the deep distress which many old people suffer as a consequence of inadequate pensions. It will not be sufficient for hon. Members to consider this as though it is not a vital question, for I am certain that such is the vigour and determination of these old people that, by the next General Elec- tion, this will become one of the burning questions of the day. It would be so much better if the House of Commons, on its own initiative, would do justice towards these people rather than have it forced upon them by the agitation of the old people themselves.

I know we shall be told that a Bill of this description is not possible because of the finances underlying it, and because of the excessive burden which it might place upon the finances of the State. That burden has to be borne now, but it is upon shoulders too weak to bear it. The other evening, when debating a resolution on this matter, we were told that no one contended that men and women can live on 10s. a week, and it was pointed out that the pensions are intended only to supplement other resources, such as the savings of the pensioners, the assistance given to them by relatives, and so on. That may apply in many cases, but certainly it does not apply in very many working-class districts, and it does not apply in the distressed areas, where there has been no opportunity for people to save. The earnings of relatives are often hopelessly insufficient for those relatives to assist the old people, and in many cases the relatives live in other parts of the country. In these cases, there are no means of supplementing the pension. Moreover, the local authorities are often so poor that they are unable to give the necessary additional assistance to old-age pensioners. Therefore, the argument that was used last week does not apply.

There is one other consideration which I wish to urge upon hon. Members before I conclude. Very often poor people try to make some provision against the vicissitudes of old age by taking endowment policies or other policies with insurance companies. If we could have the amount of money which the private insurance companies get as a consequence of lapsed policies entered into by those persons, that would be a very considerable income indeed for putting the finances of these proposals on a realistic plane. If the State made provision in this way, many poor people would not find themselves persuaded to buy policies on which they were unable to pay premiums, and very much money would be saved to the poor people in that way. For these reasons, and for other reasons which are in the minds of hon. Members, I beg the House to give the Bill a Second Reading, and in Committee to put right any matters that may be wrong in the Bill. If this is done, it will give many old people in the country some additional comforts and amenities in their old age. Nothing adorns a civilised community more than generosity in the treatment of the aged.

3.49 p.m.

Mr. Erskine Hill

A great deal of interest is taken on every side of the House on the question of pensions. I think it would be quite a wrong picture of the mind of the House if hon. Members opposite thought that they alone were interested in such questions—

Mr. Wedgwood Benn

May I call the hon. and learned Member's attention to the fact that the Government are not sufficiently interested in the question to provide a Minister to reply?

Mr. Erskine Hill

I think the answer to that interruption is that obviously it was not thought likely that this Bill would be reached, and there was no time to get a Minister.

Mr. Stephen

The hon. and learned Member knew, as he consulted me about it.

Mr. Erskine Hill

I think the hon. Gentleman is right in assuming that there is much interest in this matter among Members of the House. We would all like to give additions and make alterations in the Pensions Act wherever possible, but he must realise that in producing this Bill at this moment he is holding out hopes which cannot be fulfilled. I do not think this Bill can be described as a practicable Measure, and I would not be guilty, either in my own constituency or elsewhere, of holding out hopes to the electorate which I knew could not be fulfilled. However anxious hon. Members in any part of the House may be to increase pensions to the extent proposed in the Bill, I do not think there is one Member in this House who could honestly say that he thought this a practical proposition at the present time. It would be quite impracticable at this time to raise pensions to the figure suggested in the Bill. I have recently met in my constituency members of the Old Age Pensioners' League. I have told them that I am prepared to use any influence I have to increase the old age pension when that is practicable. They appreciated the difficulty and are quite willing to accept the position, but I think that for the purpose of catching votes—because I cannot but think that there is something of that sort in this Measure—

Mr. Stephen

Shame.

Mr. Erskine Hill

it is wrong to try to lure people into thinking that they are to get something when we know that it is not a practical proposition.

Mr. Stephen

Does the hon. and learned Member not realise that if he and other hon. Members opposite supported this Bill, the Government could give a pension of £1 a week. It is because he and other hon. Members opposite will not support the Bill, that the Government cannot do it.

Mr. Erskine Hill

Nobody knows better than the hon. Member that the reason why we cannot support the Bill is because we know it is impracticable because we know that money which we would like to give cannot be provided and because we know he is holding out false hope where it would be much better to be frank with the people. The last speaker said there were other hon. Members anxious to take part in this discussion and I do not want it to be said that I tried to talk out this Bill. But I do want to make the point that although the Bill has served an admirable purpose in bringing the matter before the House for discussion, it is a Bill which is impracticable, and ought not to be passed.

3.54 p.m.

Mr. Groves

It would be a sin if we here allowed the next five minutes to pass without expressing an opinion on this Bill. After all the principle of the Bill is not new. Every remark which has been passed about it by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite would have applied with equal force to any of the Bills to which we have given a Second Reading earlier this afternoon. Every argument that he has used is a century old. Every proposal from days of the Chartist movement and the beginning of the trade union movement and the co-operative societies, every reform that affected the working-class, has been called impracticable and characterised as having been asked for at the wrong time. I remember reading a speech delivered by a Member of this House when this question of pensions was mooted in this country at its inception, and it was then suggested that the granting of old age pensions, whatever the rate might be, would undermine the morale and lower the dignity of the people of this country.

We must remember that pensions were introduced at 5s. per week at the age of 70. This House itself has moved, I submit not rapidly, from that position, and I feel that, although we in this House to-day are trying to make the future safe for our sons, we have a duty also to make it reasonably secure and pleasant for the not-so-young who have made the country what it is. I fail to see any argument at all against the principle of extending the pension. I would like, as I am sure even hon. Members opposite who speak against this Bill to-day would like, to see it doubled and also granted at a lower age. We all realise that just for the moment, just to-day, there is some question of discussing ways and means, but that is what this House exists for, and I wish we could give this Bill a hearty Second Reading on principle, in order to say to the workers of this country who have attained the age of 65, who have been lucky enough to do that, that we all subscribe to the principle that is contained in this Bill.

On a private Members' day, in passing this Bill, if we do, we are not forcing the Government to accept something that will be hurtful to them. If this is a vote-catching Measure, as one hon. Member opposite said, cotton on to it. Do not let us have all the kudos. I was very pleased to see a deputation a fortnight ago led by one of the local clergymen, on which there were 30 men who have worked in the local railway shops, and they asked us here to-day to pass this Bill. This is not something for next year. Our hearts are full of sympathy for these folk in their present demand, and I suggest that the one way for us and for all who wish for the spirit of unity that we boast about is to give the Bill a Second Reading.

3.59 p.m.

Commander Marsden

I am sure that not only in this House or in the other House—

Mr. Stephen rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Commander Marsden

I am sure we would all like to see the old age pension doubled or trebled. It is not a question of the good-heartedness of any one part of the House or of the country, but merely of the ability of this country to produce the large sums of money which would be necessary. We would like any advance made in the condition of the life of the workers to be permanent and to be part of a continual, steady, ordered progress. We realise that something in the way of progress has occurred. The old age pension started at 5s. and went to 7s. 6d. and then to 10s., and certainly since the 10s. period—

Mr. Stephen rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

It being Four of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.