HC Deb 25 July 1940 vol 363 cc1108-24

9.54 p.m.

Mr. Tinker

I beg to move, in page 7, line 27, to leave out from the word "shall" to the word "nineteenth" in line 28, and to insert: take effect as from the first day of July. What we are asking for in this Amendment is that the date shall be moved backwards from 19th August to 1st July. The result of that would be to benefit the recipients of supplementary allowances by seven weeks pay. Under ordinary conditions one would not dare to put forward such a proposition, but there is a little history behind this Bill. For a long time efforts were made to get the Government to do something for the workmen and after a time we prevailed, and a Bill called the Supplementary Allowances (No. 1) Bill got its Second Reading on 30th April. If that Bill had been passed it would have operated from the 1st July of this year, and that is the basis of our claim that this Measure should operate from that date. That Bill did not get as far as has this Bill. Then has been some added benefit in this Measure, but for all that, many of our people, knowing that we were agitating for something for workmen's compensation, have been living in hope that something would be given to the injured workman as from 1st July. Wherever we go, we are asked whether Parliament is keeping its promise about what it was told would come into operation on 1st July.

I ask the Committee to consider the position in that light. It is recognised that the injured workman has for some time deserved a higher rate of pay. If the negotiation has somewhat delayed its coming into operation, no one would wish to say that the injured workman should suffer because we have been trying to get an improvement. Because we have been trying to prevail upon the Government of the day to see the strength of our argument, no one would say that that delay should cost our men seven weeks' pay. That is what, in effect, it means.

I do not see any good ground for refusing our request. The Under-Secretary may reply by saying that it would be difficult to trace back on the books who was entitled to the payment, and that there would be many complications and so many difficulties that the Amendment would not be worth the trouble it would cause. I tell the Committee that the employers have a record of every man injured, the date of his injury and the amount of compensation, and that the insurance companies know the position exactly. There will be no question of trouble in going back to 1st July. We may be met with a second argument, that there have been many discussions, as a result of which the insurance companies and employers have been prevailed upon, on the understanding that this would be an agreed Measure. I hope that that argument will not be brought forward. I hope we can satisfy the Committee that we have established a case for justice for injured workmen and the consensus of opinion has been obtained that nothing should stand in the way of justice because of an agreement arrived at between those interested. When we remember the long period of suffering of the injured workman and the smallness of the recompense we ask, this change of date ought not to be refused.

I make an urgent appeal to the Under-Secretary. I cannot say any words of reproof to him, as I have nothing but admiration for the way in which he has handled the situation. I gave him that meed of praise on the Second Reading, and I do not retract it now. He has done his work very well indeed. I hope that he will now push aside whatever little objection he may have, and will say that he has been so impressed with the case that has been made out that he will give way here. If he did so, it would give a great send-off to the Bill. We are all pleased that the Bill has arrived at this stage. I earnestly appeal that this concession be given to our injured workmen on 1st July. I make that appeal in the interest of justice, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will give way on the point.

10.0 p.m.

Major Milner (Leeds, South East)

I desire to support very strongly the eloquent and human appeal which has been made by the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). In common fairness, the Government, I think, must meet this situation in some way and fix the date at 1st July. We all know that had it not been for the important circumstances of the war, this Bill might not have been brought in for some time. The war has now been in progress for something like 10 months, and, having regard to that fact, the little increase that has been made and that undoubtedly is of some help is somewhat belated. Wages in industries have been put up. Men in receipt of workmen's compensation have been living alongside those in receipt of quite substantial wages, and they have had to suffer accordingly. As everyone knows, prices have gone up, and it seems to me that it is a reasonable request that the date at which these supplementary allowances should be made should be fixed at 1st July.

Of course, there are other considerations. I would remind the Committee, whose support I am sure the hon. Member for Leigh would wish to enlist, that when the Home Secretary wished to introduce the original Bill, which was as long ago as 30th April, he himself then placed on record the urgency of the matter. He pointed out that there had been no comprehensive review of workmen's compensation since the Holman-Gregory Report of 1920. He said that the work of the Royal Commission had been interrupted, that some valuable time had been lost, that so long ago as 30th January the Government had entered into discussions, and that so long ago as 18th March he had outlined the provisions of the Bill which he brought in at that time. It is now 25th July. All those months, and I might almost say years, have passed since this matter was first ventilated.

Largely, we on this side hope and believe, owing to the influence brought to bear by the Lord Privy Seal and the general change in the Government, the Government very properly, if I may say so, brought forward this new Bill, which goes a long way to meet the request which has been made on so many occasions in this Committee. It does not seem that there can be any practical difficulty in accepting the proposal of the hon. Member for Leigh. There is no difficulty about the matter of records and no difficulty whatever, in my experience, in the employers or the insurance companies making the appropriate payments. Indeed, the Home Secretary, in the speech to which I have referred, said that he had had many helpful and useful discussions with accident office associations and that the associations were ready to pick up old cases and meet them even when the employer had ceased to insure, and so on. The Home Secretary said that he also was anxious to bring the Bill into operation at the earliest possible date. There can be no insuperable and practical difficulty in existing cases in making the small additional payments which would be due and dating them back to 1st July if my hon Friend's proposal were adopted. I very much hope that no petty—if I may use the first word which comes to my mind—suggestions or arguments or, as my hon. Friend put it, "conventionalities," will stand in the way, and that the Government will willingly accede to the request made by my hon. Friend.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. A. Jenkins

I would like to support the appeal which my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) has made. It is of importance that we should keep our word, and that the Minister should keep his word. The speech referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner) was made by the Minister on 30th April. He then made out a case for the increased payments. The important thing to remember is that the new Bill, in its present form, will not involve a greater cost to the employers than the old one.

Mr. Peake

The hon. Member is quite wrong. It will cost a substantially larger sum.

Mr. Jenkins

I have not been able to see where the increased cost will arise.

Mr. Peake

The increased cost arises in this way. Whereas under the old Bill only married men were to get the 5s. flat rate advance, under this Bill everybody, married or single, man or woman, will obtain that 5s.

Mr. Jenkins

I accept the Minister's point that there will be an increased cost. But, apart from that, there was an undertaking given that the increased payments would operate as from 1st July. It has been said widely in the country, and the general impression is, that the payments will begin on that date. It seems that, under this arrangement, the employers are going to save seven weeks' payments.

Mr. Peake

Under the Bill as it was originally introduced, only married men would have obtained the supplementation, and, therefore, nobody has any right to be disappointed at the Bill not coming into operation until 19th August, except the married men.

Mr. Jenkins

But they are interested to a very large extent. The point is that had the Bill in its present agreed form been accepted in the first place, these payments would have been operative as from 1st July. That was the impression given to the country. The recipients of compensation are not responsible for the differences we had in this House. The point I want to make—and the Minister made it better than I am making it, in his speech on 30th April—is that the increased payments are long overdue. The Minister talked about the long delay, and the investigations that had taken place into the need for this increase. He admitted the real point. Now he takes away seven weeks of those payments because of our failure to agree on the first Bill. People receiving compensation should not be made to suffer as a consequence of our failure to agree. Seven weeks is an important matter. An hon. Member said earlier that there has been an increase in the cost of living. The difficulties of these people have been increased. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to agree to inserting the date which was originally intended.

10.9 p.m.

Mr. Peake

It would be a pity for the Committee to proceed to discuss the Amendment under any illusions as to what it does. It proposes to substitute for 19th August as the date on which this Bill comes into operation, 1st July. I very much doubt whether Parliament has ever passed a Bill at the end of July which is to become operative at the beginning of July. It seems to me a very novel proposition.

Mr. J. Griffiths

This is a novel Parliament, and this is a novel Government.

Mr. Peake

The Bill says: This Act shall come into operation … and the Amendment goes on to name a date which is already nearly four weeks past. I am not sure that the hon. and gallant Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner), who is experienced in the law, appreciates what this Amendment does. Under this Bill not only are all future accidents to be met with increased rates of compensation, but there is to be an increase in compensation in the case of every accident which has occurred since 1st January, 1924. As hon. Members know, employers cover their liabilities to their workpeople under workmen's compensation by means of insurance, and they pay in each year a premium which is calculated to be commensurate with the liabilities then existing upon them. If Parliament comes along and increases the rate of benefit in respect of accidents which have occurred in the past, Parliament will be placing upon employers burdens against which they have had no opportunity whatever of insuring themselves or providing for in any way. That is what Parliament is doing, and it is to that course that the employers have agreed, and I may mention in passing that none of the Bills introduced by the Labour party in the last five or six years for increasing workmen's compensation were of a retrospective character such as this one is. Hon. Members want to go beyond that and to make it retrospective not only as regards the dates of the accidents, but as regards the dates of payment as well.

It is obvious that whatever we provide in this Bill, some period must elapse after it has passed through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament to allow of administrative arrangements being made whereby children's allowances can be fully calculated and paid out smoothly and without any difficulty at some future date. When the original Bill was before the House the insurance companies told me that they must have a period of four weeks after the Bill had gone through during which the forms which have to be prescribed under Clause 3 could be noted, circulated and despatched; the method of operating the Act could be explained to the wages clerks who have to check the forms; and the necessary arrangements made for the calculation of the children's allowances. When this Bill came forward after the other Bill was dropped, I again met representatives of insurance companies, and I said, "I am very anxious to get this Bill operating as early as possible. Cannot you possibly shorten at all the time of four weeks which you demanded in respect of the previous Bill?" They said that they thought they could make the necessary arrangements if they had three weeks between the Bill passing into law and the first weekly payment. The 19th August is a little more than three weeks' grace, and it is possible as a result of the discussion we have had here that some Amendment may be necessary in another place. If so, the Bill will have to come back here again, and nobody can say precisely when the Act will get the Royal Assent. Already, it seems to me, there may be some difficulty in maintaining 19th August as the date of operation. It is clear that whatever happens we cannot make payments as from a date which has already passed.

What the hon. Member has in fact proposed is that about the third week in August employers, in making up their weekly pay tickets to compensation men, should add something in respect of the seven weeks which will have elapsed since 1st July. He wants every man who is on workmen's compensation on 19th August, or who has been on workmen's compensation at any time between 1st July and 19th August, to receive some additional bonus about the third week in August. That obviously is a matter of considerable administrative difficulty. The average period for which a man remains on workmen's compensation is only six weeks, and it is calculated that two-thirds of all cases go back to work within a month. It therefore follows that there will be few in receipt of compensation on 19th August who were on compensation on 1st July, and it means, in respect of any man or woman who has been on compensation between these dates, that a broken period has to be calculated. There are approximately 100,000 persons on workmen's compensation at the present time, and probably 80,000 of those who will be in receipt of compensation on 19th August will not have been in receipt of compensation on 1st July. Those in receipt of compensation on 1st July will be an almost completely different class of persons from those in receipt of compensation on 19th August, and it means that in calculating a man's compensation rate in respect of a short period one has to apply the appropriate fraction of supplementation. It involves a tremendous lot of administrative trouble.

The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Jenkins) said there would be great disappointment throughout the country if this was not done. He said that everybody expected that the new benefits would come into operation on 1st July. I must confess that the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) has been very fair about this proposal, because he said in the Second Reading Debate: It is quite common for us Members of the Labour party, when we see our constituents, to be asked, 'When are we to get this benefit to which we understand Parliament has agreed?' They"— and there he means his constituents— do not understand Parliamentary procedure, and many thought that, as the Bill passed its Second Reading it had become law. They did not realise that we held the Bill up in order to get something better. Now they are disappointed and they hope it may operate as from 1st July."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th July, 1940; col. 550, Vol. 363.] Let us have no recrimination about the past. I do not know who the hon. Member referred to when he said "we." [HON. MEMBERS: "The House of Commons."] I myself did very little to hold up the previous Bill. When he spoke of "we" holding up the Bill, I think he must have referred only to a certain geographically situated section of the House. However, let us come to the practical issue of who has the right to be disappointed and to what extent. The only persons whose expectations have been at all aroused by the previous proposals were married men. Single men may have been gravely disappointed by the limits of the previous proposals, and so may all the women, but surely the hon. Member for Leigh and the hon. Member for Pontypool can go to their constituencies and say, "Look what all you single men, and you women, have gained as the result of the withdrawal of the previous Bill." I am even going to try to reassure the hon. Member for Pontypool so far as married men are concerned. He can say to them, "It is true some of you have made a little sacrifice, but we have procured something for you also; you will have an additional 1s. in respect of each of your first two children." Therefore the hon. Member has a complete answer if he is charged with having obstructed the previous Bill in the House of Commons. In any case I could not accept the Amendment. I should regard it as a breach of faith of a serious character with those with whom I have negotiated the Bill. It would place upon them not only a great administrative but also a serious financial burden.

10.21 p.m.

Mr. Collindridge

I have joined with others in the past in paying tribute to the hon. Gentleman. He has on many occasions met us privately and explained the difficult portions of the Bill, but we cannot be pleased with any generosity that he has displayed on this occasion. Does he think that, had the war not been on, we should have been supporting such a Measure as this? I feel that we shall have to take serious action on the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman has outlined administrative difficulties. I was connected with mining before I came here, and I know there was docketed every accident we had, not only those which received compensation but those which did not, and we shall find no difficulty whatever, assuming we get this Amendment through, in these payments being made. While we might question what the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Jenkins) has said, that there is no improvement in this Bill as compared with the first, if the war is to continue for any length of time, insurance companies and employers will be paying less by this Bill than they would be with a full and comprehensive Compensation Act which insured workmen are entitled to. I hope all sections of the Committee will press the Government to accept the Amendment.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. J. Griffiths

All the arguments which the Under-Secretary has made against the Amendment on grounds of the administrative difficulties which it would involve can easily be destroyed. The important consideration which he has put to the Committee is that it would be a breach of an agreement which he has made if he accepted the Amendment. I realise that he cannot break that agreement, and I do not ask him to do so, but I appeal to him to consider whether he could not go to the people with whom he made this pact and ask to be relieved of it. It may be that the date of 1st July suggested in the Amendment would not be possible, but surely there would be no difficulty in fixing some date earlier than 19th August.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. Ness Edwards

I take a different view from that expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). I can understand the Under-Secretary wishing to stand by an agreement which he has made outside, but I cannot understand the Committee agreeing to its authority being contracted out. The great insurance companies have said, "We agree to these things only provided this date is fixed." I am not prepared to agree to the authority of the Committee being contracted out in that manner.

Mr. J. Griffiths

I understand the agreement was not only with the insurance companies. If it were with them only, I should feel differently about the matter, but I understand it was with others as well.

Mr. Peake

Let me make the position clear. The question of the date was one of the most important questions discussed with the Compensation Committee of the Trades Union Congress. On that Committee there was represented, and represented in a binding way, the Mineworkers' Federation of Great Britain. We discussed the question of date very fully, and complete accord was reached that 19th August was fair and proper, and indeed the earliest date at which these proposals could be brought into operation.

Mr. Ness Edwards

As a matter of fact I was a member of the National Executive of the Mineworkers' Federation which has been deeply concerned about this problem. As far as the Mineworkers' Federation of Great Britain is concerned, it has never agreed to this date; we were pressing for a much earlier date. Apart from that, I accept that the T.U.C. sub-committee may have agreed with the other people; but I wish to put the other conception. The Under-Secretary has to consider not only what the T.U.C. sub-committee feel about this matter. There has been a very great feeling throughout the country. The Under-Secretary will remember that was asked to approach the then Secretary for Mines about this question when a strike was threatened in one of the largest coalfields in the country. We were given the impression that something was going to be done, and we had a conference in the coalfields in January last year, and we told the workers that the Government were going to tackle this problem. But we are now told that the Government are trading on the loyalty of our men. They are not treating them in a decent way, and attending to their injustices, but relying on their loyalty to the country. The Under-Secretary has an opportunity of rectifying a thing of which he himself has complained. He will recollect that a number of years ago he made an outstanding speech, and the miners had some regard to that speech, made in difficult circumstances. He said that wages were too low, but what he has to remember is that the compensation now paid is based upon wages which he himself said were too low.

This is an attempt to try and rectify that position. Men have been asking us for nine month's what we are doing about it but it seems that this difficulty only arises in connection with industrial workers. Everyone else can get what they want and what they ask. The civilian injury scheme and the pension scheme can go through this House without difficulty, but workmen's compensation has to drag on for eight months. Now the workers are to be told that they will have to wait until August because of some administrative difficulty. One could have understood it if the Under-Secretary had said that he understood the difficulty and the injustices which these people have been suffering and asked whether there were no means for meeting them in some way. After all, it is not very much they are asking. He himself has said it was a changing personnel and that a very small proportion were on compensation for over six months. I could understand him saying that there was an injustice and that the Government would try to meet us, but no offer is made to meet the position. I am concerned as much as anyone about the conduct of this war, and I am trying to do my bit in every way; but I do not think that this war should be so conducted as to perpetuate injustices in the case of the worse-off in our community. That is the worst way in which to conduct the war. It is likely to destroy the morale of our people. Here is a way of getting the industrial population solidly behind our war effort. I hope that my hon. Friend will press his Amendment to a Division.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Tinker

My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has made a suggestion, and I am prepared to back it up. I asked for 1st July with the full consent of my hon. Friends on this side in the hope that we might get it. I realise, however, that we are bound to accept a compromise if we can get one. I want to suggest, in order to get the Bill through without any opposition, that the Under-Secretary should agree to 1st August. The Bill will be passed by that time. Is it too much to ask for a compromise of that kind? I am prepared to risk my position by suggesting that my hon. Friends should follow the lead given by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly in this matter.

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Peake

I must say a few words in response to the appeals made to me by the hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) and the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). Even if 1st August were put in the Bill, it would not enable anybody to draw supplementary allowances until at any rate towards the third week in August. Anything else would be quite out of the question. It would be impossible to speed up the first payments before then. The proposal would therefore mean that about the end of the third week in August everybody who had at any time been on compensation on or since 1st August would receive an additional cash payment. I really do not see how that can be justified. It means that many workmen and workwomen who have gone back to work, having recovered from their disability, at higher wages than they have ever had before, are to be given cash bonuses which they do not require.

Mr. Collindridge

You are going to do that on 19th August.

Mr. Peake

No, that is not so.

Mr. Tinker

Many times in negotiations with employers for increased wages, several weeks have passed before we have arrived at agreement, and there has been no trouble over giving back pay. That is the common way in which we work in wages negotiations.

Mr. Peake

I am saying that on its merits this is not a reasonable proposal. I would remind the hon. Member for Leigh of the Bill in 1938 to which he put his name. It was introduced on 21st June, and the date of its operation was 1st January following, more than six months later. It was a simple Bill to increase the scales of compensation, and not only was it not to operate for six months, but it was not to apply to any cases of past accidents. This Bill applies to all accidents which have taken place at any time in the last 16 years. As I pointed out earlier, against these past accident risks the employers have had no opportunity of protecting themselves by insurance. The additional payments in respect of those accidents are being met by them really as an act of grace. I have persuaded them that to cover only cases of future accidents and to leave all the past cases unmet would create great hardship, would meet no cases of hardship existing at the present time. They have of their own volition agreed to a proposal to make these new supplementations of benefit applicable to all cases which have occurred since January, 1924, where there is existing disability. Apart from the merits of the proposal which I have been arguing, this matter was fully threshed out by the representatives not only of the employers but of the workers. Before I began the negotiations with the compensation committee of the Trades Union Congress I asked them to be perfectly sure that they represented in those negotiations, and were authorised to represent, the Mineworkers' Federation of Great Britain, and that any agreement I made with them would be recognised as binding by the Mineworkers' Federation.

Mr. S. O. Davies

Was not that really tantamount to political blackmail of Members of this House? I resent it very strongly.

Mr. Peake

Certainly it was not blackmail. It was assuring myself that any agreement which I reached with them did also bind the Mineworkers' Federation.

Mr. Davies

That is the fiftieth time we have had that thrown at us since this Bill was first discussed.

Mr. Peake

I am not throwing it at anyone. I am stating the position. The agreement is recognised as binding on this point, as upon all the other major points of the Bill, not only by the employers but by the representatives of the workers, and I should not feel justified in going back on one part of the bargain and asking the employers to make what is a very substantial concession. The cost of the proposal in the Amendment would be something like £400,000. I should not feel justified, after the very fair and generous way in which I have been met by representatives of the employers, in asking them to reopen the negotiations on that one point. If I were to do so there are other points on which they might press me to obtain further concessions from the representatives of the workers.

Major Milner

Was not the date in the original Bill which was accepted by the insurance companies 1st July? If that was so, surely they are saving a considerable sum as between 1st July and 19th August, even taking into account the additional benefits in the Bill.

Mr. Peake

The arrangement in the first Bill was to pay supplementations in respect only of married men as from 1st July.

Mr. Coffindridge

You did not expect that Bill to go through, did you?

Mr. Peake

I had to make provision for the possibility that it might go through, and consequently I had discussions with the representatives of the insurance companies. Then, they had an opportunity of increasing in advance the insurance premiums to meet the additional benefits. This proposal that the Bill should be retrospective not only in respect of the date of the accident but also of the date when payments begin would not be a fair one to put up after all the good will I have met with from all sides in coming to the agreement embodied in the Bill. I can hardly go back to one party to the agreement when in our view they have behaved perfectly fairly and reasonably, and when what they have put forward has been generally acceptable to all parties to the negotiations. Of course, if the House of Commons were to choose to carry this Amendment it is perfectly at liberty to do so. No agreement reached outside this House can prevent hon. Members exercising their votes in any way they chose. But it would obviously imperil the passage of the Bill as an agreed Measure. A new Bill would have to be prepared, and a new Bill would not come into operation at as early a date as would the present Bill. I am afraid that I am unable to accede to the request. I think it is a fair arrangement which we have proposed, and I strongly advise the Committee to accept it.

10.46 p.m.

Mr. J. Griffiths

I thought I had met the Under-Secretary. He is quite right, in the position in which he finds himself, but if it is the sense of the Committee that this date should be changed, and if the House of Commons desires this alteration, does the hon. Gentleman not feel that he is entitled to go back and persuade the interested parties to agree to it?

10.47 p.m.

Mr. Buchanan (Glasgow, Gorbals)

I ask the Under-Secretary to look at this matter again. I understand that he will accept that short-term accidents should not be covered, but mistakes might be made, and 1st July might apply to persons who had been continually on compensation since that date. It would not mean that they would go back to big wages, but only back to compensation. They would get this retrospective payment. I quite appreciate what it means to enter into an agreement, but from time to time the House of Commons, when it has felt deeply on a matter, has thrown aside more powerful people than those who are parties to an agreement with insurance companies. I have seen the House of Commons turn down cases when they felt that the matter was very serious. The House of Commons in the last resort is more important than any agreement which has been arrived at. In that case, is there any real breach of faith? I think the Under-Secretary's last remark was extremely unfortunate. He said that if the Committee carried this Amendment we should have to get a new Bill. Who says that? The only body who can say there is to be a new Bill is the House of Commons. Surely it does not mean that if we carry this small Amendment the insurance companies must get a new Bill. I am sure that the Under-Secretary does not mean that, and that nobody who has a sense of politics will accept it. If we carry this small Amendment it will mean that he has still kept his word to the insurance companies, but that the House of Commons, in its wisdom, has tried to get the date made a little earlier. He must go back to the insurance companies and say: "I am sorry that my efforts were not satisfactory, but the House of Commons, in its wisdom, decided otherwise, and in the circumstances you had better accept."

Mr. Peake

Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that a possible via media would be to include only those on compensation?

Mr. Buchanan

Yes.

Mr. Peake

What about the position of the men with lump-sum settlements?

Mr. Buchanan

I will give you my answer. One would have to be a bit unfair; they would not get anything. If a pension were to be paid at the age of 65, a person aged 64 years and 9 months would not get it. All we are doing is to ask you to be a little more generous than you are already. Even with 1st July we are not getting in all the people we want. This is a warning not to be too kind when putting Amendments down. I remember the 1938 Bill. The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) thought that the Bill would get through easier if 1st July were inserted. This warns one not to be too decent. The hon. Member for Leigh, knowing that it was a Tory House of Commons and that the overwhelming mass of people would be against us, thought 1st July would be more reasonable. After the hon. Gentleman has done with the T.U.C. and the insurance companies, he has to come and satisfy a third body—the House of Commons. Is it too much to ask, having secured the consent of these two bodies, that for the sake of getting unanimity in the House of Commons we should have a compromise? The hon. Gentleman has given the T.U.C. and the insurance companies a compromise. Is it too much to ask that we should share in that compromise? I would say to the Under-Secretary: Give way. The insurance companies will not be "broke." They will get great compensations out of the war. Each day sees trade improving, and their premiums improving considerably. Their position will improve. I ask the Under-Secretary to go back and say, "I had to go to the House of Commons. They had to be parties to the compromise. They are asking for a very small concession, and for the sake of the House of Commons let us concede it." He will not ruin his reputation, but rather will he enhance it.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Committee proceeded to a Division; Mr. GRIMSTON and Mr. MUNRO were nominated Tellers for the Ayes, but there being no Members willing to act as Tellers for the Noes, The CHAIRMAN declared that the Ayes had it.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

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