CLAUSE 8.—(Time limit for appeals.) (Hansard, 22 July 1943)

§ Mr. Dobbie (Rotherham)
I beg to move, in page 5, line 31, to leave out "twelve months," and to insert "five years."
The Amendment in my name deals with the question of the time limit for appeals. My friends and myself are of the opinion that 12 months is rather too short a period to allow for an appeal to be made. It does not give a proper time for wounded persons to come to a conclusion really as to whether they will make an appeal or not. It is quite possible for deterioration of wounds to set in not one year but two years or three years after, and these are the reasons why we have decided to ask the Minister to accept five years instead of the one year which is in the Bill at the present time. It may be that even five years is not a long enough period, but we are certainly of the opinion that one year does not give the opportunity of coming to a firm decision on the part of the claimant as to whether or not he will make an appeal against a decision. We shall be glad if the Minister can give this consideration and accept five years instead of one year.

§ Sir W. Womersley
I am sorry that I cannot fall in with the wishes of my hon. Friend, but I think that when I have explained he will see that there is ample time given to the appellant to make his claim. No time limit of any kind will apply until the Minister makes an Order. It is not a question of 12 months from being discharged from the Service. It is 12 months after the Order in Council is made, so that past cases will have more 1181 than 12 months, of course. In future cases 12 months will, I think, give a reasonable time, and it is just as well to get these cases in within as reasonable a time as we possibly can. There is, of course, the right which is provided if a reasonable excuse why an appeal did not come in in the time is given. I think this is the right period and will not work to the disadvantage of the appellant.

§ Mr. Silkin
I hope the Minister will reconsider his decision. I visualise a case where a man applies to the Minister for a pension and is turned down, possibly on the ground that the injury did not arise out of war service. That man may be in some difficulty in getting necessary evidence on which to put in an appeal. A witness or some person who might have given evidence on behalf of the appellant may be abroad, may be on service, or the appellant may not be able to find him; he may have come home, and the appellant does not know his address. Such a witness may turn up two or three years later. Under the Bill as it stands if further evidence arose after a year the appellant would not be able to appeal.

§ The Attorney-General
There is a later Amendment to give power to extend the time.

§ Mr. Silkin
Even so it does not depend on the Minister, but I will wait and see what the Amendment says.

§ Mr. Hogg
I should like to put before the Committee a slightly different point of view from either that of the Government or the Mover of the Amendment. There are before the Committee four alternative courses already on the Order Paper in relation to this particular matter. The first is the Bill as presented—a year from the appointed date. Those who have moved this Amendment say that a year is not enough, and I am inclined to agree with them, but that in itself is not satisfactory. It is obvious, I think, that the effect of making a person appeal within a year and thereafter lose his appeal is to deprive him for ever of justice. Those who have moved the Amendment say five years. That is more generous; I would prefer five years to one. But I do not think that that is the right way to approach the grievance. In all matters of appeal, the thing that matters is not the period of time within which the appeal must be brought, but 1182 the power of the tribunal to extend the period when injustice would otherwise be brought about. There are injustices caused by any rigid period of time, whether it is one year or five. Therefore, I suggest that it is better to have the existing period with the right of extension, than to have the extended period but to keep it rigid.
Then comes the question of what is to be the nature of the extension which is provided. The Government say that the tribunal ought to have the right of extending the time if they consider that there is reasonable excuse for the delay. In the view of my hon. Friends and myself, that is not good enough, because the test of the circumstances in which the tribunal should extend the period is not whether there was a reasonable excuse for delay, but whether any injustice will be caused by precluding the right of appeal. It is precisely the man who has no reasonable excuse who may be the man you want to help. A man who has, let us say, lost both his legs, and is therefore the sort of man we want to help, may, by ignorance of the law—which is no excuse—by inadvertance, even by laziness, have let the time go by.
We say that a mere piece of neglect on his part should not debar him for ever from receiving his right. We suggest that the correct thing is to accept the alternative in our names, that the tribunal shall have power to extend the time on such conditions as the tribunal shall think just. That is to say, if a man has caused a lot of trouble and expense to people by his carelessness, he may have to pay some of the costs arising from the delay; but there should be no rigid bar against his obtaining justice.

§ The Chairman
If the Committee agrees, it might be convenient to discuss all four Amendments relating to this matter together.

§ Mr. John Dugdale
I want to put the matter from a different point of view. After the last war the question arose about a man putting in a claim at all. It was decided that he could put in an original claim up to seven years after the war. What is going to happen in this case? Suppose that a man does not put in a claim for four or five years after the war, and suppose that when he does put it in it is turned down. Is there any right of 1183 an original claim? It seems to me that, if the Minister's proposal is adopted, if anybody appeals more than a year after the appointed day his appeal will be invalid; but if his original case is not brought up until two or three years afterwards, that will deprive him of any right of appeal. In fact, the right of appeal will cease before the right to bring his original case ceases.

§ Sir W. Womersley
I assure the hon. Member that that is not so. He is referring to the seven years' period in the Royal Warrant of the last war and the period in which the man can claim for this war. That has nothing to do with this question. When the man's claim has been refused, he can appeal within 12 months from that date.

§ Mr. Dugdale
Not 12 months after the appointed day?

§ Sir W. Womersley
No.

Dr. Morgan
Take the case of a seaman who goes on a long voyage, and after that voyage, which lasts perhaps four months—I am speaking of a case of which I have knowledge through my trade union connection—he sustains an accident, and has to remain a considerable time in hospital. During that time he does not bother much about letters, except to find out whether his people at home are all right, and to let them know that he is not.

§ Sir W. Womersley
Such a case is dealt with.

Dr. Morgan
Is it dealt with on the grounds of reasonable excuse?

§ Sir W. Womersley
Yes.

Dr. Morgan
If reasonable excuse is to be liberally interpreted to cover cases of that kind, that meets my point.

§ The Attorney-General
I would suggest that the form of the Government Amendment is, on the whole, the best. This is always a difficult question. One can, at any rate, assume that the tribunal would construe reasonable excuse generously. It is desirable that men should be encouraged to bring these appeals on, in their own interest and in the interest of arriving at the real facts. I am told that in the Act of the last war there was no power 1184 to extend the time, which was a flat 12 months. The Minister has told me that in some cases people were shut out and wanted to bring their appeals on afterwards, and we thought that there should be power in this Measure to extend. We do not believe that it is going to be a big problem. I agree with my hon. Friend that the question is not so much one of reasonable excuse for delay as of injustice which might be done. We believe that the period of 12 months is quite reasonable—and the man has only to put in his notice; it is not necessary for the case to be completed. Happily, too, these ex-Service men are looked after by the British Legion and other organisations. If a man does not put in his appeal within 12 months, he has to produce some excuse. It is not sufficient to say that he has sat still and the time has passed by. We believe that the tribunal will construe reasonable excuse generously, but that the principle should be affirmed in the Bill.