HC Deb 30 July 1946 vol 426 cc913-4

Lords Amendment: In page 36, line 31, at end, insert: (2) The persons selected as members of the said committees may include persons put forward by organisations concerned with the interests of employers or insured persons, including friendly societies or organisations representative of friendly societies.

10.17 p.m.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths)

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The Amendment permits representation of the friendly societies on the local advisory committees which we are setting up under the Bill. The Amendment was moved in another place, and we thought that it was a desirable one. It gives the friendly societies direct representation on local advisory committees. There will be another Amendment to give them a place on the National Insurance Advisory Committee.

Mr. R. A. Butler (Saffron Walden)

We regard this Amendment as conscience money paid by the Government and their supporters to the friendly societies. This is a miserable substitute for the original proposal that the friendly societies should be used as paying agencies. We take it that the Government are accepting the Amendment because they want to give some satisfaction to the consciences of their supporters—200 of them—who signed a pledge to the friendly societies that the societies would be used as an integral part of the scheme. In our view, this is no substitute for the proper course which those hon. Members who got themselves returned to Parliament by the use of a pledge should adopt. We regard this as totally inadequate. I agree that there are some merits in associating the friendly societies, in the manner suggested by the Amendment, with this part of the administration of the scheme. I should like to pay tribute to the friendly societies for their forbearance in the trials through which they have had to pass. They believed the word of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and of one Minister of the Crown, and they have been absolutely let down by the Labour Government and their Labour supporters. I make no complaint of the Minister. His position throughout has been consistent. I make a complaint about those hon. Members who signed the pledge, and are now sheltering themselves behind a small and unimportant Amendment, in order to give satisfaction to the friendly societies which they so absolutely let down. We cannot oppose the Amendment because it is an advance. It brings the friendly societies in, and shows them that there is some contrition among hon. Members. But I feel that the Amendment is a very unsatisfactory substitute for what ought to have been put into the Bill.

Mr. James Griffiths

I do not propose at this stage to reopen an argument which we had in this House and on which the House came to a decision. That decision was in conformity with what the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) believed when he was Minister. All I have to say is that from the very beginning I have made it quite clear to the House that I am certain I have done the right thing. I am equally convinced of something else—that when we go to the country we shall get approval of what we have done.