HC Deb 21 April 1947 vol 436 cc635-41
The Lord Advocate (Mr. G. R. Thomson)

I beg to move, in page 52, line 25, at the end, to insert: (2) If the Secretary of State and the appropriate Minister are satisfied that any Act for the time being in force in England and Wales or in Northern Ireland makes provision with respect to the superannuation of persons employed in health services in England and Wales or in Northern Ireland which is substantially similar to the provision made under this Section, they may make regulations with respect to the rights and liabilities of any person who leaves employment in England and Wales or Northern Ireland entitling him to participate in superannuation benefits (whether provided under the said Act or otherwise) and enters into employment in respect of which superannuation benefits are provided under regulations made under Subsection (1) of this Section or into the employment of a local health authority in respect of which superannuation benefits are provided under the Local Government Superannuation (Scotland) Act, 1937, as extended or modified by the regulations or under a local Act scheme as so extended or modified, and vice versa, and with respect to the rights and liabilities of the Secretary of State, the appropriate Minister and other authorities concerned. In this Subsection the expression the appropriate Minister' means, as respects England and Wales, the Minister of Health, and as respects Northern Ireland, the Minister of Health and Local Government for Northern Ireland. The Subsection which this Amendment proposes to insert authorises the making of reciprocal arrangements between Scotland and England and Wales, or Northern Ireland, to safeguard the superannuation rights of persons who are transferred to employment in health services in Scotland, or transferred from health services there.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

This is a very interesting development. This olive branch held out to Ulster will be welcomed in all parts of the Committee, and not least in the bosom of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore). There have been arguments of the most vehement kind addressed to the House about the inadvisability of including Northern Ireland in our programme of legislation. I am glad to see that those arguments do not meet with any response in the bosom of the Lord Advocate. I understand this Amendment has to be read together with a later Amendment which makes the Bill no longer applicable only to Scotland, so that we are here legislating for the United Kingdom. This savours, I think, a little of sharp practice, because if this provision had been in the original Bill, the Bill could not have gone to the Scottish Grand Committee. Consequently, the matter was carefully left out of the original drafting of the Bill, and has been introduced at this stage. However, a friendly attitude towards Northern Ireland, bringing it into the comity of the nations, is greatly to be welcomed. I should like to ask whether this power exists in regard to other Services. Is this a new departure, or why has it been specially introduced in this case? Is there any chance of reciprocal services, health services and others, being extended further, not merely to various parts of the United Kingdom, but to other parts of the Empire? That matter is very much in people's minds just now. I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman could tell us what are the provisions with regard to other Acts, and whether this is sui generis or common form.

Mr. Westwood

I am not sure about the application of this provision in other Acts, but I think it applies in connection with the Education Act. It was also contained in the English National Health Service Act, and I informed the House, on Second Reading, that I could not bring in a superannuation Clause because it would have prevented the Bill from going to the Scottish Grand Committee. I entirely agree with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) that this provision is in the right direction, since it allows for the transfer between England and Scotland and Scotland and England, and Ulster, of all those who are engaged in public health services.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

As the Secretary of State said, the matter could not be referred to on Second Reading, and we have not had an opportunity of discussing it. I do not think it is going too far to ask the Government, on the Committee stage, to tell us what are the analogies. Surely, that is a reasonable request to make, considering that the Secretary of State has had this matter in mind ever since the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Westwood

I have said that the English Bill makes the same provision as the Scottish Bill. That was a sufficient argument for doing what I have done.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Education Act. Does it, or not, apply in that case? I am indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for sending to his officials to make inquiry, and I hope we may have the benefit of hearing the answer.

Mr. Westwood

I will give the answer. I have already indicated that it applies as far as education is concerned. It also applies in the case of the police and the Local Government Act.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. McKie

I welcome the reciprocal arrangements contained in this Clause with regard to England and Wales, and also concerning persons coming across the Channel from Northern Ireland. I particularly welcome the arrangement with regard to Northern Ireland, since Northern Ireland contains the nearest constituencies to some parts of my constituency. I do not grudge them anything that will make their position more satisfactory. When the Measure was before the Scottish Grand Committee, two points were put to the Secretary of State and the Joint Under-Secretary of State with regard to classes of persons who, as I understand, are not provided for under the Clause as originally drafted, or as it has been amended on recommittal. First, there are those officials or servants of voluntary institutions or hospitals which had no proper superannuation fund. A kind of fund existed, but it was not on a really actuarial basis. There was a moral responsibility of voluntary institutions to make proper provision.

Mr. Buchanan

May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman to say that in the Standing Committee I answered that point very fully, as I think the hon. and gallant Member for Pollok (Commander Gallbraith) will agree. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) applied his mind to this subject, and in answer to him—and he said he was quite satisfied—I said that we took over all the normal superannuation, but in the case of hospitals which might be taken over where there was no financial responsibility, but only a moral responsibility, we proposed to take over those persons also. Wherever there is anything like a moral responsibility—never mind a financial responsibility—we propose to take over these people and safeguard their rights in this respect.

4.45 P.m.

Mr. McKie

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, but he must not think I have not refreshed my memory, for I have taken the opportunity this afternoon to look up what was said on this point in the Standing Committee.

There was another point of even greater substance which was also raised in Standing Committee, and on which we did not receive the same adequate assurance as the Joint Under-Secretary of State was good enough to give upstairs and which he has repeated this afternoon. That has largely cleared my mind in regard to the moral responsibility resting on those institutions to make proper provision as far as they can for superannuation allowances, to former employees being carried on by the right hon. Gentleman and others who are concerned in the operation of this vas: comprehensive Measure.

Considerable dissatisfaction has been expressed in Scotland with regard to part-time workers, especially those employed by the insurance committees. In sorrow, not in anger, I record the fact that the right hon. Gentleman did not see fit, when he was drafting this long Amendment, to go a little further and introduce a new Subsection which would have given effect to the widespread desire expressed during the Committee stage, and would have relieved the anxiety of many deserving people in Scotland—as I say—part-time workers, particularly those employed by insurance committees. They are people who in the next five years, while this Measure is being brought into full operation, will have to work increasingly long hours. No provision whatever has been made, apart from the acceptance of a kind of moral responsibility. I suppose I shall be assured that there is such a responsibility. But nothing tangible has been done, or is being done, in this Clause, to give legal effect to the protection which these people should have. We believe that the great and gallant work which they have done for many years richly entitles them to such provision.

Sir William Darling (Edinburgh, South)

The effect of this Clause is to make the conditions of those engaged in the health service in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland identical. The tendency, regrettable though it may be, will be to encourage a further drift to the South. One of the main problems in Scotland for many centuries has been the loss of some of our ablest and best people in that way. What is here being done may be in the interests of the United Kingdom, but viewed more narrowly, in the interests of Scotland, it will encourage a further leakage of population. The tendency already exists to make England and Wales more attractive. By this Clause, which is, presumably, intended to help the National Health Service in Scotland, we shall encourage a loss of population from Scotland. There is already a manpower shortage, which will be increased. This will make easier this one-way traffic, which so many people in Scotland think is deplorable. That problem is raised in an acute form by this Clause.

I am all for the unification of conditions generally in this island so far as they can be unified. But there are disadvantages from which Scotland suffers, and which will be enhanced by such legislation as this. I do not take the narrow Scottish nationalist view, but here we are engaged in training people in the best health service in the world, in that hard atmosphere which is native to Scotland, and we are making it easier for them to leave Scotland than for them to settle there. If that is the intention of the Secretary of State, this Clause facilitates it. If it is his intention to secure, for Scotland, the best and ablest men, and attract them to Scotland, this Clause will not produce the desired result. This Clause says, in effect, "It is better to get out of Scotland; conditions are better in England." The Joint Under-Secretary of State shakes his head. If I am mistaken, I shall be glad to be corrected. If I understand the implications of the Clause, unquestionably the effect will be to tend to decrease the number of persons willing to remain in the service in Scotland.

Mr. Messer (Tottenham, South)

Does what the hon. Member has said mean that he does not believe in the transference of superannuation rights from Scotland?

Sir W. Darling

I believe in a general wide interchange, but I am opposed to having Scotland placed at a disadvantage by such an interchange. That would happen if exactly the same superannuation rights were given for the pleasure of living in, say, the pleasant locality of the hon. Member's constituency, instead of the rather bleaker parts of Scotland. Though the money figures are the same, in practice, the tendencies and advantages would be detrimental to Scottish interests. That is why I do riot oppose but question the implications of this Clause.

Sir T. Moore

The Joint Under-Secretary of State gave a definite undertaking in Standing Committee regarding the employees of insurance committees. That assurance was subsequently confirmed in writing, to my self at least, by the Secretary of State for Scotland. It was to the effect that these part-time employees would be absorbed, as conditions made it possible, and that their surperannuation, such as it was, would be no worse under this Measure than it is under their present circumstances. In case there should be any dubiety amongst members who were not present in the Committee, I feel it only right to make that clear. At the same time I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie), think that the assurance might have been inserted in this new Subsection. The assurance has already given great comfort to the employees of the insurance committees, and it would have removed any sense of fear or doubt if the necessary words had been included in the Amendment.

Mr. Buchanan

We have gone a considerable distance towards meeting the hon. and gallant Member's point, and, in practice, what we propose may possibly work cut better than a rigid line laid down in the Bill, that is, if it is left to the interpretation of the Secretary of State for Scotland. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) thinks that what we are proposing is unfair to Scotland. What would happen, if we did not make this provision? There might be a most capable Scotsman in the English, Welsh or Northern Ireland service, who might want to return and serve his country. Obviously, unless he could have his superannuation rights guaranteed, he would not return. This provision is far from being of disadvantage to Scotland. Not long ago I had an experience of the value of such a provision, in connection with work for which we wanted a man who had served the Ministry of Works well. He was a Scotsman. One of the things he wanted to safeguard was his superannuation rights if he returned to Scotland. That is sensible and proper, and that is all we are doing. We think that this provision is in the interests of the Scottish service.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.