§ Where a taxpayer is compelled through the physical or mental incapacity of a parent to maintain or contribute towards the maintenance of another member of the family in order to provide adequate domestic help such taxpayer shall be entitled to a tax allowance 1688 of fifty pounds per annum in respect of such relative in addition to any allowance payable in respect of the parent.—[Mr. Daggar.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mr. DaggarI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I am not very optimistic about this new Clause being accepted by the Chancellor, in view of the treatment meted out to the first new Clause moved this afternoon, which involved a similar principle. While it is difficult to decide which of the two is more important, I think that the circumstances in this Clause, which I have taken into consideration as the result of a case brought to my notice, deserve more sympathetic consideration by the Chancellor. A typical case for which this new Clause provides is that of a single woman who is in full-time employment. She has an invalid father of 76 years of age who has suffered from cardiac debility for a number of years. Lately, in addition to becoming totally deaf, he has developed a cataract on one of his eyes, and these disabilities have necessitated another sister looking after the home and the father. I ask that some tax relief shall be allowed in such cases. There are not many such cases which would be covered by this Clause, and I hope we shall not be told by the Financial Secretary that there is a danger, in making a concession of this kind, that it may be applied to other cases, because on the Order Paper it is definitely stated that this is a tax relief which shall apply in certain cases. In addition, I am beginning to think that all the money available for concessions on such cases as this has been given to the Opposition, because the first Amendment moved to the Finance Bill involved a concession amounting to £1,500,000, so that it does not appear that there is any money available to meet such hard cases as this. I ask the Chancellor, in view of the fact that there cannot be many such cases, that a hard case like this may be provided for by making the concession asked for in the new Clause.
§ Mr. Glenvil HallThe arguments against my right hon. Friend accepting this new Clause have already been put from this Box, in part by myself and later, by my right hon. Friend, The Debate ranged fairly widely, and there is very little I can say now if I am not to repeat most of what was said by my right hon. Friend or by others in the earlier Debate. This new 1689 Clause ranges a little wider than some of the others, in that it would allow the employment of a housekeeper, who need not be resident, and also other domestic assistance. "Other domestic assistance" may mean any kind of help. My right hon. Friend is extremely sympathetic towards the case which has been put forward, but, in our view, the cases which have been put before the Committee today cannot be assisted in the way suggested by the mere extension of the housekeeper allowance. We must help people of that kind in some other way.
As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the new social security code, which comes into full operation during the next year, will assist quite a number of these cases. In addition, if, when that code has been put into operation, there are cases which need help, and which are not caught up by that legislation—and it covers a very wide field—I can assure the Committee that my right hon. Friend will be only too willing to look at them. People who need help in their homes are not the only people who need help, and it may be that people whom my hon. Friend is anxious to help would not be helped by this new Clause. In the last two Budgets my right hon. Friend has taken well over two million people out of the range of Income Tax. Many of these people, too, could not be helped in their homes, but would need to go to nursing homes, and this Clause could not help them. We cannot accept this Clause because of this, and the other reasons which have been advanced, and also because of my right hon. Friend's promise that next year, or as and when the new social security code operates, he will look with the utmost sympathy at the circumstances in which an allowance of this kind would help.
§ Mr. StanleyI want to make quite certain that what the Financial Secretary has said has not in any way detracted from the promise the Chancellor gave on a new Clause which was moved earlier. The words of the Financial Secretary seemed a great deal colder and much more hedged round with provisos than the words of the Chancellor, on the strength of which we forebore to press a previous Clause to a Division. He said first that the law in respect of these cases was not satisfactory, that in many cases help was being given in a different way, but not in all, and that, without waiting for codes 1690 to come into effect or anything else, the right hon. Gentleman would, between now and his next Budget, consider these and other cases, and in the next Budget he would be prepared to give us the result of his conclusions. I only wanted to make certain that what I then considered a satisfactory promise is not now being whittled down in any way.
§ Mr. DaltonNo, Sir, that is quite correct. My right hon. Friend did not intend, in the words he used to diminish that. For the sake of clarity, I repeat, for the second time, what I said. There will come into operation in the coming months our new schemes of social insurance. We have also made various improvements this year. In the light of these two changes, shall be glad, between now and next year, to consider the group of hard cases, some of which, but not all of which, have been raised today, and make submissions to the House in due course.
§ Mr. DaggarI beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ The ChairmanI would like to refer to the point raised a little while ago by the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) as to the circumstances in which a Clause could, by leave, be withdrawn. I have refreshed my memory, and lie was quite right. The Question might have been put at once from the Chair, after leave to withdraw had been sought by the Mover. As, however, I had not proposed it or taken the pleasure of the Committee in regard to the withdrawal of the new Clause, it was competent for me to do so notwithstanding the intervention of the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin). The right hon. Gentleman was, therefore quite right, and I am obliged to him.