HC Deb 22 June 1948 vol 452 cc1319-26

Motion made, and Question put, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Robert Taylor.]

1.16 a.m.

Mr. E. P. Smith (Ashford)

I shall make no apology whatever for opening this Debate on the Adjournment even at this late hour, because the case which I wish to exhibit to the House is, in my judgment, one of such shocking injustice that if the time had been a quarter-past ten in the morning, instead of a quarter-past one, I should still be here in my seat to plead my case. I call it, "The Amazing Case of Mr. Potts," and I believe Members on all sides of the House will be amazed when they hear the story which I am going to unfold. On 20th February last, a little house in a small Kentish village was burned to the ground. The inhabitants escaped with their lives, but only just. All else was consumed. Among them was an old age pensioner, Mr. Potts, and his wife.

Now, Mr. Potts is one of those citizens of this country who have had an obscure but nevertheless distinguished career. As a boy of seventeen, he joined the Buffs. He took part in the North-West Frontier Campaigns of 1897 and 1898; he fought throughout the South African War; and he served throughout the whole of the First World War. Then for 24 years he was the rural postman in the village of Appledore in Kent, the next village to my own, where he was a much loved and much respected public servant. In the evening of his life, he has lost his home, his belongings, his chattels, his clothes, his ration books, his identity card and last, but not least, his old age pensioner's privilege tobacco token book. He could not get this last item re-issued to him, so he applied to me.

"It is not, sir," he said, "as if I had lost it through carelessness or negligence. If I had, I would not have asked for its re-issue. But I lost it through circumstances over which I had absolutely no control." "Oh, there'll be no difficulty about that, Mr. Potts," I replied airily, "The Chancellor of the Exchequer is quite a decent sort of bloke. And I'm sure he'll understand." And then, in my fatal over-confidence, I committed what I realise now was a grievous blunder. I put down a question on the Order Paper. In reply to this Question, the Chancellor told me bleakly that to re-issue a book in these circumstances would lead to grave abuse. I could not refrain from wondering whether George Meredith had had a Ministerial reply of his own day in his mind when he penned the famous lines: Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul, When hot for certainties in this our life. I wondered what grave abuse the re-issue of a privilege tobacco book in these circumstances would entail. The Chancellor, as we all know, rarely speaks at random, and I realised it must be something very subtle indeed. Eventually it dawned on me that it might encourage old age pensioners who were heavy smokers to burn down their homes and their furniture and all their belongings in order to obtain an extra and illicit privilege tobacco book, having presumably previously deposited their existing book in a place of safety. What other abuse a liberal gesture of this character to this old and poor public servant would encourage I have been unable to discover, and I look forward tonight to some information and enlightenment on the subject; nor do I envy the right hon. Gentleman his task of replying to me.

Now, when this answer was conveyed to Mr. Potts, he made a statement which is movingly illustrative of the essential pathos of faith. He said, "If Sir Stafford Cripps says that, he must have right on his side." But that is more than a mere statement of faith. It is a classic example of the non sequitur, which may be defined philosophically as a fallacious deduction resting on an unrelated hypothesis. It is my fault that I should have made such a gross error as to have put down a Question on the Order Paper. I realise now that I ought to have gone and buttonholed the Chancellor of the Exchequer privately, chatted to him and coaxed him, and probably I should have got it. I put down a Question on the Order Paper because I was sure the answer would be "Yes, Sir": but it turned out to be "No, Sir"—and with knobs on. If you put a Question on the Order Paper, a Minister automatically assumes the defensive and often, in the case of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the aggressively defensive.

I have a great respect for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I admire his courage, tenacity and single-mindedness; but it is just those people for whom one entertains those sort of feelings who so often disappoint one—and I am most grievously disappointed in the Chancellor. If I have been less than tactful, he has been decidedly less than generous. The only person who comes out of this with flying colours is poor old Mr. Potts, but then he was flying his country's colours long before I was—or even the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The great Cardinal Manning had one favourite epithet which he used of his opponents—"mulish."Heaven forbid that I should call the right hon. and learned Gentleman mulish for, even at the 59th minute of the nth hour, he might yet grant this concession. But I must warn the Chancellor of the Exchequer that my self-imposed forbearance will end if he does not accede to what I want; and I do ask him seriously to give this matter a little more consideration. Even tonight it is not too late for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to attain salvation. The gates of Heaven are still ajar.

1.24 a.m.

Mr. Baker-White (Canterbury)

I support my hon. Friend. I have, of course, an interest in this case. I have had conversation and correspondence with the right hon. and learned Gentleman about it and I would like to emphasise what my hon. Friend has said. There was no possible ground to suppose that there was likely to be any fraud in this case. There were an ample number of witnesses, including a sufficient number of firemen, who saw the whole of the property destroyed. I believe the argument put forward is that these concession token books do not bear on them the name of the owner of the book, whereas the ration books do. I think I am right in saying that last year something like 900,000 ration books were lost and 900,000 new ration books and clothing books were issued to replace them. The number of old age pensioners likely to lose their tobacco tokens book must on any relation to that number be very small indeed. I have had correspondence from old age pensioners who say that in certain cases they have been ordered to put their names on these books.

There is another aspect of the question. Old age pensioners, particularly in the country, go to the local shop to get their tobacco; the shopkeepers know them and their wives very well by sight, and they would detect fraud, if any were attempted, probably quicker than anybody. To return to this question of the names on the token books, I wonder how many clothing books have their owners' names on them. The usual practice is to take the clothing book out of the ration book, and I do not suppose five out of ten people bother to put their names on the clothing book as well.

I reinforce my hon. Friend's plea that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should look at this case again. It is probable that these cases happen very infrequently, but when they do, they inflict very great hardship because the old age pensioner has not many pleasures in life, and pipe tobacco is one of the few. I do not believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury intended to be hard-hearted in this matter; what I think happened was that there was a rigid application of some principle thought out by a permanent official.

1.27 a.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall)

I need hardly say that my right hon. and learned Friend and myself have the utmost sympathy for Mr. Potts in the loss he sustained; it was undoubtedly a grievous loss. He lost his home and, I gather, everything except the night clothes in which he and his wife stood up. Among the other things he lost were the tokens which had been issued to him as an old age pensioner so that he might get his tobacco at a cheaper rate. From the accounts I have read, and from what the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. E. P. Smith) has said tonight, I know that Mr. Potts has had a long and honourable career in the service of his country in the Buffs. I also had the honour of serving in the Buffs for a period and that made my heart warm to Mr. Potts, particularly as it is quite obvious that he is a bit of a philosopher. He is taking his loss with more calmness than the hon. Member for Ashford and that, to me, is very much in his favour.

Books of tobacco tokens have been issued to about 1,500,000 people. When issued they contained 48 tokens worth two shillings apiece and had a total value of £4 16s. Next year, the tokens will each be worth 2s. 4d. and the total value will be k5 125. Thanks to the very proper decision of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that it should not be necessary for an old age pensioner himself to visit the tobacconist in order to cash his tokens, these tokens are very negotiable. Anyone who happens to have a tobacco book can walk into a tobacconist's establishment and use them. Therefore, they are a currency and do represent actual money. That is the answer to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Baker-White). The ration book or clothing book is simply a book of coupons. The coupons represent nothing except your right—if you have the money—to go into a shop and buy certain things. The tobacco tokens actually represent money itself.

Right from the beginning, it has been made clear to those entitled to these books that they are something definitely different from ration books. They were warned, and there is a notice in the books, that they should take great care of them because they are negotiable. Unless the most rigid precautions are taken, it is quite likely, and quite possible, that a black market might arise. The temptation to some old people, who do not themselves smoke or take snuff, to ask for a book and to pass it on might be overwhelming. Therefore, it has been necessary, and it has been made plain from the beginning, to say that the books must be treated like £1 or 10s. notes, or stamps, and that they cannot be replaced if they are lost. I do not know whether Mr. Potts lost any banknotes in the fire; but, if he did, if he cannot produce some sort of evidence of this, he must suffer the loss, because they cannot be replaced. Indeed, the hon. Member does not come to this House and ask us to replace any banknotes that Mr. Potts may have lost.

It has then been suggested that my right hon. and learned Friend should issue another book in this case because it is quite obvious that a book of tokens was lost in the fire, that there was no negligence on Mr. Pott's part, and that there is pretty ample evidence that the book has been destroyed. My right hon. and learned Friend has looked at this with the utmost sympathy, and he has come down in the end—

Mr. Smith

On the wrong side.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

He came to the decision that it would be quite impossible for it to be done. If it were done for Mr. Potts, it would have to be done for others. This is always the difficulty where you are dealing with a broad mass of taxpayers. You have to treat all alike. You cannot do what a big firm may do and make a concession in one case. If you make a concession once to one individual, you have to treat other individuals who may be in a like situation in the same way. Another person might not have a fire, but he might easily be able to argue, and perhaps with truth, that the wife, sorting out old letters on the mantlepiece, threw a batch of letters on the fire and that there must have been some current tobacco tokens among them. If my right hon. and learned Friend gave way here because a token book has been burnt, what is there to prevent him from having to give way in a similar case in which the same could be said. We have to remember that my right hon. and learned Friend is in a very difficult position if he does give way in this case.

While I do not put it forward as an argument for not doing something—I have already explained why this must be—I would add, in mitigation of what we do feel for Mr. Potts, that from all I hear, people have rallied round him to a considerable extent. So far as I know, he will have lost the value of about one pound of tobacco. In the Autumn, he will get another book of tokens. But while he has lost a certain number of coupons—I agree that it is a loss, and one that he will feel—I understand that he has been made presents of money and that people have sent him tobacco and cigarettes. That being so, we can feel that, while we sympathise with Mr. Potts, his loss is perhaps not as severe as the hon. Gentlemen would make out.

1.35 a.m.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan (Perth and Kinross, Perth)

I feel that we have listened to a most mean interpretation of this case on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. First, he implies that old age pensioners are dishonest. I wonder how many of the million-odd old age pensioners are dishonest. Then he implies that this book of coupons should have been kept in a safe place and was not; which presumably means, as Mr. Potts had on only his pyjamas, kept in the pocket of the pyjamas. Then he suggests that because the coupons represent money, no redress can be made, and that, therefore, they are different from ration books or clothing coupons. Does the right hon. Gentleman really think ration books and clothing coupons are not exchangeable for money? One can get any amount of money for them if one will try. They are just as exchangeable as tobacco coupons.

In the one or two cases—they must be few—in which tobacco coupons are lost, and proved by genuine evidence to have been lost surely exceptions can be made? It is typical of the Treasury that they should look at the matter like this. I am not suggesting that the right hon. Gentleman or his right hon. and learned Friend are mean-minded themselves. I am sure they are sympathetic. But why cannot they get over their permanent officials in this matter? Here is a case of an old age pensioner, a worthy old man in every sense of the word, who has suffered very considerable loss, which bears on an old man much more hardly than it would on a young man. Cannot an exception be made for the replacement of his coupons—not a whole year's coupons, but those for a portion of the year? I think that old age pensioners as a class are less likely to be dishonest than probably anyone else in the country, and to suggest that, because there may be one or two rogues among them, all the rest must suffer, is not worthy of a great Department. I think we ought to hear something better from the Treasury, for the help of this old man and other people like him.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-two Minutes to Two o'Clock.