NATIONAL INSURANCE CLAIMS (Hansard, 4 April 1950)

§ Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, East)
I beg, to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Regulations, dated 7th March, 1950, entitled the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Amendment Regulations, 1950 (S.I. 1950, No. 297), a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th March, be annulled. I want to make it quite clear at the outset that I do not desire these Regulations to be annulled. For the benefit of new Members may I say that the only way to obtain a Debate on these Regulations is to move that they be annulled. If they came into the category of affirmative Resolutions, the Government would have to move them and then we should be free to have a Debate. The reason why I do not desire these Regulations to be annulled is that they represent a slight improvement on the existing situation, which has certain novel features about it. I should think that in the last eight or nine years I have probably looked at—I will not say studied—more Statutory 1136 Rules and Orders, as they used to be called, Statutory Instruments as they are now called, than any other right hon. or hon. Member. I should think I have looked at some 20,000.
If hon. Members have a copy of the Regulations they will see, on the second page, a Schedule on which I would congratulate the right hon. Lady if she is to be praised—though I do not think she is. I think it was her predecessor, because she had been in office only about four days when she signed it. It says what Regulation 11 will be as amended, and that makes it much more convenient for hon. Members taking part in this Debate than if that Schedule had not been reprinted as amended.
However, I am still not clear whether it is as amended or as hereinbefore amended, because paragraph 2 says: Paragraph (2) of regulation 11 of the principal regulations as amended shall be amended in accordance with the next following paragraph. I think it really means that what appears on page 2 is as further amended. I am not quite clear about that, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) will deal with that later.
My real reason for moving this Prayer is that under the National Insurance Act unless a person applies for benefit within a prescribed period of time he will lose it. The State exists under strict regulations. There is a gentleman called "The Comptroller and Auditor-General." If any Minister makes any payment which is outside the scope of Parliament or of a Regulation made under an Act of Parliament, then some very rude words are said and repeated to the Public Accounts Committee of this House. Accordingly, the State is harsh of necessity because of our financial procedure in dealing with claims.
It happens that I am a director of an insurance company. Any hon. Members who are insured against anything will know that when they get their policy there are dozens of paragraphs printed in small type which none of us ever read, all designed to deal with the people who try, in some way or another, to defraud the insurance company. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] Certainly, that is why they are all put in. Everybody knows that. It is obvious. A policy is started at the 1137 first stage, then somebody finds some fraudulent way of getting round it and, therefore, a new paragraph is put in next time it is printed. However, a board of directors have a free discretion and, accordingly, if they get an honest, straight-forward claim, they never take advantage of these numerous clauses. [Laughter.] Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite can giggle, but if they will supply me with a single example where any decent insurance company has tried to get out of its obligations in that way, they will be entitled to giggle.
I have been a director of an insurance company for nine years. I cannot remember one case—and I have taken an opportunity of checking up for this Debate—where we have ever tried to evade our obligations through a technicality. I am not blaming the Minister; she is tied by the strict terms of the Act. She cannot expend one pennyworth of benefit outside the scope of the Act or the Regulations made under the Act. The instrument we are discussing makes the situation rather better, though I must say that the words are difficult to understand. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford will explain what is meant by the following: (b) after sub-paragraph (g), there shall be added the following sub-paragraph:— (h) in the case of an increase, in respect of a child or adult dependant, of unemployment benefit, or sickness benefit, the period of one month from the date on which, apart from satisfying the condition of making a claim, the claimant becomes entitled thereto, subject to the qualification that if, in the case of the benefit of which that increase is claimed, the prescribed time is extended in accordance with the proviso to this paragraph, the period of one month shall (subject to the condition contained in the next succeeding paragraph) be increased by a period equal to the period commencing on the said date and ending on the date on which the claim for the said benefit was made:' I do not understand that, and I do not suppose that the right hon. Lady does, although I have not the slightest doubt a very intelligent brief has been prepared for her by her friends in Newcastle. Quite honestly, as far as I understand it—which, I must admit, is in a limited way—I think that these Regulations make the situation a little better. I hope that as a result of tonight's Debate, the right hon. Lady—and she knows from the conversation we had the other day that I am not opposing 1138 them—will examine the whole position with regard to these time limits.
My attention was attracted to this question as long ago as 28th October last year, when a lady who is now one of my constituents, and was then one of the optimists who thought she would become one of my constituents, wrote to me about a particular case. I will not read the whole letter, for that would be an abuse of the patience of the House. This lady said: For a period of 22 years I have regularly subscribed to the National Health Insurance Scheme. She, like many other people, had not realised that when the Act about which we are now talking was introduced, the approved societies vanished; and she wrote to her approved society. That was the wrong source of information. It is my regret that I have to pay contributions under the Act. I do not claim any benefits, and if I did, quite frankly I do not know how to set about it. That is probably true of the majority of hon. Members in this House, many of whom are now compulsorily insured.

§ Mr. Shurmer (Birmingham, Sparkbrook)
Not on this side of the House. We know all about it.

§ Sir H. Williams
If the hon. Gentleman thinks he represents the greater part of Birmingham, I should—in passing—be inclined to doubt his statement.

§ Mr. Shurmer
Many of us have been insured all our lives.

§ Sir H. Williams
The most up-to-date form of the scheme was only introduced in 1925, when I first became a Member of this House. The Lloyd George Scheme was introduced in 1912, but the hon. Member does not look much older than that, so I do not think he can have subscribed to it.
This lady of whom I am speaking made an application to her approved society, which was the wrong course to adopt—she did not know. She had paid her contributions for 22 years. She did not know the procedure, and I cannot blame her. By the time her application reached the right Department it was out of date, and although she had been ill for a month she was denied her four weeks' sickness benefit. I think that that is quite monstrous. She had paid into the scheme, was entitled to the benefit, and ought to have 1139 had it. If she had been insured with any kind of private insurance company she would have got her benefit.
By the time she wrote to me things had gone some distance. She went to the tribunal. I think that that is the right description of the people who say "No" after the official of the Ministry has said "No." She was turned down, and then I wrote a letter to the right hon. Lady's predecessor. Although I was not then in Parliament, he and I were, on personal grounds, good friends. He wrote back to me in due course, and said: I am very sorry, but I have no power. The right hon. Lady can, no doubt, get a copy of the letter which her predecessor wrote to me. If she cannot find a copy in her records, I think I have it in my office.
Her predecessor said to me that he had no power to pay this lady the pension, which on every kind of ground she was entitled to receive. This seems to me quite wrong. The State is always the worst landlord—it is in duty bound to extract the last penny. The State is the worst granter of pensions, because one cannot go outside the terms of the Act of Parliament, and it is the worst granter of health benefits, because the Act of Parliament restricts the Minister absolutely—there is not the slightest doubt about it. Therefore, when Regulations of this kind are produced, they ought to have a wide scope so that the Minister has a reasonable measure of discretion, so that people are not deprived of benefits in the way that this particular lady in my constituency has been deprived of benefit; and I am certain that that must be true of very large numbers of others.
When her predecessor writes to me and says, "I am very sorry, but I have no power," I want the right hon. Lady so to frame her Regulations that when a case of this kind happens she will have discretionary power, so that when a perfectly honest person applies he or she may get the benefit. For that reason, I am moving the Prayer so that the matter may be debated and the House may realise the disabilities which now exist. I hope that as a result of the Debate the right hon. Lady will look into the problem, which is a grave problem and may affect tens of thousands 1140 of citizens whom we represent in this House. I hope that my hon. Friend will explain those parts of the Regulations which I do not understand.

§ Mr. Derek Walker-Smith (Hertford)
I beg to second the Motion moved with such characteristic force by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon. East (Sir H. Williams).
I think I should make clear at the start that, in spite of the burden of explanation which my hon. Friend seeks to lay upon me, I am very far from claiming any of that share of omniscience to which the hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Shurmer) laid claim in one of his characteristically sedentary contributions. I second the Motion in the same spirit as that in which my hon. Friend moved it, not at all in a spirit of hostility or controversy, but merely in a spirit of interrogation. What we seek, in fact, if not in form, is not the annulment of the Regulations, but merely a reassurance in regard to their working.
I want to add to what fell from my hon. Friend in regard to procedure that it would be a very good thing—I hope I am in Order in saying this—if the procedure of this House allowed the House to take into consideration Regulations without necessarily having a Motion to annul them. As it is, one is obliged to put down the Motion for annulment in order to ventilate a subject at all. Therefore, on this occasion the right hon. Lady will, I hope, acquit us of any intention of trailing our coats and, if she be in a sufficiently historic and imaginative mood, she may visualise my hon. Friend and myself in the somewhat unlikely role of two Sir Walter Raleighs putting down our coats the better to facilitate her progress in explaining these regulations. I am glad that the imagination of the House did not find that too difficult.
My hon. Friend has laid upon me a burden of explanation which, I think the House will agree, properly belongs to the Minister and not to me. The House will appreciate that this is an Amendment and a comparatively small Amendment of the principal Regulations referred to in these Regulations, that is to say, the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Regulations of 1948. They deal with provisions 1141 as to claims and payments in respect of sickness, unemployment and other matters. The House will be at one in considering that people in the unfortunate state of requiring sickness or unemployment benefit are fully entitled to all the reasonable consideration that this House is able to give them.
Regulation 11, which is the Regulation dealt with by this amending Regulation, deals with the period within which benefits must be claimed if the applicants are not to be disqualified. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, these amending Regulations increase the period in certain limited cases. My hon. Friend read out the amendment by way of the addition of paragraph 8 and invited me to explain its effect to the House. With great respect to my hon. Friend, I do not think it is as difficult as perhaps he made it sound when he read it out to the House just now. All that sub-paragraph (a) means—I speak subject to correction by the right hon. Lady—is that in this special category of cases, where an increase is claimed in respect of a child or adult dependant for unemployment or sickness benefit, there shall be this period of one month. The second half of the sub-paragraph, which is perhaps the part which sounded a little difficult, simply means that the month shall be added to any extension of time given under the proviso referred to in Regulation 11. The right hon. Lady will no doubt say whether that is the correct interpretation of the Regulation.
As my hon. Friend has said, that is a good amendment because it is an extension of time, albeit in a narrow class of case. But the question as to whether it is a good enough amendment depends on how far the general provisos in regard to the extension of time given in Regulation 11 works out in practice. It is right for me to say that those two provisos give the right in certain circumstances, to an extension of time. As my hon. Friend did not read them it would perhaps be convenient if I read them to the House. The first proviso under Regulation 11 (1) reads: Provided that, subject to the condition contained in paragraph (3) of this regulation, if in any case the claimant proves— (i) that on a date earlier than the date on which the claim was made, apart from satisfying the condition of making a claim, he was entitled to the benefit;"— 1142 I think that is clear— and (ii) that throughout the period between the earlier date and the date on which the claim was made there was good cause for delay in making such a claim; he shall not be disqualified under this paragraph for receiving any benefit to which he would have been entitled if the claim had been made on the said earlier date. Then in subsection (2) of that Regulation there is this further proviso: Provided that, subject to the condition contained in the next succeeding paragraph, if the claimant proves that there was good cause for the failure to make the claim before the date on which it was made, the prescribed time shall be extended to the date on which the claim is made. The House will agree that the wording of these two provisos is not unreasonable, but the House will also be quick to see that the whole effect of them depends on the interpretation in practice of the phrase "good cause" as contained in the provisos, and of which, so far as I can see, there is no statutory definition contained in the regulations or elsewhere. As I understand the matter, the interpretation of "good cause" in any particular case presumably rests in the first instance with the insurance officer under Regulation 10 of the principal regulations, the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Regulations. I take it also that Regulation 11 gives the right of appeal from the insurance officer to the local tribunal constituted for the hearing of appeals? That, I understand from my study of the regulations to be the practice in regard to the interpretation of what is "good cause" in any particular case.
The right hon. Lady alone has the necessary knowledge and experience to inform the House how in practice the phrase "good cause" is and has been interpreted since these Regulations of 1948 came into effect. I should like to ask her, and I think hon. Members in all quarters of the House will be interested to know, how this phrase "good cause" is interpreted and whether it follows that broad path of humanity and good sense which my hon. Friend has indicated has been the practice of the best private insurance companies.
Does this interpretation allow for human oversight and human ignorance; because after all we are concerned here with people who are in a state wherein 1143 they are qualified for sickness or unemployment benefit, and they are entitled to consideration in that regard. If they do not take account of these things I hope that the Minister will be able to say that they will be taken account of in future. I hope that the Minister, in her reply, will be able to reassure the House on this point I have raised. I do not apologise for seconding my hon. Friend in this matter, even if there is no intention of seeking an annulment of this Regulation, because of the importance of this subject to a large number of the community. It is in that spirit and for that reason that I have much pleasure in seconding this Motion.

§ Mr. Daines (East Ham, North)
The hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), in moving this Prayer rightly called the attention of the House to the fact that the Regulations are an extension and therefore will not be opposed. In brief, they extend—and I think quite rightly—the time of notification for dependants if there has been a clerical oversight in the original claim. The hon. Member for Croydon, East, in presenting his Prayer, compared it with what he called the good practices of the past private insurance companies. He knows very well, as I know, that the operation of this type of sickness insurance is an entirely different thing from a policy with specified diseases which is renewable yearly at the option of the company. I have never yet heard of a policy which can be carried on indefinitely solely at the wish of the policy holder, and the hon. Member knows very well that that is no true basis of comparison.

§ Sir H. Williams
I was thinking not in terms of sickness insurance, but of any kind of insurance whatsoever.

§ Mr. Daines
It is quite obvious that we are dealing with sickness insurance or contingencies which arise there from. The true basis of comparison is not a yearly policy of the type I have outlined, and to which he called attention in rather a vague way, but the old National Health Insurance. I think the House should compare the conditions under which benefit is granted today with the old National Health Insurance with the approved societies. At least on this side of the 1144 House, we know that the Regulations governing the National Health Insurance in the old days were very rigid; and if notification of sickness was not given within three days benefit was only paid from the time the certificate was adopted.
It is perfectly true, of course, that with the approved societies attached to the large insurance offices, the industrial insurance offices, many agents, for a variety of reasons, sometimes marked their certificate that they received it on a certain date if that would help their clients—particularly if the client had industrial insurance. But I can assure the House and the hon. Gentleman that the approved societies did rigidly stick to the notification and only paid benefit from the time when the certificate was received. I had a wide experience, with many of my hon. Friends, of what happened in the old days.
What is the different position today? On the occasion of the first notification, in practice the local office accepts the certificate up to 10 days. That is nearly three times as long as it was under the old method. After that, on the occasion of the second certification a further period can be allowed if there is an appeal. If it occurs again, the matter can go to a committee established under the Act where a case may be stated. I have very little knowledge of any comparable procedure under the old system. I submit that not only the Regulations themselves but the humane, and I think overgenerous, way in which they are put into operation today show a different picture from that painted by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
I call attention to what would happen if the relaxation which they propose occurred. The argument is that a person can make a sick claim at any time. A person could have his month or two-month period of sickness and, if the wishes of hon. Gentlemen opposite were granted, he would be able to put in a claim when the sickness period was completed. I do not doubt that the Minister will tell us that there is always a high proportion of cases where, when the person is faced with a demand to go before the regional medical officer, he immediately backs out and goes to work. In practice the fact is that we would have no check at all upon this matter.
1145 I would say to the Minister that we want a speed-up in administration. We want sick visiting made as efficient as it was under the old approved society system. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"] I do not see any reason for excitement. We want the system to run efficiently. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have asked for something which would mean the abolition of efficiency. I suggest that if the ideas of hon. Gentlemen opposite were put into operation either by regulation or administration, it would render the whole system completely inefficient. It would cause a complete breakdown in administration. What is needed is not the relaxation for which they have asked, but proper organisation to prevent malingering.

§ Mr. Walker-Smith
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman wishes to be fair and that he will have appreciated from the speech I made that I did not suggest any amendment of the Regulations, at any rate at this stage. What I asked was that the Minister should give an account of how the phrase "good cause" in the proviso is interpreted.

§ Mr. Daines
I agree. I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I thought that he was acting in the rôle of legal adviser to his hon. Friend and that he did not know much about National Insurance.

§ The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill)
I confess that I was surprised to learn that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), proposed to pray against a Regulation which I considered was of a highly beneficial character—

§ Sir H. Williams
I said that.

§ Dr. Summerskill
—and which would commend itself to both sides of the House. Now he honestly tells us that he has prayed against this Regulation to secure an opportunity to pursue an argument which he hoped would convince me that it was necessary for me to introduce another Regulation, or to amend this one, so that those who claim personal benefit would secure the advantage of the provisions included in this Regulation. I think that you and I, Mr. Speaker, have seen many Prayers in this House, and I have answered many Prayers in the last 1146 few years I thought by now that the House knows that a Debate on a Prayer is very limited, and I thought that the hon. Member for East Croydon, if he will forgive my saying so, tonight displayed his characteristic Parliamentary wiliness in managing to pursue his argument without interruption from you, Mr. Speaker—

§ Sir H. Williams
Why should I have been interrupted?

§ Dr. Summerskill
—and successfully end it and sit down without any interruption. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will not call me to order if I answer the hon. Gentleman, although I know that, in answering him, I shall have to go outside this Regulation, and, therefore, I believe that I shall be infringing the Rules of the House.
The hon. Gentleman expressed the view that I was not responsible for the conception of this particular Regulation. I agree that I was not there when it was conceived, but I was there at the delivery, and I am proud of the child and hope that the whole House is. With all respect to the hon. Gentlemen who have moved and seconded this Prayer, their speeches were a little confusing both to hon. Gentlemen opposite and hon. Gentlemen behind me. May I say that I understood what they were asking for, but I think they are not perhaps quite clear in their own minds what the effect of this demand would be?
The object of this Regulation is to extend the time limit during which claims for dependants of an applicant for sickness or unemployment benefit may be made, and the two hon. Gentlemen opposite have asked that this concession should be extended to the applicant applying for personal benefit. Hitherto, there has been no time limit prescribed for claiming for the dependants of the applicant, and it has been accepted that the application for benefit for the dependants should be subject to the time limit for personal benefit. Now we have extended that in order that the dependant's benefit may be claimed within a month of the claim for personal benefit. We have also made it quite clear that if good cause can be proved this period shall be further extended, and, in this connection, I have been asked to define "good cause." We believe that it was right and proper 1147 to allow the Statutory authorities to exercise their discretion in this matter.
I am quite prepared to give the House two illustrations in order to prove that these Regulations are being administered in a humane manner and not in the harsh way which the hon. Member for Croydon, East, quite unfairly suggested.

§ Sir H. Williams
rose—

§ Dr. Summerskill
I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman, and he himself must exercise patience.

§ Mr. Daines
On a point of Order. The House must have heard the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) say that the Minister was "going to get it in the neck." Is that a Parliamentary expression?

§ Mr. Speaker
I never heard it; it never reached me.

§ Dr. Barnett Stross (Stoke-on-Trent, Central)
I distinctly heard the hon. Gentleman say that you were going to get it in the neck, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not know what hon. Gentlemen there heard, but I heard nothing here.

§ Dr. Summerskill
I think you and I are quite capable of defending ourselves, Mr. Speaker. We must present a united front to the hon. Gentleman if he tries to "give it to us in the neck."
The hon. Gentleman wanted me to define what "good cause" may mean. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) present. Perhaps with his medical knowledge he would agree that what we consider a good cause would be considered a good cause from the medical point of view. If, for example, an applicant had an injury to the skull as a result of which he had developed some neurosis, we might consider he was not fit to make an application. I consider that would be fair and humane. Furthermore, if a husband who is suffering from some illness wishes to make an application for benefit and is unable to do so and asks his wife to fill up the form, she may not be able to understand forms and may not fill it up properly. Again the statutory authorities would exercise their discretion and might agree that because the husband was ill and unfit to 1148 make application, the claim should be allowed. The hon. Gentleman will agree that these two definitions should be regarded as fair and just.
The hon. Member for Croydon, East, believes that he is raising a new point, but does he realise that the applicant for personal benefit can give notice during the first three days and can establish his claim during the ten days? "Notice" does not mean that he has to fill up a certificate. He can simply write on a piece of paper, "I am ill," sign it and see it is sent to the appropriate office. During the ten days he has an opportunity to establish his claim. I know the hon. Gentleman was in this House with me 10 or 12 years ago. Did he have any applications from people like Miss May, in his constituency, who felt aggrieved because their claims had not been recognised? Did he have any similar applications then?

§ Sir H. Williams
No.

§ Dr. Summerskill
That is exactly the answer I want. Does the hon. Gentleman know that similar time limits have been effective for the last 30 years? The hon. Gentleman gives me my case. We have, of course, adopted these time limits from the old National Health Insurance scheme which has operated for the last 30 years. The hon. Gentleman comes here tonight and quite fairly says this Miss May is aggrieved, but he has only had one Miss May in 30 years who has felt aggrieved, and he comes here and asks my Department to remedy what he believes is a universal grievance. That is not so.
I am not advancing the argument that because these Regulations have been operating for a long period that is in itself an argument for not changing them. The hon. Gentleman may well say I have not served long enough in my Department to know whether there is a genuine grievance or not. Though I have been only two or three weeks in my present Department, I served for 20 years in a consulting room and sick room. The hon. Gentleman will agree with me that in this matter it is perhaps in the consulting room and in the sick room where one can judge the validity of the hon. Gentleman's claims.
The House must recognise that my Department must exercise effective control in the administration of these great 1149 insurance schemes. They must realise there is no evidence so far as we know to support the hon. Gentleman's claim, and furthermore, my duty is to hold the balance between too lax an administration and too rigid an administration. How can we, after all, check up whether a patient is suffering from some genuine sickness or feels that he or she would like a little holiday over a period of two or three weeks? It can only be done by a personal scrutiny of the application, and, as one of my hon. Friends suggests, by asking for a second opinion from the regional officer and by certain routine checks to which my Department is accustomed.
It would be quite impossible if we accepted the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Croydon, East, tonight that those who are claiming for personal benefits should be given a period of at least a month before making the claim. It would be impossible to check up on these people, who perhaps have abused the scheme so far as they have indulged in taking short periods off too frequently. It is clear that if a person is sick or falls ill tomorrow and does not make the claim within a month my Department is hamstrung so far as making any investigation is concerned.
I think the hon. Member would be the first to say it would be quite wrong to ask us to introduce regulations which would prevent my Department from doing its duty. I want to assure the House that we are very much alive to the fact that these time limits should not be too rigid, and in order to prove we can take this matter seriously I want to remind the hon. Gentleman that recently we have extended the time limits for maternity benefits.

§ Sir H. Williams
It does not affect me.

§ Dr. Summerskill
The time has now been extended for nearly a year and—I think this will satisfy him—because we are now considering the case of people in hospital, where this general control which must be exercised is not necessary, I am prepared to consider extending the time during which they can claim for personal benefit. And, Miss May will be glad to hear of this. The hon. Gentleman said Miss May knew nothing about forms, knew nothing about our regulations. She was sick for the first time and 1150 was told she could not obtain the benefit because she had not made the claim in time. I am prepared to consider this.
I think the hon. Gentleman should be pleased to know I am considering a concession, but I must confess it was before this Prayer that the matter was first considered. I will consider whether those people who claim for the first time should have the period extended during which they could claim. I think it is the fair and right approach. I do not want the House to ask me to commit myself to it tonight. I recognize that in the initial stages of a great scheme there are people who find forms a little confusing and I am prepared to consider this. Furthermore, I should like the House to know that full publicity will be given to the Order and to any changes we are prepared to make in the time limit. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to reconsider the whole matter and withdraw the Prayer.

§ Sir H. Williams
In view of the concession made rather late and after a most ungracious speech by the right hon. Lady, I beg to ask leave to withdraw.