HC Deb 12 July 1950 vol 477 cc1500-6

10.25 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Wolverhampton, South-West)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Regulations, dated 24th May, 1950, entitled the National Insurance (Classification) Amendment (No. 3) Regulations, 1950 (S.I., 1950, No. 830), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th May, he annulled. I want to raise a fairly narrow point in connection with these Regulations, but one which I think is not on that account necessarily unimportant. If paragraph 3 (5) of the Regulations is read in connection with paragraph 45 of the basic Regulations, it will be noticed that both have relation to persons employed on supervising, preparing or serving school meals in day schools under local education authorities. Provided these persons are employed for less than eight hours a week or at a weekly wage of less than £1 respectively, then they come out of class I of insured persons and fall into class II—that is, self-employed persons—or into class III—non-employed persons.

The consequence of these Regulations and the basic Regulations taken together is, therefore, that a local authority can, by re-organising its schedule for the service of school meals, increasing the staff and correspondingly lowering the hours of work which each member employed for the purpose does a week, effect a very substantial saving, since they do not then have to pay the 3s. 3d. employers' contribution in respect of class I insured workers.

I am not denying that this is a very beneficial provision from the point of view of the local authority, and that in the case of the vast majority of persons employed in this way it is not a serious hardship. That was in the minds of the National Insurance Advisory Committee, to which these draft Regulations, according to the Statute, had to be submitted. In their report upon these draft Regulations, the Advisory Committee very rightly said that: This work is undertaken mainly by married women who do not usually pay contributions, or by single women, most of whom are not dependent on the work for their main source of income. There is, however—and this is the point to which I want to draw the attention of the right hon. Lady—a small minority of persons employed on this service who are very hardly affected by these Regulations taken in conjunction with the basic Regulations. They are either widows or single women who have no other source of income than this job which they have undertaken. For example, they may be widows with children attending school, who have no further time for more hours of employment per week, or they may be single women with duties at home, to whom this is a method of supplementing what small income they have.

They are placed in a very serious position. In the case of a supervisor, by falling into class II of insured persons, they have to pay 5s. 1d. per week out of their earnings and they lose the unemployment benefit to which class I is entitled. In the case of servers and preparers of meals, they have to pay 3s. 8d. out of the reduced earnings and they lose both their unemployment and sickness benefit. It is perfectly true that the right hon. Lady may properly point out that they have an alternative, to claim exception on the grounds that their total income is less than £104 per annum but in that case they forfeit the whole or a considerable part of their pension benefits.

I hope that the Minister will be able to make some suggestion on the way in which the small minority affected by these Regulations can be assisted. I have it in mind, and I venture to throw it out as a suggestion, that the Minister of Education might think fit to circularise local education authorities, drawing their attention to this point and asking them to make special arrangements in these minority cases. I know that in my own constituency, when the effect of the Regulations was pointed out, such an arrangement was made, although only six or eight out of a total of 150 were affected. That was why I have put down this Motion, and I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to give us some assistance.

10.32 p.m.

Mr. Iain MacLeod (Enfield, West)

I beg to second the Motion.

After our false start last week, when my hon. Friend and I were facing the wrong way when the tapes went up, we have finally succeeded in bringing this under-sized nag before the right hon. Lady. I have nothing to add to what my hon. Friend has said, except this: this proposal was not in the preliminary draft that went to the National Insurance Advisory Committee and if one looks at the Report, one sees that representations were made to them. I should like to know, if possible, who made these representations, and whether it was the local authorities. If so, we must be careful that the other side put by my hon. Friend is not forgotten. There is an obvious financial advantage to local authorities in not having to pay their share of the contribution for pensions for these people. Perhaps the Minister will let us know that. I agree it is only a tiny minority who are affected, but we thought it right to bring this matter before the House to see if we could protect the rights of this minority in time coming.

10.34 p.m.

The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill)

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), who moved this Prayer, rightly said this was a narrow point, but I want to assure him that, though it is of no great substance, I am only too happy to answer any Prayer made against our regulations if hon. Members feel that even a small minority might feel aggrieved. I think I shall be able to prove to the hon. Gentlemen that if this Prayer is granted, we shall find that the great majority of workers who serve school meals will suffer a sense of grievance, because we shall leave the anomalous position which obtains now and they will feel that we have allowed that to persist. If I can prove that to the hon. Gentlemen, I think they will agree with me that I have to consider the happiness of the greatest number. If there are a few women who feel that they lose by this Regulation when it is operating, we have always to bear in mind the fact that there are many thousands more who would welcome its operation.

I think that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is under some misapprehension about how this Regulation came into being. He will recall that under the original classification regulation there were two relevant provisions dealing with part-time workers of this kind. The hon. Gentleman, is talking about the part-time workers who are employed in connection with school meals and who, so long as they were earning less than 20s. a week were excluded from class I. Then there was another part-time worker, the worker engaged in cleaning or domestic work. Such worker was excluded from Part 1 so long as she worked for not more than eight hours a week.

I want the hon. Gentleman to realise that the people whose position is the occasion for this Prayer are the school meal supervisors who obtained more than 20s. a week. They are on a part-time basis, and when that limit of 20s. a week was fixed we were not aware of the fact that some local authorities were paying £1 1s. 3d. That is the position. Other local authorities in different parts of the country are paying something like 18s. or 19s., but there are a few who are paying £1 1s. 3d. We have introduced this new Regulation to assimilate the position of these supervisors to that of the domestic workers and so remove the anomaly created by certain authorities paying 1s. 3d. more than the limit laid down in the original Regulation.

Mr. Powell

The right hon. Lady will agree, I think, that in the case of the supervisors the dividing line is not 20s. but eight hours employment a week. It is a minor point.

Dr. Summerskill

I was asked by the seconder of the Prayer about the source of our information. I agree that a local authority informed the National Insurance Advisory Committee, which is the committee which advises me on these matters, that this anomaly did exist. The National Insurance Advisory Committee considered the matter and came to the conclusion that the time had come to remove the anomaly in the interest of the great majority.

It has been suggested by the mover of the Prayer that local authorities who are very much interested in this matter could, by rearranging hours of work, save money. But does the hon. Member realise that if this allegation is correct the local authorities could have rearranged their work under the old scheme and so have avoided paying class I contributions. I think that is rather a serious allegation in view of the fact that most people know the local authority which gave the information to the National Insurance Advisory Committee, and I think the hon. Gentleman ought to give me the evidence which he has of making that assertion. But I think he will agree with me that if there was a local authority anxious to save the small amount which could have been saved in this way it could have done so before.

Now we come to the numbers involved. I think that the mover and the seconder of the Prayer presented their case fairly. They agree that the numbers are very small. In the first place, who wants to work about eight hours a week serving school meals? Generally this work attracts married women and widows because they have a certain amount of time to spare. A married woman can opt out of insurance altogether and can benefit from her husband's insurance. So that all the married women doing this work need not be considered. Then there are the widows getting benefit under the present scheme; they can opt out if they wish.

Then we come to the spinsters. The hon. Gentleman said that this was hard luck on the spinsters who serve school meals if they have no other source of income. But surely they do not take up work like that as their only means, because they cannot maintain themselves on it. A spinster who takes up this work must have some other source of income. If she is living with her parents she is doing this work for pocket money, for a little extra money to add to what, no doubt, her parents give her.

So if we eliminate these different classes, we come to a small number of people who must suffer. Therefore, I wish the hon. Gentlemen would reflect upon this matter in the light of what I have said. If this Regulation is not allowed to operate, then we shall find the great majority of women in this category of work suffering from a sense of grievance. Therefore I ask them in the circumstances to withdraw the Prayer.

Mr. Powell

Before I ask leave to withdraw the Motion, Mr. Speaker, may I answer one or two points made by the right hon. Lady? She referred to my observation about the local education authorities saving money as an "allegation." I certainly did not mean it as such. If, by a re-arrangement of the school meals service, £3,000 can be legitimately saved, I do not think anyone would blame a local education authority for taking that course. I know of one case, and I think there are others, where such an arrangement has fairly recently taken place.

The right hon. Lady pointed out that widows—one of the minorities affected—could opt out of the scheme. Of course they can, but by so opting out they lose entirely, or partly, their pension rights. My hon. Friends and I have not any intention of pressing this Motion but, although alive to the interest of the great majority we, on our side, would like the right hon. Lady to think once again to see whether there is not any way in which the position of the very small minority can be taken account of by administrative means. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.