Clause 1.—(EXTENSION OF OBJECTS OF SOLDIERS' EFFECTS FUND.) (Hansard, 18 May 1950)

§ Mr. A. R. W. Low (Blackpool, North)
During the Second Reading Debate some of my hon. Friends expressed anxiety about the effect of this Clause. Among my hon. Friends who spoke then, was the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), who has asked me to apologise to the Secretary of State for his absence today. Unfortunately, he is ill in bed. Our main anxiety about this Clause, as I think the Secretary of State will remember, and as he himself mentioned in his closing speech on that occasion, was that as a result of making the purposes for which the Soldiers' Effects Fund might be used much wider than they are at present, a flood of claims might occur, and that those at present entitled under the restricted purposes now in operation might suffer.
1468 That was our anxiety. As I am sure the Committee will agree, it is right and proper that that anxiety should be expressed, and that inquiries should have been made and further thought given to the matter. I should like to say now that, so far as I have been able to ascertain, those anxieties are mostly false anxieties. I hope to explain to the Committee why I think that is the case. I will discuss our main anxiety in two parts. We were most concerned that a flood of claims might arise when the purposes of this Fund were widened. At the time I felt that anxiety, I thought that claimants on this Fund made their claims specifically upon the Fund, but I now understand that that is wrong, and that claimants who wish to get assistance from any of the funds under the jurisdiction and administration of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation make their claims to the Corporation as a whole. Therefore, it is clear that by this Clause we are not increasing the number of people who may make claims upon the Royal Patriotic Fund. I hope that I am right in that, because that is one of the main reasons why I feel that my earlier anxiety need no longer exist.
For example, widows of soldiers who died more than six months after they had left the Service may, and do already, apply to the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation for assistance if they need it, and they may have their needs met out of other funds. The unfortunate point is that many of these other funds are not as big as the Soldiers' Effects Fund. Therefore, it seems to me on that count there is no reason to expect that there will be a flood of claimants. I imagine, however, that it may be that, in the normal course, the number of claims may increase. I understand that as the years went by after the end of 1914–18 war, claims on the Fund began to increase for a period and then decreased. We may expect an increase in claims, but it will not be due to the widening of the purposes set out in this Clause.
Some of my hon. Friends also expressed the view that it was wrong to alter the terms of the Trust in this way. But, as I think was explained on the Second Reading, there is no question of altering the wishes of the testator or the donor. There is no specific trust attached to this money in the Soldiers' Effects Fund and, 1469 therefore, no question arises about that. The other point that troubled us was that persons now entitled to draw benefits from this Fund may suffer if more people are able to get help from the Fund. As the Secretary of State said, there is no reason why that should be so. This Corporation is very much like a trustee, and very much in the position of a trustee who must have a fairly wide discretion in administering the terms of a so-called trust.
I think that we may expect them to look after the category of people who had a claim upon them before this Bill was passed. On Second Reading we asked the Secretary of State whether he intended to introduce any Regulations to provide that particular classes might have priority. I hope that he will be able to tell us today whether he intends to introduce Regulations of that kind and, if so, the form which they will take.
I have a further comment to make in connection with the Second Reading Debate, and it is about expenses. The hon. and gallant Member for Hull, East (Commander Pursey) and I had an interesting argument about expenses, during which he tried to make me do a mathematical problem and divide £4,000 by £16,000. My anxiety was lest, if there were more claimants, the expenses of the Fund would go up. Of course, that was quite wrong and I have found out why. It was wrong because all claims are made to the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation which, I understand, has an honorary agent to help them look into claims and to make use of bodies such as S.S.A.F.A. to help them. I do not think that there is any question of extra expense falling upon the Fund.
For these reasons, I find that my hon. Friends and I are not in opposition to the general purposes of this Clause, but we hope that the Secretary of State will be able to satisfy the reasonable doubts which hon. Gentlemen still have that, somehow, the result of this Clause might be to affect in the wrong way widows and dependants who are entitled under the law as it is at present.

§ Mr. George Wigg (Dudley)
Since I have been a Member of the House of Commons, I have never listened to a more extraordinary speech than the one 1470 we have just heard. The hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low) talked about trust funds, testators' gifts and the rest. They have nothing at all to do with the Clause.

§ Mr. Low
That is just what I said. The hon. Gentleman did not listen.

§ Mr. Wigg
I beg his pardon. He also had an Amendment on the Order Paper to delete this Clause, but he did not move it. I very much regret that that Amendment was not moved.

§ Mr. Low
It was not called.

§ Mr. Wigg
I regret that it was not called, because it would have given us an opportunity to expose the Conservative Party in their capacity as the soldiers' friends—not only their past record but their present record.
The Soldiers' Effects Fund came into being because the credit balances which exist at the time of soldiers' deaths over a period of very many years have accumulated until there is a very great sum. There is no less than £283,469 available. Who is to get the money? Under the very restricted provisions of the law as it stands, I think that only 61 widows and some 300 children can possibly get advantage from that Fund. The reason for that is because of the regulations under which the Fund is administered has ceased to exist.
Let me give an example. One of the regulations of the Soldiers' Effects Fund is that allowances can be made to widows who were on the Married Quarters Roll. There is no such thing in the Army today as a Married Quarters Roll. It is rather interesting that hon. Members opposite, who for a considerable time have opposed the only people who know anything about how the Army is run, and who now come to the Committee to look after the interests of the soldiers, do not know that the Married Quarters Roll referred to in these Regulations had ceased to exist even by the end of the First World War. It is just nonsense to think that grants can be restricted to women who are on the Married Quarters Roll.
Considerable sums of money have accumulated under the auspices of this organisation, and no good has come to anybody. I entirely agree with my hon. 1471 and gallant Friend the Member for Hull, East (Commander Pursey), the quicker these funds are wound up and brought under the administration of the Ministry of Pensions, to be used for the benefit of the people from whom the money came in the first place——

§ Mr. Low
On a point of Order. Are we to be allowed to discuss this matter, Sir Charles? It seems to me that this Clause is concerned only with widening the purpose, not whether the Fund should exist. If we are to be allowed to discuss this matter I am sure that there are many of my hon. Friends who would wish to say something on that.

§ The Deputy-Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew)
There is quite a narrow point involved in this Clause, namely, the extension of the objects of the Soldiers' Effects Fund.

§ Mr. Wigg
If this Clause lays down the conditions under which the Fund is to be administered in the future, surely I am allowed to comment on the way that will work. At present, we cannot do very much good unless we can administer this Fund in such a way as to do good for the people from whom the money came. The money did not come as donations from generous people. It came from the pockets of men who served in the ranks of the Regular Army; men whose names we do not now know; we certainly do not know the addresses of their relatives because if we did, we could hand this money back and put an end to the Fund.
This Committee should determine where this money should go. We shall have to wait for a future Bill to wind up, not only this Fund but all the other funds as well. This Bill is a very belated first step in the right direction. I regret very much that we have had to wait until 1950 to do this. Why was not this done in the years during which the Tory Party was in office and had the opportunity to see that these funds were used properly instead of, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, East, said on Second Reading, allowing the rattling of tin cans?

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The Debate on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" is very narrow. At page 528 of Erskine May it is stated: 1472 Debate upon this question must be confined to the clause, as amended, and must not extend to a discussion of the circumstances under which particular amendments were made or to a review in detail of the proceedings on the clause. Debate on this Question is, therefore, very narrow.

§ Mr. Wigg
I mentioned earlier in my remarks that I was sorry the hon. Member for Blackpool, North, had not had an opportunity of moving his Amendment——

§ The Deputy-Chairman
On that point, I ought perhaps to make this clear. I think it was said that the Amendment was not selected. That is not the case. The Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" has to be put, and an Amendment such as that would be really meaningless.

§ Mr. Wigg
There is very little more I want to say, except that I welcome the step the Government have now taken. It is a first step in the right direction; I hope the Committee will support it, and that before long a wider Measure than this will be brought to the House, in which the Government take the further steps necessary.

§ Commander Pursey (Hull, East)
I wish to support this Clause, and also to say that I regret, for whatever reason it was, that the Opposition were not able to move their Amendment, because they said some very queer things on Second Reading.

§ Mr. Low
So did you.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had been paying attention he would have heard me say that we cannot discuss anything except what is in the Clause. To discuss an Amendment which was not called is out of Order.

§ Commander Pursey
The object of the Clause is to remove the six months' limit. With your permission, Sir Charles, I should like to show what happens as a result of that. I hope I shall keep within your Ruling and be able to continue.
The position of the Fund at the moment is that it has an income of about £10,000, of which less than £8,000 is spent, so that there is £2,000 unexpended each year. As there may be an opportunity on Third Reading to say something in a more 1473 general sense, I will not continue at any length, except to say that last year the Council of the Corporation expressed concern about this in their annual report, which we have only had since the Second Reading. They have asked for this limit to be withdrawn. Previously it was argued that it was new to make any alterations, when in point of fact the original Royal Warrant of this Soldiers' Effects Fund allowed that, and any alterations made will be governed by a new Royal Warrant. Alterations have been made, and in introducing this Bill to alter the terms of the Commission we are establishing no precedent. At the same time as the Patriotic Fund Corporation handles the surplus of £2,000 we must refer to them, and they have gone to the Army Benevolent Fund to get another £1,000 to deal with some of the widows who could not be dealt with by the Soldiers' Effects Fund.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
I cannot see how the hon. and gallant Gentleman's remarks now are connected with Clause 1.

§ The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Strachey)
I ought to say a word or two in reply to the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low), because I have undertaken to give an account of the Royal Warrant which will be issued as a result of the passage of this Bill. He is perfectly right in saying that what we are widening here is not the scope of the Royal Patriotic Fund altogether, but the scope of the Soldiers' Effects Fund within the work of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation. The object of widening the scope of that Fund rather than that of the Corporation is to abolish the six months' rule. We abolish it, not entirely but primarily, to bring in that class of widow who at present falls between the two stools of the war pensions administration and the National Insurance administration, and it will have that effect.
While we have by this Bill widened considerably the scope of the beneficiaries under the Soldiers' Effects Fund, we propose to issue a Royal Warrant which will then narrow it again, but narrow it only in this sense: that we shall put back the widows of men who died from attributable causes—that is, causes attributable to their service—as preferential. The whole of the existing beneficiaries will be a preferential class, but a whole 1474 new class of persons whose husbands died from non-attributable causes will be brought in at second choice, as it were, and that will be the general effect of Clause 1.

§ Commander Pursey
I hope I shall be in Order in dealing at this stage with the points concerning the Soldiers' Effects Fund. At the annual meeting of the Council of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation last year, General Knox, the Vice-Chairman, said that they had found it necessary to have a special fund to deal with the cases of widows of men who served in World War II. He said that they dealt with these applications as best they could from the Soldiers' Effects Fund, but that one of the conditions attached to that fund was that death must have occurred within six months of discharge, whereas they received many cases which did not fulfil that condition.
The general went on to say that they wanted to get another fund because they could not use the full money of the Soldiers' Effects Fund, and that, as I understand it, is one of the reasons why the Corporation have taken steps to come to this House to get amending legislation in this Bill in order to enable them to grant benefits to a larger number of beneficiaries; I hope we shall be in Order in tracing what happens to this money, who the new beneficiaries will be and in what way they will benefit.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew)
No. I think I had better read to the hon. Gentleman what happens on Third Reading. According to page 543 of Erskine May, the Debate is more restricted at this later stage and is limited to the matters contained in the Bill.

§ Commander Pursey
The point with which I am trying to deal is that concerning what will happen as the result of this 1475 Bill, when another £2,000 will be made available for distribution. Such being the case, I submit that it is in Order to discuss what will happen to that £2,000, because, in a nutshell, that is what happens as the result of this Bill.
The position is that the Soldiers' Effects Fund has an annual income of £10,000, of which less than £8,000 is spent. Consequently, steps have been taken to obtain a new Act, which will mean a new Royal Warrant amending the previous one. This £2,000 starts in Government hands, in the hands of the various Departments controlling the three Services. It is then passed to a charity, where there is a high-powered committee of brass hats and so on, and, by that time, the situation is quite ludicrous, because they meet only once a year to pass a formal annual report, which is in print. Then, it has to go somewhere else.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I wish the hon. and gallant Gentleman would take a look at the Bill, when he would see that this is quite out of Order.

§ Commander Pursey
Am I in Order in discussing this £2,000, the distribution of which is the sole purpose of this Bill? That purpose is to free this sum for those widows who previously have not been entitled to benefit because they have been barred by the six months' limit which it is the purpose of this Bill to remove.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I read out to the hon. and gallant Gentleman exactly what this discussion may embrace. It can only be about what is contained in the Bill.

§ Commander Pursey
Then, before this money can reach the beneficiaries for whom this House wishes to do something, by means of this Bill and later by a new Royal Warrant, it has to be handed over to another charitable organisation, namely, the Soldiers', Sailors', and Airmen's Families' Association, because the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation has no national organisation to deal with their own cases. That is the situation which needs further investigation to bring it into line with present day requirements.
It so happens that it is, I believe, the first time for over 50 years that any 1476 amending legislation has been introduced into this House to deal with the Soldiers' Effects Fund. The last time was in 1893, although in 1903 there was a new Act to deal with the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation, and there was, in 1895 and 1896, a Select Committee of this House which investigated these funds and made the same complaints that are made now of the lack of information about them. The beneficiaries did not know of them and were not in a position to apply for assistance from the fund.
Among other recommendations in draft form which the Select Committee made was one that there should be Members of Parliament on the Council of the Corporation. Generally speaking, the position then was unsatisfactory, as it is unsatisfactory today. A further recommendation was that the annual report should be distributed to ships and regiments——

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
These are all questions of administration, and the Bill deals only with objects.

§ Mr. Wigg
As the Bill does provide for a new method, or at least a new range of beneficiaries, is it not within the scope of the Bill to discuss to whom that money will go?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
It would not be in Order to deal at great length with questions of administration which are not contained within the Bill.

§ Commander Pursey
If I may pack up administration, because I am very keen to keep within your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should like to say that the one thing which the Opposition do not want to hear is this information.

§ Mr. Low
What?

§ Commander Pursey
Spilling the beans about this fund. The position concerning this Soldiers' Effects Fund is that there is £1,700 going to an orphanage, but I will not attempt to deal with that in detail. This extra £2,000 can either be distributed by means of allowances to widows and orphans in weekly amounts, or, alternatively, used for grants. It might also be used for educational purposes, either by a scholarship scheme or by a system of selection for this orphanage which receives money from the fund already.
1477 I suggest to the Secretary of State for War that this additional money which will be made available by this Bill should not go to the orphanage, which has already got £250,000, although £50,000 has been spent on a school, but should be used for the benefit of widows and of orphans who do not go to that school, in bringing in people not at present covered and using this money to the best advantage, namely, to those who, as the Secretary of State for War has said, fall between two stools because they are covered neither by disability pensions nor, so far, by social security funds. At the same time, this Soldiers' Effects Fund, which started with £44,000 in 1884, which trebled itself in 10 years, and which is now over £250,000, is still increasing. I suggest to the Secretary of State for War that, instead of being allowed to go on increasing, it should be disposed of during the next generation, because there is no question that this is a trust fund created for a particular purpose.
Then comes the point as regards representation for the purpose of dealing with this money. During the Select Committee of 1895–6, it was suggested that there should be representatives from other ranks in the Service. Not only do we want youth there instead of individuals ranging up to the 80's——

§ Mr. Low
On a point of Order. Is it in Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for the hon. and gallant Gentleman to proceed on these lines, because, if so, we on this side would like to reply to some of the things he is saying?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I have said as firmly as I can that this Bill does not deal with administration, but the hon. and gallant Member just takes no notice of my Ruling.

§ Mr. Wigg
With great respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I would submit that my hon. and gallant Friend is in Order in discussing the objects as set out in Clause 1.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Yes, if he confines his remarks to the objects, but he is going into the administration, which is much wider.