New Clause.—(INCREASE IN RATE OF GUARDIAN'S ALLOWANCE.) (Hansard, 9 May 1951)

§ Mr. Thornton-Kemsley (Angus, North, and Mearns)
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The qualifications for receiving guardians' allowances are laid down in Section 19 of the Act of 1946. The existing amount of 12s. a week has been paid since that date. I understand from the Report of the Government Actuary that at 31st March, 1950, there were only 73,000 of these guardians' allowances being paid, with a total of 86,000 if there were included the children's allowances under the old type of orphans' pensions under the Contributory Pensions Acts. I inquired of the Minister, in a Parliamentary Question, what it would cost to increase these guardians' allowances from 12s. to 16s. a week in a full year and her answer was that it would cost only £75,000.
The amount is not a very large one by any standard, and certainly this is not a very large amount judged by the standard of the amount by which other benefits are being increased under the present measure. I would remind the Committee that, where the guardians' allowance is being paid, there are no statutory provisions whatsoever for supplementation in the case of a child under 16 years of age. The child cannot go to the National Assistance Board, and so far as this 12s. is concerned there is no statutory means by which it can be supplemented.
11.45 p.m.
In the Second Reading debate I gave one or two examples of the hardships suffered by guardians of these children. One of these, in particular, struck me as a bad example of the kind of case happening up and down the country. It is a case in my constituency of a quite young agricultural labourer who is looking after his young brother of 14 or 15 years of age. This young agricultural labourer is being paid £5 a week. He has two young children of his own, one, I think, of seven, the other about three, and the wife cannot go to work because she has these two young children to look after. There is, in addition this orphan of 14 or 15 years old, whose father and mother are dead.
I wrote to the right hon. Lady giving her all the circumstances of this case some time before the Budget, and the 2107 right hon. Lady answered that it was not possible to increase the guardian's allowance of 12s. a week under the National Insurance Act as the amount of the allowance was determined by that Act, and that she had no power to give any increase. I think she must have recognised there was a case of need here, at any rate a prima facie case, because she was good enough to say she was sending on the papers to the Secretary of State for Scotland to see if anything could be done by the Scottish education authority. There was nothing very much they could do. They said that they were giving the boy milk at school and that was all they could do.
These circumstances no longer apply, because it is possible for us to amend these benefits under the Second Schedule of the 1946 Act. I do feel this guardians' allowance may be increased. In a case like that—this is why I brought this particular case to the notice of the Committee—the brother who is the guardian, has no legal obligation at all to look after this orphan child, and it does seem to me the State is taking advantage of his sense of responsibility to the disadvantage of his own children and his own dependants. I do not think that should be the case. I ask the right hon. Lady if she really believes it is possible to keep a child on 12s. a week. I do not think it is possible. I think it is difficult to feed a boy of 14 on 12s. a week, and I am quite certain that it is not possible to clothe the boy in addition.
It is very interesting to turn back to the Beveridge Report, as I was doing this afternoon. I was looking at paragraph 228, which says that the amount required for children's allowance to cover subsistence needs, without rent, for a child of 14 to 15 years of age, was 9s. at 1938 prices. If we add to that the cost of a proportion of rent, add some margin—the Report admitted there was no margin at all—and then take into consideration a fall of certainly 50 per cent. in the purchasing power of the pound between 1938 and 1951, there surely is the strongest possible case for making this modest increase from 12s. to 16s. in the children's allowance. I cannot conceive that it could be denied in the face of the concessions already made. I plead with the right hon. Lady to meet this proposal.

§ Mr. J. N. Browne
I beg to second the Motion.

§ Mr. Douglas Houghton (Sowerby)
The only difference between the hon. Gentleman's Clause and that standing in my name and the names of my hon. Friends is one of amount. I discovered that the amount being paid by the Ministry of Pensions for an orphan is 13s. 6d. a week, and that must be related to the proposed new amount for guardians' allowances. I believe, also, that the amount paid by the Home Office for a deprived child is 15s. a week. Certainly, the new figure for guardians' allowances must be related to other payments of a similar kind being made for children.
The hon. Gentleman's proposal is to increase the present guardians' allowance by 4s., whereas in another part of the Bill we are proposing to increase the child allowance for normal insurance benefits by only 2s. 6d. Taking all things into account, 13s. 6d. seemed to be the appropriate amount when related to payments of a similar kind.

Mr. B. Taylor
As promised during the Second Reading of the Bill, consideration has been given to this very important point and my right hon. Friend is very sympathetic to the argument. We are getting to the close of the day. Taking our minds back to when we opened, we see that two concessions have been made—one to pensioners and one to widowed mothers. We have a concession to make in this respect; we accept the Clause to be moved by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton).

§ The Deputy-Chairman
Is it the desire of the hon. Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) to withdraw his Clause.

§ Mr. Thornton-Kemsley
No, Sir Charles, I desire to press it.