HC Deb 30 May 1951 vol 488 cc270-81
Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

I beg to move, in page 6, line 30, at the end, to insert: except in necessitous cases when an entry of sixteen shillings shall be substituted for the entry of twelve shillings. This is not nearly so complicated, I am glad to say, as was the last Amendment. It is indeed, I think, a straightforward matter, and if the House will allow me I will quite briefly sketch the background to it. The House will remember—and I make no apology for it, for I have been rather persistent about this—that both on Second Reading and in Committee I urged that the guardian's allowance, which, under the parent Act of 1946, stood at 12s. a week, should be increased to 16s. a week. On Second Reading the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry was good enough to say that, on the face of it, it seemed to be a reasonable case, and he promised to look at it with sympathy.

When the Committee stage came along, I had an Amendment down to the effect that the guardian's allowance should be increased to 16s.; but there also appeared on the Order Paper, in the name of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), an Amendment that that 12s. should be increased to 13s. 6d. After I had moved my Amendment, the hon. Gentleman moved his Amendment—that the increase should be only 13s. 6d.—and in his speech he said: 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. He went on to say: …the new figure for guardians' allowances must be related to other payments of a similar kind being made for children."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 2116.] Well, the House will recollect that the hon. Gentleman's Amendment was accepted, and so at present we have in the Bill the figure of 13s. 6d. a week for the guardian's allowance. I want to see, as it says clearly in the Amendment, provision for that to be raised to 16s. a week in necessitous cases.

6.15 p.m.

What I ought to have remembered at the time—I have kicked myself ever since for not remembering it—was that the war orphans are entitled to clothing allowances, that those allowances are paid out of what I believe is called the King's Fund—or, at any rate, from other sources—and that they are administered by the Ministry of Pensions through its welfare organisation; so that the war orphan who is entitled to an allowance of 13s. 6d. can also, if he or she needs it, have access to clothing grants.

Those clothing grants which are available to the war orphans amount to a minimum of £6 a year in the case of children under five, which is equivalent to an extra 2s. 4d. a week; for children between the age of five and 10 the minimum clothing allowance is £8 a year, which is equivalent to an additional 3s. 1d. a week; and for children from the age of 10 up to the school leaving age there is a minimum clothing allowance of £10 a year, which is equivalent to 3s. 10d. a week. So the war orphan already receiving 13s. 6d. a week will have available to it in necessitous cases—and I am including the minimum clothing allowance on a weekly basis—a minimum allowance equivalent to 15s. 10d. a week up to the age of five, a minimum of 16s. 7d. a week between the ages of five and 10, and a minimum of 17s. 7d. a week from 10 until the age when he leaves school.

That ought to be compared with the lot of the orphan child who is looked after by a guardian who will have only 13s. 6d. a week from birth until the end of his school career, and for whom there is no possibility of going to the King's Fund for clothing allowances. Neither is there—and I have confirmed this with the right hon. Lady before the Measure came before us—any statutory provision supplementing the weekly allowances of the guardians in respect of orphan children who are not war orphans. They cannot go to the National Assistance Board; they cannot have access to clothing allowances.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Sowerby advanced another argument against the increase of guardian's allowance to 16s. He said that that proposal would increase the guardian's allowance by 4s. a week, whereas the child allowance for normal insurance benefits was being increased, under the terms of this Bill, by only 2s. 6d. a week. I am sure he is much better at arithmetic than I am, and he will recognise at once that the increase of 2s. 6d. a week in respect of the first child from 7s. 6d. to 10s. is an increase, in fact, of 33⅓ per cent., that an increase in respect of all other children from 5s. to 7s. 6d. a week is, in fact, arithmetically an increase of 50 per cent.—and yet all that I was asking and all that I am asking now is that in the necessitous cases the guardian's allowance should be increased from 12s. to 16s., which is only 33⅓ per cent.

I make only one further point. I am not quite sure that it is a good one, but it occurs to me. The position, before the Bill, of a widow with one child was that she got 26s. a week plus 7s. 6d. for that child. If she were to die the allowance of 12s. a week would be paid to the guardian in respect of that child. The mother's worth to that child was really assessed at 12s. a week, less 7s. 6d., namely, 4s. 6d. I take a case under the present Bill. A widow is in receipt of 30s. a week for herself and 10s. for a child. If she dies, an allowance of 13s. 6d. is made in respect of the child to the child's guardian, so that the mother's worth to that child, for some obscure reason which I cannot understand, has dropped by a shilling from 4s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. under the present Bill.

Twice already in this House I have made the case of the difficulties which these guardians of children who are not their own are having in maintaining them with food and clothing on 12s. a week, and I do not really think it is good enough to say that it is right that the amount should be made up only to 13s. 6d.—because that is what the war orphans receive—because in those cases they have available to them a clothing allowance which the others have not. That is the whole point of my Amendment, and I feel that there are very strong reasons why it should be accepted.

Captain Duncan (South Angus)

I beg to second the Amendment.

I should congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) on his persistence in this matter. The cases which he quoted on the earlier stages of the Bill were also brought to my attention, because one of the children concerned happened to live in my constituency. I am very glad to be allowed to second this Amendment as a second-best proposal.

I am sorry that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was accepted on the Committee stage, because it seems to me that, on the case which my hon. Friend has made, 16s. is the right figure, rather than 13s. 6d. which is the figure now in the Bill. The point that my hon. Friend made about the clothing allowance was not adequately appreciated by anybody, including the Front Bench opposite, when the Amendment for the small amount was accepted.

I would quote the case of a girl in my constituency. Although there is no official means of supplementing the present 12s. guardian's allowance, in fact, the children's officer is in some way giving a supplementation—I suppose from National Assistance funds—of 7s. 6d. per week, plus 1s. a week pocket money, so that in this particular case at the moment—whether it is legal or not, I do not know, but it is probably done in the interests of humanity and decency—the girl, who is in the care of an aged grandmother, herself an old age pensioner, has been receiving up to recently 19s. 6d. per week, which is considered to be the minimum reasonable standard by the children's officer for the County of Angus. Our proposal for 16s. is very reasonable indeed, particularly when one realises that the clothing allowance is given in addition to this allowance.

Therefore, I support this Amendment as a second best. I realise that even this Amendment does not go the whole way, but at least I hope the Government will agree to it, because it deals only with cases of necessity. However, in defining the word "necessity," I hope it will not be confined only to people who are in work, because there are other cases. One of these was quoted by my hon. Friend to show that the guardian of a boy was finding it difficult to buy clothes in order to send the child to school. That is how the case arose originally, because the guardian was telling the education authorities that he could not send the child to school because he could not clothe him. Even though that was a case of a man who was in work, it should, in my opinion, be regarded as necessitous, and should be covered by this Amendment.

Mr. Houghton

The hon. Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), was good enough to refer to the Amendment which I moved during the Committee stage and to suggest that the amount of 13s. 6d., which was the amount mentioned in my Amendment, which was agreed to, was not enough and should be replaced by the higher amount of 16s., which of course was the sum which he included in his Amendment at the time when both were being debated during the Committee stage.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

In necessitous cases.

Mr. Houghton

I will come to that in a moment.

Perhaps the chief merit of the Amendment which I moved on the Committee stage was that it was accepted by the Minister and agreed to by the Committee. However, having got 13s. 6d., I am quite willing to join with the hon. Gentleman opposite in trying to get more. I am sure that the position of the orphan is one which claims the special sympathy of the House. Orphans are, of all beneficiaries under the National Insurance scheme, a helpless, but happily not numerous, group, but nevertheless a group of persons claiming our especial sympathy, and we are all anxious to do the very best we can for them.

I did not think that the hon. Gentleman's excursion into the mathematics of the proposed changes in the Bill helped him very much, because there is, as he will readily agree, no standard percentage increase in the benefits. We find that 4s. is added to 16s. in the case of a wife, that 4s. is added to 26s. in the case of a single person or of a husband in the case of a married couple, and there is obviously no uniform percentage increase, so that I scarcely think that the hon. Gentleman can rely wholly on that kind of argument in support of an increase from 13s. 6d. to 16s.

My difficulty about the Amendment is that it seems to me to introduce into the National Insurance scheme a new principle, which, so far as I am aware, is not there now. The Amendment says "except in necessitous cases." I do not know of any benefit under the National Insurance Act which depends upon proof of necessity or need, and I think the hon. Gentleman will realise that, in order to achieve his purpose, he is making a proposal embodying an entirely new principle which raises a whole host of administrative problems for the Ministry, which we all desire to avoid. I do not think, therefore, that his Amendment can meet the case, and with great regret I cannot support it for that very reason.

All I can do is appeal to the Minister to see whether there are any means by which she can pay the orphans under the National Insurance scheme on the same basis as, or as near as possible to, the orphans under the war pensions scheme. After all, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the clothing allowances, which, as I understand the matter, are given conditionally upon certain circumstances being present in those cases, and it is possible that clothing allowances which are given to war orphans come out of entirely different funds from those of the substantive pensions. If there are any means whereby the National Assistance Board can come to the help of necessitous cases, that surely would achieve the purpose of the Amendment and, indeed, would literally fulfil the purpose which the hon. Gentleman had in moving it. I do make that appeal.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)

I should like to make one or two remarks on this Amendment. First, I think that most hon. Members feel that guardians are in these days in very great difficulties. We have great sympathy with the feelings which led the hon. Member for Angus, North, and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), to move this Amendment. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was accepted and the guardians got a certain increase. That increase today, as I think most hon. Members will agree, is unfortunately not enough, and we would welcome any suggestion that might be made to increase it.

The second point is that this particular Amendment deals only with necessitous cases. As has been pointed out, that would introduce into the Act a new principle. I would point out to the right hon. Lady that, of course, the great difficulty of many guardians is that the National Assistance Board, which normally deals with a particular necessitous case, is often unable to help. I do not say always, but in a great many cases it cannot give National Assistance.

It has also been mentioned that there may be cases where the guardian is in employment but nevertheless has great difficulty in supporting the children. This may not be the proper time to deal with that matter, but it is an important matter, and I should like to draw it to the Minister's attention. There are, no doubt, at the moment many people who have seriously to consider whether they can continue to act as guardians and keep the children, or whether, in view of the rising prices and other difficulties, they may not have to send them to institutions. That is a matter which, I think, would cause concern to every hon. Member. While I see the difficulty of accepting this particular Amendment, I would very much welcome it if the right hon. Lady could give some indication that she is aware of this problem and that it might be possible to meet it in a different way.

Mr. Messer (Tottenham)

I want to reinforce what has been said in regard to the danger of introducing into an insurance Measure a test of such complexity as this would be. In the first place, who is to give a definition of what is a necessitous case? That is the first administrative difficulty. I have sat on public assistance committees and had the unenviable task of having to help in the assessment of need, and I know that neighbouring assistance committees have had an entirely different idea of what is a necessitous case to that which I have had. I do not know how the officers of the Ministry would be able to get anything like a standard that could be applied.

But that is not the important thing. The important thing is that for the first time we are being asked to introduce a new principle into what is a statutory benefit and to make the benefit available only according to individual needs. That departure from the right of the individual to a stated amount is more important than the slight increase that would be granted. If the hon. Member for Angus, North, and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) had not put into the Amendment the qualification of necessitous cases, I think that he would have gained more support for the Amendment.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Chair would not have called the Amendment unless it had been different from the one which I moved in Committee.

Mr. Messer

The hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity, at any rate, of presenting one or two points. It will be remembered that when the Act was going through as a Bill, we discussed in Committee at some length the guardian's allowance, and time after time the Minister, whom everyone recognises as being most generous in his intentions, pointed out that it was undesirable to make the allowance too high, because it was undesirable to attract people into guardianship, and that it would be better to assist those who, without some assistance, would find it difficult to act as guardians to these orphans.

It was felt that, in the main, guardians should be relatives; then they would not be people who were acting as guardians simply because they were getting paid for doing so. I think that there is a difference between the guardian's allowance under this Act and the allowances paid to foster parents of boarded-out children by the public assistance committees. Because of that difference, I cannot think that the Amendment will be accepted, but I would say that if a figure of 13s. 6d. or 12s., or whatever it is, was right at the time when the cost of living was less than it is now, there is justification for an increase, but it ought to be an increase without any question of a test of necessity.

Miss Ward

I support the Amendment. I have listened with great interest to the arguments used by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) against the Amendment. For some reason or another, he seemed to regard 4s. as the magic figure in this Bill. I do not think that in legislation we should be guided by any specific number but by justice.

Mr. Houghton

May I suggest to the hon. Lady that I was not placing any magic on the figure of 4s. Rather I was saying that there was no magic about 4s.

Miss Ward

My interpretation of what the hon. Gentleman said was that he thought that 4s. was the sum which a certain section of the community had got under this Bill and, therefore, that figure must not be departed from. I do not think that the Amendment should be discussed from that point of view. It must be discussed from the point of view of what is fair to the orphans.

I listened also to the other argument which the hon. Gentleman used, and to the half-muted cheers of his supporters when he argued that my hon. Friend's Amendment introduced into the Bill a new principle which was unacceptable. I imagine that that is the view that all of us would take, but, as my hon. Friend pointed out, those who are familiar with Parliamentary procedure know that if one wants to have an Amendment called on Report stage it must differ from the original Amendment.

If there is any difficulty about this, I suggest that the right hon. Lady should accept the principle of 16s. as opposed to 13s. 6d. and that that increase should be added in another place. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend would accept such an offer with alacrity and be prepared to withdraw his Amend- ment. Nothing annoys me more than the rather high approach which has been made to this problem, as if everyone were being wise, when I am sure they know perfectly well why my hon. Friend had to introduce this new principle into the Amendment.

There is one other thing which I should like to have on the record. With a certain amount of pride, which he was justified in taking because he was quite clever about, the matter, the hon. Member for Sowerby referred to the fact that his original Amendment had been accepted and that he got the credit for it. I wonder whether, when he went to his division, he stated that the 13s. 6d. was less than the original Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend. Therefore, I get back to arguing that in the interests of the orphans it is of very great importance that we should endeavour to persuade the right hon. Lady to accept this Amendment.

There is one aspect which has not been stressed. I know all about the arguments about the National Assistance Board, but I would point out that the money from the National Assistance Board comes directly out of the Exchequer, whereas the increased guardian's allowance would come from the Insurance Fund. If I remember the debate accurately, it was stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Fund has quite a large surplus. Therefore, it would seem to be better from the point of view of the national finances if the extra charge for the orphans were borne by the Fund rather than by Exchequer funds, which are so badly needed for other very important matters.

There are all sorts of ways of looking after orphans. I remember very clearly the case that was quoted by the hon. Member when he introduced his original Motion, that when there are relatives in families prepared to accept the additional responsibility of looking after and caring for an orphan, it is a much better thing to help them to look after such an orphan rather than talk about getting additional funds from the National Assistance Board. As a matter of equity and justice, having regard to the considerable sums of money that are spent on children at approved schools, we ought to consider this question very seriously. Everybody is talking about looking after the adolescent and the young children as well as giving them proper care and attention.

I was very surprised that the right hon. Lady, supported by her party, thought that 13s. 6d. is an adequate sum on which to bring up a hefty adolescent boy or girl. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is more than the hon. Lady's party gave."] I am sometimes led from the straight and narrow path, but in this matter I have such a good case for supporting the Amendment that I will not meet the challenge from the other side. I hope that the right hon. Lady will reconsider the position, and that, if she cannot accept the Amendment as it stands, she will consult the Chancellor of the Exchequer and see whether in another place some increase in this rather small sum can be made.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Bernard Taylor)

When we accepted the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) during the Committee stage, the hon. Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), was very disappointed, but I admire the tenacity he has shown by moving a different kind of Amendment tonight. Very briefly I want to make two points on this Amendment without going into all the arguments he has raised.

The first of the two main objections is that the difference between 13s. 6d., as proposed in the Bill, and 16s., suggested in the Amendment, would be based upon necessity. That would be the equivalent of introducing a means test into the National Insurance scheme, and we do not propose to do that. The second point is that in our view it would be very undesirable to ask the statutory authorities to interpret the provision which is embodied in the Amendment. For these two main reasons, I ask the House to reject the Amendment.

6.45 p.m.

Miss Ward

Can the hon. Gentleman answer the point I raised about taking up the matter in another place? He spoke to his brief without having listened to the arguments.

Mr. Taylor

I did not speak to any brief, but in reply to arguments.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

Will the hon. Member answer the point I made about the clothing allowance for war orphans, because that clothing allowance is not available to the ordinary non-war orphans? That is a most important point.

Mr. Taylor

I believe that it is the case that the clothing allowance comes from a voluntary organisation known as the King's Fund. It is not met by the Ministry of Pensions as such, and we felt, in accepting this figure of 13s. 6d., that if it were fixed at a higher rate anomalies would be created.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

But the anomalies are surely there. Indeed, the fact that the war orphan gets 13s. 6d. plus the necessitous—

Mr. Speaker

This is not the Committee stage but the Report stage and the hon. Member can make only one speech. We cannot have him interrupting all the time.

Mr. Viant (Willesden, West)

I do not think that either side of the House is in any way unsympathetic to the purpose of this Amendment. We should all be pleased if at the present time we could concede the demands made in the Amendment, but we have to remember that we are dealing with a scheme in which the benefits have been decided by the actuaries, who are responsible for seeing that the Bill is made watertight and is so framed as to meet the lengthy demands made upon it. If we depart from that, we are likely to enter into difficulties.

When the word "necessitous" is brought into the matter, let us remember that immediately we embark upon that road we throw over the advice of the actuaries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Messer) has already asked, who is going to define necessitous cases? I, for one, should oppose anything of that nature being introduced into the ordinary Bill. We have already got the Assistance Board established, and they are empowered to deal with cases of that kind. We should be satisfied with the fact that the Minister has gone as far as she can, and we should be prepared to accept such concessions as have been given.

Amendment negatived.

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