Clause 13.—(EXTENSION OF PROVISIONS RELATING TO W.R.N.S. TO ITS RESERVES.) (Hansard, 19 May 1952)

§ Mr. Crosland

Are we to have no explanation of this rather curious Clause from the Government Front Bench? I think that the least the Committee can ask is that there should be some explanation why this particular group of young ladies is singled out for an entire Clause to itself. There appears 156 to be some discrimination in favour of the W.R.N.S. as against the other women's Services.

I am bound to say that during the war there was discrimination in favour of the W.R.N.S., when they were singled out by being given a headdress and a uniform which were at least moderately glamorous. Moreover they singled themselves out even further by their more amiable and more forthcoming demeanour, as compared with the other women's Services, and in consequence of this the matrimonial rate amongst W.R.N.S. was very much higher than in the other two women's Services. But I think there should be some explanation why this Clause is inserted.

On a brief reading, it appears that some Minister is responsible for a quite glaring omission in the Income Tax Act, 1952. If so, the Committee must surely know which Minister was responsible. Was it the Minister of State, who presumably has to concern himself with these matters? If some Minister was responsible for this omission, why is no Minister responsible for co-ordination between the three women's Services? It may be that the hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth (Miss Ward) is responsible, but she is not here.

The main ambiguity about this Clause is clearly the matter of what constitutes the reserves of the W.R.N.S. It is not clear what sort of reserves are kept by the W.R.N.S. It appears—though I am not at all sure that it is a proper suggestion—that they keep nothing at all in reserve. The normal comment is that they put all their goods in the shop window. I am not at all sure that this is not a slur upon them.

I am bound to say that, now we have reached the Clause, it is, above all, the opportunity for the Minister of State for Economic Affairs to give us one of those brief, lucid and pithy interventions of his to which we have become accustomed, and I hope that he will not allow himself to be crowded out by the Financial Secretary. At any rate, I hope that from one of the Government speakers we shall be given some explanation of what may be quite a serious matter and one which apparently would have gone through in total silence had I not performed the public duty of raising the matter.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I am glad to be able to assure the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland), and the Committee that our intentions towards these young ladies are of the very highest. So far from imposing a discrimination upon them, we are removing a discrimination from them.

The position is this. Section 457 (3) of the Income Tax Act, 1952, as the Committee may recall, was a consolidation Act which re-enacted Section 30 (2) of the Finance Act, 1946, and I can assure the hon. Member that if any Minister neglected these young ladies in 1946 it was not a member of the present Government. That Section of the 1946 Act provides that relief from tax in respect of ration and analogous allowances shall be granted both to members of the Armed Forces and to women serving with the Forces in any of the capacities mentioned in the Schedule to the 1946 Finance Act. As at that time there was no such thing as the Reserve of the W.R.N.S., which was started in 1947, they were not included in the Schedule, and therefore do not get the advantages of the exemption from tax of ration allowances which go to the other members of the Armed Forces and Women's Services.

Similarly, the other tax arrangements which are made with respect to the Armed Forces, in connection with P.A.Y.E., do not so far apply to them. As the Committee will appreciate, certain of the provisions of P.A.Y.E., relating, for example, to what happens when they go out of work because of illness, are not applicable to the Armed Forces whose pay is not affected by their going sick. There are arrangements by regulation to exempt the Armed Forces from certain parts of the P.A.Y.E. rules. The W.R.N.S. Reserve has not had this advantage either, by reason of its exclusion from the Schedule to the 1946 Act. The effect of this Clause is to put them into the Schedule to the 1946 Act, as re-enacted in the consolidation Act of this year.