WAR PENSIONS (WIDOWS) (Hansard, 13 December 1955)

§ Mr. Peter Kirk (Gravesend)

The question I wish to raise tonight is only part of a big problem, but I think that it is a question which does not lack in importance, particularly to the 970 women who are most directly affected. I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance for coming to the Chamber at this late hour to answer me. The problem is concerned with war widows who were separated from their husbands at the time when their husbands were killed and who were, therefore, subject to a maintenance order granted by one of the courts of first instance.

As the House is aware, these women are restricted in the amount of pension which they receive to the amount which they were receiving under a maintenance order from the court. Technically, they are not receiving a pension at all but continuing to receive their money under the maintenance order. I can best illustrate the point by citing a case which was brought to my attention. I have had some correspondence with my hon. and gallant Friend about this and he knows the details, so nothing can be gained by giving the name. But a point arises out of it.

This is the case of a married woman, living happily with two children and, as far as I can find out, they were living as a perfectly normal happily married couple until the outbreak of war, and even afterwards. The husband was called up and commissioned, and after a year or so in the Forces the wife lost sight of him and was forced to bring an order for maintenance, at the beginning of 1943, in the Rochester City Court. As a result, she was granted £2 a week maintenance. Within six months of this grant, the husband was killed in Italy, and since then she has received only the £2 a week on which to raise a family.

The point she stressed to me most strongly was that the separation would probably never have occurred if the 1167 husband had not been called up for war service, and she is convinced in any case that he would have come hack to her after the war, that it was merely the effect of the false separation, that the husband got into the rather raffish company of some officers in his regiment, that he failed to maintain her and she was forced to take the matter to the courts. The irony of it was that if she had waited six months longer she would now be able to receive the full war pension and if the husband had lived he would, in her view, have come back to her or she could have taken him to court again for an increase in maintenance, in view of the fact that he would no doubt have had an increase in wages at the time.

I wrote to my hon. and gallant Friend about this and questioned the Minister on the general principle on 25th July, and I received the Written reply that the Minister did not think he would be justified in altering a long-standing arrangement. I have been unable to find out exactly how long-standing this arrangement is—whether it dates from the first or the second war—but I think that when the arrangement was made no one could have contemplated the fantastic rise in the cost of living which has ensued since the "satisfactory arrangement," as it were, was first brought into force. I questioned the Minister again on 14th November and asked him how many women were involved and what would be the total sum if they were now granted a full pension. He answered that there were 970 widows, and to bring these pensions up to the normal rates would cost about £85,000 a year.

That disposed of another problem which was worrying me: that the cost of this might be so great that it could not be borne and would open the gates to a flood of claims. But the sum involved is so small that it could be granted if this was all that was involved, with very little difficulty and cost to the Treasury. So I asked the Minister, in view of the small sum, whether he would reconsider the position. He said that, on the face of it, it seemed reasonable to limit the amount given to the widow to the grant she was receiving from her husband while he was alive.

At that point the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) intervened to 1168 suggest that if the husband had lived the woman could have taken the matter back to the court to get an increase. I think the Minister's reply was a little narrow. He said that there was also the converse case, that the man might have fallen down with his payments if he had remained alive. But if this is worrying the Minister, I made some inquiries of the Home Office to discover how many husbands who remained alive these days fell down on a maintenance order. They informed me by Written answer on 1st December that while no exact figures are kept, about 14,000 such orders are made annually and from those about 3,400 men are received into prison, having been committed for non-payment of wife maintenance. That means about 25 per cent. of the normal cases can be expected to default. But, as I have suggested earlier, in this particular case this separation probably occurred because of the war and it is quite likely that the husband would have returned to his wife after the war.

I realise that this is a difficult problem. I think I can see what was in the minds of those who first put the restriction into the Royal Warrant. It was that at the time the husband was killed these people were not living as married couples. They might be regarded as not fully married. Therefore, the widows of men who had not regarded them in the fullest sense as their wives ought not to receive the full amount of pension, though the Government would continue to pay the amount of the maintenance order which they would otherwise have received. It is a subject full of immense imponderables. Would the husbands have returned to their wives after the war? Could the wives then have taken their husbands to court? Would they have obtained an increased maintenance grant? That, again, is something which we cannot know.

There is a case, if only because of the increased cost of living since the end of the war, for a general increase in these maintenance order grants. I am not suggesting, and have not suggested, that the full pension should be granted in every case, but it would be a fine act of grace and, after all, only logical if the Minister considered granting an extra sum to these women who have been doubly unfortunate. Not only have they suffered the mental agony of separation, but have lost their husbands, many of them being 1169 left with young children to bring up and educate. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, if he cannot say that he will give a pension, will be able to convey the sentiments which I have expressed to the Minister.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Brigadier J. G. Smyth)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) for giving me the opportunity to reply more fully to this question than my right hon. Friend was able to do on 14th November by means of question and answer. It is a difficult matter to clarify by that means. This is not a new matter. It is one which often comes up for review in the Ministry, like every other detail of the war pension scheme. There are extremely vigilant ex-Service associations which keep these matters constantly under review. There are also war pensions committees. I can allay any concern which my hon. Friend may feel regarding the general condition of these separated war widows by assuring him that this has never been a matter of serious dissatisfaction, either among this type of widow, or on the part of the ex-Service associations, and war pensions committees which are continually watching the widows' interests.

It is certainly not a matter which we in the Ministry have considered demanded any major revision of the Warrant owing to general cases of hardship among this class of widow. The principle is well-established, and has really never been seriously challenged, that in the case of the separated war widow the State, within certain limits, that is up to the maximum standard rate of pension, should assume the financial responsibility which was being undertaken by the deceased husband at the time of his death. We are not too rigid in our interpretation, either of the extent or the nature, of the responsibility. It may be that there was a court order. In that case the matter is rather more clear cut. But there may have been only a private arrangement between the man and his separated wife. There may have been only a promise of some arrangement, or it may be that the wife has made fruitless efforts to make some arrangement with the man. Whatever may be the circumstances, if there is any 1170 proof at all that any sort of arrangement, either by court order or by private arrangement, had been contemplated we do our best to take over the spirit of the responsibility.

As my hon. Friend said, on 14th November the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) raised the interesting point that, had the husband lived and not been killed, the rate of the separation allowance would have been increased. The causes of separation are many and varied, and the fortunes of the husbands also vary very much after separation has taken place. In the case which my hon. Friend quoted—I will not mention names because it would be unfortunate and it is quite unnecessary—the causes of separation were desertion, adultery and cruelty. It is our experience, generally, that in that sort of case the separation is half way to divorce, and in the case of divorce no war pension is admissable.

In many cases the husbands default or stop payments, and become difficult to trace, even for the purposes of enforcing a court order. In other cases husbands contract irregular relationships or become elderly or sick, or out of work, and are unable to meet their obligations. There is also the point that if the husband had lived he might well have died from causes other than his war disability, and in that case the wife would get nothing at all.

To my mind that is a very much harder case than the case of the separated wife, and it is one with which one very often meets. It may be that a woman has nursed a man with a war disability for many years and he then dies from causes other than his war disability, and under the war pensions scheme the widow gets no pension. That is really a very much harder case. In exchange for what must be a very uncertain and problematical arrangement—even where a court order exists—we give regular and continuing support at the rate existing on the husband's death.

I would like to point out to my hon. Friend that court orders are not assessed on the basis that the husband should give full support to the separated wife. The circumstances of the separation and the resources of both parties are taken into account, and the court orders are very often merely token payments. We get many court orders for payments of 1171 3s. 6d. and similar sums, and it would be quite unreasonable to suppose that the State should increase those token payments to sums as large as 52s. 6d., which is the full war widow's pension today.

My hon. Friend has said that in order to bring these 970 widows up to the full war pension rate would cost only £85,000 a year; but any alteration in the existing scheme would have wide repercussions in a number of other similar pension schemes. The ultimate cost would be far beyond the £85,000 which has been quoted.

I am sure that my hon. Friend and the House would be particularly glad to know more about the present situation of these 970 separated widows, and we have made a survey of a number of cases. If I can take the 1914 war widows first, there are 300 of these, whose average age today is between 70 and 80. Therefore, we see that if their husbands were still living they would not be getting today very much increased support from them. In these cases, their war pensions range from 3s. 6d. to 18s. a week, and about 75 per cent. of them are in receipt of a National Insurance pension also. One-third of these also get National Assistance. I think it is reasonable to suppose that in the cases of those not getting National Assistance, quite a number would have some small private means or some other pension, which has been found to be the 1172 case among other people claiming retirement pensions today.

Three out of four of the separated widows of the first world war are receiving a minimum of 40s. from the State, and some are getting more than the full war pension. Regarding the 1939 widows —there are 670 of them, the average age being between 50 and 60—the vast majority are in regular employment. The average war pension they are getting, exclusive of children's allowances, is about £1 a week. About 30 per cent. of them also get a National Insurance pension, and about a third also receive National Assistance of sums averaging up to £1 a week.

I would conclude by saying that the principle with regard to separated war widows has held good for 30 years, without ever having been seriously challenged, although it has been kept under review and is brought forward at various times by ex-service associations, the Ministry itself and by war pension committees.

The improvements we have made in the social services have, as I have shown, ensured that the financial provisions of all these separated widows is on an adequate scale. Needless to say, if my hon. Friend can bring to me any particular case of such a widow in difficult financial circumstances, I shall be glad to look into it.