§ 32. Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to give an estimate of the cost of raising the 262 National Assistance scale by the full amount by which basic pensions were recently raised.
§ The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Osbert Peake)The cost of so raising the scales over and above the increases recently given would be at the rate of about £38 million a year. This makes no allowance for any increase in numbers which might result from the higher rates.
§ Dr. KingIs the Minister aware that this sum would end the hardships of nearly one million of our poorest people and that no one who voted for either side at the last Election would grudge his taking immediate action?
§ Mr. PeakeThe hon. Member knows that the National Assistance Board has the duty of reviewing the scales from time to time and that it did so as recently as February last.
§ Dr. SummerskillCan the Minister reconcile the statement he made at the end of last year—when he said that the cost which he mentioned just now was too great and that the Government could not contemplate it—with the recent statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he said that he had £140 million to distribute?
§ Mr. PeakeI never said that the cost was too great or, in fact, made any reference at all to the cost of raising the National Assistance scales. In the matter of Assistance scales the initiative rests, as the right hon. Lady well knows, with the National Assistance Board, and the Government would readily incur any extra cost that the Assistance Board thought advisable.