Commons Sitting of 22 November 1960

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  ABERDEEN HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
    CLYDE NAVIGATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
    Considered; to be read the Third time Tomorrow.
  FORTH ROAD BRIDGE ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Consideration deferred till Tomorrow.

FORTH ROAD BRIDGE ORDER CONFIRMATION [MONEY]
[Queen's Recommendation signified.]
Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).
[Sir JAMES DUNCAN in the Chair]
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to confirm an Order to confer further powers on the Forth Road Bridge Joint Board and to enact further provisions with respect to certain of the works authorised by the Forth Road Bridge Orders, 1947 to 1958, to make provision as to the acquisition and utilisation of lands by the said Board and for other purposes, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act in any advance by way of loan made by the Secretary of State under the Order confirmed by the Forth Road Bridge Order Confirmation Act, 1958.—[Mr. Maclay.]
Resolution to be reported.
Report to be received Tomorrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SCOTLAND

    University Awards
    Mr. MacArthurasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when Scottish university awards will be increased to the level of those now obtaining in England and Wales by applying the system of standard figures of maintenance as recommended by the Anderson Committee.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): The Government have not completed their consideration of a number of the Committee's recommendations, but a statement will be made as soon as possible.
    Mr. MacArthur: Would my right hon. Friend agree that students and parents in Scotland would be justified in awaiting this future statement in a mood of optimistic expectancy?
    Mr. Maclay: Far be it from me to forecast decisions not yet taken, but I have much sympathy with the point which my hon. Friend has in mind.
    Dr. A. Thompson: Will the Minister bear in mind the need for more generous treatment for Scottish students who, for academic reasons, pursue their courses at universities outside Scotland?
    Mr. Maclay: I am well aware of the point, but I think it necessary for it to be dealt with in the context of the Report as a whole.

    Forth Bridge
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what provisions are to be made in the specifications for the approach and other roads in connection with the new Forth Bridge to facilitate safe driving during conditions of low visibility; and whether there are to be reflecting studs, reflecting kerbs and all safeguards against accident.
    Mr. Maclay: I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply given to him by my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland on 15th November.
    Mr. Woodburn: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that this matter is important enough to set up a committee to consider the provision of lighting for this bridge so that we can give a lead to the world? So far the replies given do not seem to me to have been satisfactory. May I further ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will make a statement concerning what form of prevention of accidents is to be taken on this bridge?
    Mr. Maclay: I fully respect the right hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm in this very good cause, but, on the question of reflecting kerbs, I think he knows that we are carrying out experiments with a number of different types and that the specification is sufficiently flexible for us to have the best kind when all the experiments are completed.
    Mr. Woodburn: The right hon. Gentleman is limiting his reply to something which happened on previous Questions. I am asking about a much wider point—what protection is to be given to a driver crossing this bridge at night in fog conditions and what kind of lighting is to be used?
    Mr. Maclay: I will certainly consider whether at some time I can make a fuller statement about exactly what is being done.

    Teachers
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has now prepared a plan for dealing with the teacher shortage in Scottish schools.
    Mr. Maclay: I propose to continue measures which have proved successful in recent years in encouraging recruitment to the teaching profession, and also to seek to attract more married women teachers back into service.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the widespread fear in Scotland that his new plan will be a retrograde step, as it proposes to replace quality with maturity as an entrance qualification for the teaching profession? If that be so, does he realise that it is bound to lower educational standards, to reduce the status of teachers and to do great harm to the nation at large? Can the right hon. Gentleman give any assurances to the contrary?
    Mr. Maclay: I repeat what I have said about this—that I have not made any proposals at this stage. A review of the training regulations is overdue and I have circulated, as a basis for discussion with the bodies particularly concerned, a memorandum which raises the questions which must be considered in this comprehensive review, and I must await comments.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: Before the right hon. Gentleman makes any firm decisions on this question, will he take care to read a report, which, we understand, will be issued this week, on recommendations to increase the strength of the police force? If he regards the teacher as a person as important in the community as a policeman, will he take steps to increase the numbers of teachers comparable to those it is contemplated taking to increase the number of policemen?
    Mr. Maclay: Doubtless, I will read many things to be published later this week, but I point out and emphasise that the number entering training has increased substantially in recent years and by no less than 40 per cent. in the last four years.

    Adopted Children (Law)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland, in view of the difference between Scotland and England in the law relating to the adoption of children, namely, that in Scotland adopted children are not entitled as of right, as they are in England, to inherit property on the intestacy of their adopted parents is an anomaly which inflicts hardship on adopted children in Scotland and which has been under consideration by Her Majesty's Government for many months with a view to its removal, if he can now state when he proposes to remove it.
    Mr. Maclay: The succession rights of adopted children must be considered along with other aspects of the law of intestate succession in Scotland, but I have already indicated in reply to earlier Questions that I can give no undertaking to introduce a Bill on succession during the current Session of Parliament.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it invidious that

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    Scottish children should be deprived of rights which English children enjoy in similar circumstances? If there is a specific objection to this amendment of the law, will the Secretary of State, in justice to the children of Scotland, specify what the objections are?
    Mr. Maclay: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that this is a complex question and one has to be very careful in making changes in something which has existed for a great many years. We had intended to do something last Session, but, for good reasons, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows—because of the very full discussion which went on in Committee on another very important Bill—time was not available. I cannot undertake to say when time will be available.
    Mr. Rankin: When the right hon. Gentleman promised in the Queen's Speech before last that he would introduce a Bill to reform the law of succession, he must have had the time factor in mind—or was he quite irresponsible when he made that promise?
    Mr. Maclay: The hon. Gentleman must know that it is not always possible to be dead accurate in one's estimate of how long individual Bills will take to get through the Scottish Standing Committee.

    Factory Trawlers
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a further statement on the advances made in the development of the stern fishing factory trawler; and what further steps he now plans towards increasing the number of such trawlers.
    Mr. Maclay: Three stern fishing factory trawlers are at present fishing from British ports. Further development of this type of vessel is primarily a matter for the fishing industry.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that this is a very important modernisation which should be encouraged energetically in the interests of not only the fishing industry but the consumers of fish in this country?
    Mr. Maclay: These ships are undoubtedly very interesting but, as the hon. and learned Member knows, other
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    interesting developments of a comparable kind are taking place, although on somewhat smaller ships. The industry must be allowed to continue experimenting and we will all watch with interest what comes out of those experiments.

    Glasgow-Edinburgh Road
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if, in view of statistics which show that in the last three years there were 1,000 accidents of which 44 were fatal on the A.8 Glasgow-Edinburgh road, he will now authorise the completion of the dual carriageway from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
    Mr. Maclay: I am puzzled by the hon. Member's figures as official records show, for the period in question, 173 accidents involving personal injury on the length of A.8 between the Edinburgh and Glasgow boundaries, 36 of which were fatal. As regards the reconstruction of this road, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my hon. Friend, the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland gave to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) on 15th November.
    Mr. Dempsey: Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that the figures are quoted from the journal of a very important road authority? Was he aware of them when he made his statement to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis)? Will he bear in mind that many of the accidents on this road occur as a result of overtaking and meeting other vehicles head-on, and that that fatal element could be removed by having a dual carriageway from Glasgow to Edinburgh?
    Mr. Maclay: I would be the last to talk down the seriousness of the situation on this road, but I must re-emphasise that one of the facts which we have to face in this problem is that all the evidence suggests that about half of the accidents on this road occur at junctions, while very few can be definitely attributed to the three-lane layout as such.

    Shipping Services (North Isles of Orkney)
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a

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    statement on the latest position regarding the shipping services to the North Isles of Orkney.
    Mr. Maclay: Designs are being prepared for new vessels for these services and tenders will be invited at an early date In the meantime I have offered to assist the Orkney Steam Navigation Company to maintain their present services and I am in negotiation with them about the operation of the services in future. I have been fortunate in obtaining the services of Sir Douglas Thomson, a Director of the Ben Line, to advise me on the shipping matters involved.
    Mr. Grimond: Is the Secretary of State aware that, apart from ordering new ships, it is very important to get on with deciding the timing and frequency of the services? Will he make sure that in this matter the opinions of those who live in the North Isles are fully considered?
    Mr. Maclay: I am well aware of the importance of the last part of the hon. Member's question, and I agree that it is extremely desirable to get arrangements for operation fixed as soon as we possibly can.
    Mr. G. M. Thomson: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to ensure that Scottish shipyards are given the chance to tender for the construction of these ships?
    Mr. Maclay: I should be horrified if Scottish shipyards were not given the chance to tender for them.

    Two-bedroomed Houses
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will adopt the principle of granting subsidies for the building of two-bedroom houses for aged couples where the local authorities want to build this type of house for their old people.
    Mr. Maclay: While I should be prepared to consider such proposals where an authority can point to special circumstances, I should normally expect the housing needs of old people to be met by smaller houses more suited to their requirements.
    Mr. Manuel: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people in Scotland, including the more progressive local authorities, will be shocked by that Answer? Does he not regard a one-bedroomed house as quite unsuitable for an old couple when illness occurs? Will he bear in mind the fact that hospital accommodation is often overtaxed because, when an elderly person becomes ill, a daughter cannot move in and so the elderly person has to be taken to hospital? Will he live up to what he says about the man in Whitehall not knowing best and allow local authorities to decide the type of house which they will build?
    Mr. Maclay: As I have said before, I recognise that there are some elderly households where two bedrooms are required, and I am quite ready to consider any special cases put to me by local authorities which find that they have a relatively large number of such households to provide for.
    Equally, however, I am sure that there are many cases where elderly people are very pleased indeed to have the smaller type of house.
    Miss Herbison: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that if local authorities know the needs of their areas, it would be a good thing to allow them to build two-bedroomed houses for old people? Is he not aware that many old people like occasionally to have their families staying with them? Why should they be denied that comfort in their old age? Why should they be denied the comfort of having someone to live with them when they are ill? Does he not agree that in many ways it would help if two-bedroomed houses were supplied?
    Mr. Maclay: I have already made it clear that I am prepared to be flexible in my approach, but I repeat that there are many cases in which elderly people want to have the smallest practicable house, although there may be cases where it is desirable to have diversity of accommodation.

    Housing
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many local authorities were not building any houses at the latest convenient date; if he will indicate the number of houses being

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    built by the remaining local authorities; and if he will state the relation between that number and the number he estimates is needed throughout Scotland.
    Mr. Maclay: One hundred and two local authorities had no houses under construction at the end of September while 23,698 houses were then being built by the remaining 129 authorities, and 4,060 houses were being built by the Scottish Special Housing Association and the New Town Development Corporations. Because of social changes and the progressive deterioration of older houses it would be extremely difficult to express Scotland's housing needs in terms of a total number of houses at any given date.
    Mr. Manuel: Is the right hon. Gentle man aware that that was a roundabout if tactful Answer, from his point of view? Will he agree that local authorities and the Scottish Special Housing Association are building far fewer houses and that hundreds of thousands of houses are still needed in Scotland because of deterioration, grossly overcrowded conditions, and people living in sub-let tenancies? Will he try to equate his mind to the size of the problem instead of jollying along with the puny figures now being produced?
    Mr. Maclay: If the hon. Member talks of puny figures, let us look into history and compare what we have done with what the party opposite has done.

    Foot-and-Mouth Disease
    Mr. Hendryasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will take steps to prevent the future movement of cattle to Scotland from England when cases of foot-and-mouth disease have occurred in the latter country.
    Mr. Maclay: No, Sir. When an outbreak occurs full use is made of the powers to declare infected and controlled areas and to prohibit movement of stock over broad stretches of the country. I am satisfied that this is the right way to deal with the problem.
    Mr. Hendry: Would not my hon. Friend agree that there is oonsiderable traffic in beef cattle from England to Scotland, particularly to Aberdeen,
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    which is not normally bona fide movement, and which, quite apart from anything else, is likely to spoil the reputation of Scottish beef? Could bona fide traffic of this kind not be dealt with by licences? If not, is there any radical difference between cattle and hens, because fowl pest is dealt with in precisely the same way?
    Mr. Maclay: I would not like to comment at short notice on the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. On the second part, about whether some system of licensing would be desirable, I think he will appreciate that, in view of the incubation period for the disease, which can be seven days or more, a licensing system would not be effective unless it was permanent, and a permanent licensing system might have unexpected and rather grave consequences on a very important trade.
    Mr. Stodart: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is another step which he could take to achieve the result which is desired, and that is to give further encouragement to people to breed more cattle in Scotland so that the traffic from England would not be necessary?
    Mr. Maclay: I hope that that will be duly noted by all those who might be interested in breeding cattle in Scotland.
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the alterations to marketing arrangements consequent on the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
    Mr. Maclay: Store markets are prohibited in both controlled and infected areas. All movements within these areas must be licensed by local authorities and no animals may be moved out of either controlled or infected areas. Fatstock markets may be conditionally licensed but not within five miles of an outbreak.
    Mr. Grimond: Does that mean that all Orkney marketing is now stopped? Has the right hon. Gentleman any information as to how this disease has spread to Orkney?
    Mr. Maclay: It is still rather early to give a definite answer to the second part of the hon. Member's question. I should like to write to him. I received some information this morning which I

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    have not yet been able to digest. The position with regard to marketing is governed by my original Answer. Unless a conditional licence is granted, marketing must be at a standstill.

    Grey Seals
    Sir J. Duncanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he proposes to issue a further Suspension Order this year to the Grey Seals (Protection) (Scotland) Act, 1932, so that further attempts to cull grey seals may be made.
    Mr. Maclay: Yes, Sir. A draft of an Order suspending the close season for a further year was laid before the House on 12th July. As the statutory period during which a Resolution could be passed against the Order expired last week, I propose to make the Order and bring it into force on the expiry of the present Order.
    Sir J. Duncan: Will the Order apply to the Fame Islands, where it is alleged that grey seals are increasing to an alarming extent and spreading up the Angus and Kincardineshire coast, where they are doing a lot of damage to fishing interests?
    Mr. Maclay: The Fame Islands do not come within my responsibility.

    Industrial Development
    Mr. Benceasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to co-ordinate the Scottish Departments in publicising Scotland's assets in order to attract new industries.
    Mr. Maclay: Publicity at home and abroad about all matters that are the concern of the Scottish Departments is co-ordinated by the Scottish Information Office.
    Mr. Bence: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his efforts have been very unsuccessful indeed, because his noble Friend, an Englishman, in another place, with a Scottish title, representing Scotland, when speaking in Wales, was reported in the Glasgow Herald and attacked in well-known Scottish newspapers in no uncertain terms because of the speech he made in Cardiff denigrating the workers in Scotland? Will the right hon. Gentleman immediately take steps to make this noble Lord redundant in
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    Scotland for not knowing his business, and for not knowing the workers in Scotland, and have him transferred to a Welsh Department free of transfer fees?
    Mr. Maclay: My noble Friend the Minister of State for Scotland has in recent months made extremely effective speeches in his various travels, not only in this country but in other countries. I cannot pay too high a tribute to the value of his work in the interests of Scotland. If the hon. Gentleman studies the report of what my noble Friend said, as reported in the Glasgow Herald, he will find that he did not criticise Scottish labour or its adaptability. He emphasised some of the reasons why industrialists go to Wales, with the very proper moral that the more we do in Scotland to advertise our advantages, including the availability and adaptability of labour, the better it will be for what we want to achieve.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Does not the published report of the speech of the Minister of State for Scotland make it clear that he was informing his Welsh audience that one of the impediments in the way of Scotland getting more industry was the trade unions in Scotland? Apparently the trade unions in Scotland are one of our liabilities in attracting new industry. Does this represent the views of Her Majesty's Government?
    Mr. Maclay: I recommend that the report be read very carefully. The only extraordinary thing is that these questions should be asked, because they imply criticisms that do not exist. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman should not be so sensitive as to draw such inferences from this speech.

    Roads (Speed Limits)
    Mr. Stodartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will authorise proposals from local authorities to raise the speed limit from 30 to 40 miles per hour on suitable stretches of road in Scotland.
    Mr. Maclay: A circular letter was issued in August last drawing the attention of local authorities in Scotland to the powers available under the Road Traffic Acts to impose speed limits of 40 m.p.h. and indicating that I would welcome the raising of the limit where-ever appropriate. So far one application

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    of this nature has been received. My officials are hoping to discuss the speed limit status of particular lengths of road with certain authorities in the near future.
    Mr. Stodart: Can my right hon. Friend say whether local authorities have been made aware of the Report by the Departmental Committee on Road Safety, that where this experiment has taken place on suitable stretches of road in the London area there has been no increase in the accident rate?
    Mr. Maclay: Yes, I think that that information has been made available, but I will check and make certain that it is.

    New Towns (House Building)
    Mr. Millanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will take steps to increase the rate of house building by new town development corporations.
    Mr. Maclay: My noble Friend the Minister of State has already met the chairmen of East Kilbride and Cumbernauld new town development corporations on this question. He proposes shortly to have a further discussion at a joint meeting with the three corporations.
    Mr. Millan: Is it not disturbing that figures for new towns for the third quarter of the current year for both houses completed and the number of houses under construction at the end of the period show substantial reductions? Now that the Secretary of State for Scotland has, after a long and unnecessary delay, granted the principle of a fourth new town for Scotland, will he not do something about speeding up the programme of existing new town development corporations, with particular reference to Glasgow's overspill problem?
    Mr. Maclay: I said that the Minister of State for Scotland is discussing the possibility of speeding up programmes. I do not accept the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question when he said that there was an unnecessary delay in going on with a fourth new town, because I am certain that if we had made the decision earlier it might well have been the wrong decision.

    Glenrothes (County Council Representation)
    Mr. W. Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what objections he has received to the proposal for additional county council representation for Glenrothes; and whether he will give an assurance that the public local inquiry will be completed in time for the May, 1961, local elections.
    Mr. Maclay: I have received three objections from members of the county council. The public local inquiry will be held on the 19th December, and it should be possible for me to reach a decision in time for the local elections next May.
    Mr. Hamilton: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that decision. It will do something anyhow to remove the impression that the decision to set up a public inquiry was the result of political pressure from the three objectors who, I believe, are all Conservative councillors. Will he repeat the assurance that this will give the local organisations some time to get their candidates into the field for the May elections?
    Mr. Maclay: Obviously political considerations cannot come into my mind on the question of public inquiries, but I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the Answer I have already given, which explains the position.

    Baird Street Hospital, Glasgow (Rheumatology Unit)
    Miss Herbisonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when the rheumatology unit at Baird Street Hospital, Glasgow, will be ready to receive patients.
    Mr. Maclay: It is impossible to be definite until the detailed planning has been done on the adaptations required, but the unit might be open by the end of 1961.
    Miss Herbison: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether alterations have begun? My information is that the stage at present reached is that negotiations are taking place between the Western Regional Hospital Board and the body which owns this clinic. Would it not have been far better for the Western

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    Regional Hospital Board to have used Belvedere Hospital? If that had been done, the patients would now have been receiving treatment. Instead, there has been this long delay, which means that we shall have had to wait from 1957 until perhaps 1961 before any accommodation is available for this very important purpose.
    Mr. Maclay: I think I am right in saying that it is still in the detailed planning stage. On the other point about Belvedere Hospital, I would hate to comment on that in reply to a supplementary question.

    Rented Houses (Amenities)
    Mr. Millanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to encourage private owners of rented houses to provide the standard amenities of bath, wash basin, hot water supply, water closet and food store.
    Mr. Maclay: Forty-five thousand copies of a leaflet describing the special grants available to owners for the provision of these basic amenities have been distributed, and practical demonstrations and displays have been held or are planned in a number of different areas. The hon. Member may have seen the very successful display at a recent exhibition in the Kelvin Hall.
    Mr. Millan: Since the number of privately-owned rented houses in Scotland which are lacking either one or all of these amenities must be of the order of about 500,000, is it not absolutely shocking that the total applications by private landlords for assistance in the first nine months of this year totalled just over 100? Is this not a demonstration of the fact that private landlordism in Scotland is not able to do this job? When is the right hon. Gentleman going to draw the conclusion from this that this is something which the local authority ought to be allowed to do on a grand scale? The houses should be turned over to them so that they can do the job which is desperately needed.
    Mr. Maclay: The hon. Gentleman has gone rather wide in his supplementary question, but it is interesting to note that the proportion of rented houses for which applications for grants have been
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    received has risen from 3 per cent. in the first quarter to 17 per cent. in the third quarter. They were slow to get under way, but there are good signs that private landlords are beginning to take advantage of it.
    Mr. Millan: Are percentages to mean anything at all? The number of applications in the third quarter was only 72, and there are about 500,000 of these houses. How long will it take to do the job?
    Mr. Maclay: I can give the hon. Member a lot of figures, but I have not the one that he has mentioned. If he wants them, I will write to him.

    Roman Catholic School, Carmyle
    Mr. Timmonsasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will expedite the starting of a new Roman Catholic school at Carmyle.
    Mr. Maclay: Plans for a new Roman Catholic Primary School at Carmyle have been agreed informally between the Lanarkshire Education Authority and the Scottish Education Department, and will be submitted for my formal approval within the next week or so. Building work is expected to start in the autumn of next year.
    Mr. Timmons: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that answer, although it is a rather belated one. Is he aware that seven years ago the Lanarkshire Education Committee promised the parents of the children in this area a school within two years? Is he further aware that I raised this matter in February, 1959, when I was promised that a start would be made within six months. According to a letter which I received from the Joint Under-Secretary a few weeks ago, a start will be made in the autumn of 1961. Parents will be very pleased to think that this project is going ahead.
    Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member will realise that there have been acute site difficulties in planning for this school. Only one site has been available, and that has been the cause of a bad hold-up.

    Clydeside (Emergency Plans)
    Mrs. Hartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans exist at the moment for the evacuation of the

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    population of Clydeside in the event of emergency; and when he hopes to present his new plans to the House.
    Mr. Maclay: I cannot yet forecast when the re-examination to which I referred in answer to the hon. Lady on 16th November will be completed. Detailed plans for particular areas must await the outcome of the re-examination.
    Mrs. Hart: Is it not extraordinary that at a time when the Government announce their plans for a Polaris base in Holy Loch there should be extreme doubt as to the future of the population of Clyde-side? Will not the Government exercise their real responsibility in this matter and at least inform the people of Clydeside what their fate will be in the event of an emergency?
    Mr. Maclay: It is clear that if there were an emergency any Government would take whatever steps were necessary in the circumstances of the incident. Beyond that I cannot add to what I have said.
    Mrs. Hart: Can the Minister tell us what the plans are at present if there should be an emergency in the near future?
    Mr. Maclay: The previous proposals, which were discussed some time ago with local authority associations, are under re-examination. The hon. Lady will realise that in a matter of this kind it would be extraordinary if it were possible to keep plans absolutely static, so that the plans for one year were exactly the same as those for the next year.
    Mr. MacArthur: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the majority of people in Scotland greatly resent these attempts to spread unjustified public alarm with the object of throwing aside the responsibilities of alliance?

    Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride (Maternity Unit)
    Mrs. Hartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what stage has now been reached in the discussions of the West Regional Hospital Board of the proposed maternity unit at Hairmyres Hospital, East Kilbride; and if he will announce a date upon which the unit is likely to be established.
    Mr. Maclay: The Western Regional Hospital Board has approved in principle the establishment of a general practitioner maternity unit at Hairmyres Hospital, but it is too early to forecast when the necessary work can be put in hand.
    Mrs. Hart: Does not the Secretary of State agree that it is most urgent that the maternity unit should come into operation in time for the present generation of East Kilbride babies to be born In view of this fact, will not he stress the real urgency of the matter to the hospital board and ask it to announce as soon as possible a date on which it is likely to be completed?
    Mr. Maclay: I think the regional hospital board is well aware of the position and must be left to determine the priorities in the first instance.

    "Lady Chatterley's Lover"
    Dr. Dickson Mabonasked the Lord Advocate why he has decided not to institute any legal proceedings in respect of the sale in Scotland of the book, Lady Chatterley's Lover.
    The Lord Advocate (Mr. William Grant): At common law it is an offence to publish, circulate or expose for sale any obscene work devised and intended to corrupt the morals of the community and to create inordinate and lustful desires. Under certain statutory provisions it is an offence to publish, offer for sale, sell, or exhibit to view any indecent or obscene book.
    To justify a conviction under these provisions, it would be necessary to prove that the book is of such a nature as to be calculated to produce a pernicious effect in depraving and corrupting those who are open to such influences. I have carefully considered the book in question, and I have reached the conclusion that it does not offend against either the common law or the statutory provisions.
    Dr. Mabon: In view of these reasons, are we to take it that in respect of every test case that appears before the English Central Criminal Court the book in question will be read by the Lord Advocate before he issues his ukase for publication of the book in Scotland? If his decision in this case is a good one, why does he and his right hon. Friend

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    not introduce a Bill to bring Scottish law into conformity with English law, rather than trail Scottish law and lawyers far behind English practice?
    The Lord Advocate: I do not think the hon. Member is right in what he says. Although the law in this matter in England and Scotland may not be entirely similar, I do not think it differs as much as he suggests. In any event, although the proceedings in London and the verdict of the jury were in no way conclusive in respect of the position in Scotland, they were factors which I could not entirely ignore. But I came to the decision after considering the law as it is and after having read the book—which, whatever literary merit it may have, appeared to me to be extremely dull and tedious.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Lord Advocate aware that he has shown extreme common sense in this matter? He has shown much more common sense than the Attorney-General, who has wasted public money in Britain. It is clear that when a book is banned people are encouraged to read it. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that my illustrious constituents, Robert Burns and James Boswell, would heartily approve of him?
    The Lord Advocate: While not going the whole way with the hon. Member, I am grateful for the first real compliment he has paid me since I came into the House over five years ago.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: As the law in Scotland differs from the law in England, and as an English jury has had an opportunity of considering and deciding upon this case, does not the Lord Advocate think that it would have been a Fair and right thing to take the opinion of a Scottish jury on the same question?
    The Lord Advocate: No, Sir. The recognised and proper procedure is that I should not institute proceedings in a case where I do not consider an offence has been committed.
    Mr. Healey: If the Lord Advocate takes this extremely reasonable view, why on earth did he not use his influence to stop the Attorney-General instituting proceedings in an English court?
    The Lord Advocate: My writ runs only to the Tweed, and no further South.
    Dr. Mabon: On a point of order. In view of the constitutional impropriety which I consider is consequent in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Answer, and in view of the doubtful allies of the Lord Advocate——
    Mr. Speaker: I constantly seem to be asking hon. Members to adhere to the traditional formula.
    Dr. Mabon: I was trying to remember it, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Local Authorities (Loans)
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is now prepared to make more money available to local authorities for housing and other work of social importance at rates of interest comparable with official loans made to private firms.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): The rates of interest at which loans are now made available to local authorities for housing and other works of social importance are well known. I see no need for a change in present Government policy on this matter.
    Mr. Spriggs: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that a number of local authorities are no longer building houses for the general need and that the Government's present economic policy is having a crippling effect on local authority finance?
    Mr. Lloyd: I would not accept what the hon. Member has said.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Quite apart from the fact that here the Chancellor is flying in the face of the Radcliffe Report, would the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether any of the arrangements for loans to private companies bear a lower rate of interest than those charged to local authorities?
    Mr. Lloyd: So far as two particular loans are concerned, I think the right hon. Gentleman knows that the loan to the Cunard line is 6¼ per cent.—the same rate as to local authorities—and to Richard Thomas and Baldwin the figure was 6 per cent., which is the same as the rate to nationalised industries.
    Mr. Wilson: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman know that Richard Thomas and Baldwin is a nationalised industry? Would he give us the figures for Colvilles?
    Mr. Lloyd: No loan has yet been made to Colvilles.

    Private Industry (Loans and Grants)
    Mr. H. Wilsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now lay a White Paper showing the total amount of public money committed to privately owned industries and firms by subsidy, grant or loan, stating in detail the terms and conditions on which such payments have been or are to be made.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As I have already said, I am prepared to give this information in a convenient form, with the reservation that the details of grants and loans made, for example, under the Local Employment Act, have always been confidential. On the question of when this information will be published, I am considering when it would be most convenient to do this.
    Mr. Wilson: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that what he has said about the confidential nature of the information regarding individual firms coming to unemployment areas is probably acceptable to the whole House and that we are not pressing him on that particular?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I will try to give the information at the most convenient time.

    Shares (Capital Appreciation)
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will introduce legislation to obtain for the Exchequer some share of capital appreciaition in purchases of share capital.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir.
    Mr. Woodburn: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that this latest example of Fords shows how ridiculous it is that great sums of money free of taxation should be paid to people without any effort on their part, while the rest of the community is left to pay the whole of the cost of running the country?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think the right hon. Gentleman is making proposals in this Question of a budgetary nature. He is well aware that it would be contrary to precedent for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to discuss such matters at this time of the year.

    National Disaster Fund
    Mr. Mathewasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now declare the extensive and repeated flooding in the south-west of England and in other areas as a national disaster, and give a lead to a national flood disaster fund to relieve the personal loss and damage suffered by victims.
    Sir J. Maitlandasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now set up a committee to examine and report on the problems connected with the introduction of a national disaster fund in this country, in order that the House may have a basis for the discussion of the creation of such a fund.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: There are difficulties about the idea of a National Disaster Fund. I am not convinced that it would be an improvement on the present position from the point of view of those who suffer loss. There would be great difficulties of definition and administration. I am inclined to think that it is better to continue as at present, i.e., for the Government to encourage local appeals and to promise to supplement them should they prove insufficient to meet the need. I do not think that a committee would add to our knowledge in this matter.
    Mr. Mathew: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that as a result of there not having been a national fund and the collection of the money being left to local funds, in the County of Devon alone the claims on the county fund exceed the money collected by no less than five times? Does not he think the time for

    965
    reviewing and considering this matter is past and that a national scheme should now be initiated?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am not sure that a national scheme would improve the situation. In my position as Chancellor of the Exchequer I have gone a very long way to meet the needs by saying that the Treasury will supplement to the degree required what is raised by local funds.
    Sir J. Maitland: In view of the difficulties to which the Chancellor has referred, would it not be a good idea if an outside committee had a look at these things and reported on the difficulties so that we can see whether it is advisable or not? Arising out of that, how is it that if these things are so difficult a member country of the Commonwealth has set up a fund which, I understand, is very efficient?
    Mr. Lloyd: I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would send me particulars about that. It is a fact of which I was not aware. I have to come to a decision on the information available to me. Regarding the present series of disasters, I do not think that the institution of a national disaster fund would help, but I am certainly prepared to consider future action in the light of our experience and what has happened this year.
    Mr. Grimond: When the Chancellor is considering these matters, will he bear in mind that the local situation is extremely unsatisfactory? Is he aware that the amount of money collected—I have had some experience of this—depends on where the disaster occurs, what other news appears in the newspapers at the time, what time of year it occurs and how much publicity is given? Is he aware that there is a great deal to be said for having a national fund to cover all national disasters in whatever circumstances they occur?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am not at all certain what would be the extent of voluntary contributions to such a fund.

    3½ per cent. War Loan
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total of nominal holdings in 3½ per cent. War Loan.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: About £1,909 million.
    Mr. Spriggs: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider the reply he gave me in correspondence with reference to the case of Mrs. Heys, who has applied to him, through me, for the redemption of 3½ per cent. War Loan? I wrote to the right hon. and learned Gentleman about this matter in view of the real domestic hardship, which has occurred in the case of a widowed mother with three children who has great difficulty in existing on the miserable sum of just over £5 to supply the needs of four people? Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider his reply and see whether he can get his colleague to agree with him to redeem all these loans?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am aware that there may be hardship for particular people, but it is difficult for me to make an exception to the general rule. The position regarding the general rule was put carefully by hon. Friend the Economic Secretary when he answered my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) on 10th November.

    Ford Motor Company, Dagenham
    Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, before considering exchange control consent to Ford Motors of Detroit to extend their control of Ford Motors of Dagenham to 100 per cent., he will seek an undertaking that Fords of Detroit will not use their control to prevent the British company from trading in the same way as other British companies, and will also refrain from the exercise of that control for political purposes contrary to the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I would remind my hon. Friend that Fords of Detroit already have effective control of Ford Motors of Dagenham; and the past trading record of the Dagenham Company, while this control has existed, speaks for itself. I have, however, been assured by the American Ford Company that they have no intention whatever of preventing the Dagenham Company from continuing to trade as hitherto in the same way as other British Companies. If any issues of a political nature should arise in the future they

    967
    will of course have to be resolved between Governments rather than by the industrial companies.
    Mr. Langford-Holt: Would not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it was undesirable that the American Government should so bring pressure on Fords of Dagenham that they were not allowed to export tractors to China which, whatever one may think of that as a commercial proposition, was part of the policy of the Government? In view of the immense defence importance of this factory, would not my right hon. and learned Friend consider getting further undertakings that this pressure would not again—I use the word "again" advisedly—be used?
    Mr. Lloyd: Today is the first time I have heard of that suggestion. In the past few days I have heard a good many suggestions about what has happened regarding Fords at Dagenham, but this is the first time I have heard of that.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Since this was raised yesterday in the debate and not replied to, are we to take it from the answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he has now a clear assurance that Fords of Detroit will not interfere with the trading freedom of Fords of Dagenham in the way in which it did with Fords of Canada?
    Mr. Lloyd: Regarding Fords of Canada, I am not at all certain that the facts are as the right hon. Gentleman said. I think that is a matter of some considerable doubt. What I do say is that if there is any attempt to take into account political considerations of this sort, it seems to me that is a matter for the Government.

    Overseas Investment
    Mr. Gowerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will state approximately the total British capital invested in industry overseas;
    (2) if he will state approximately the total capital of the United States of America and other overseas countries, respectively, invested in British industry.
    Mr. Cooperasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what is the estimated total of British capital invested in American industry;
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    (2) what is the estimated total of American capital invested in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I regret that figures of the total amount of United Kingdom capital invested in industry in the United States and other countries are not available. According to United States Government estimates, the book value of direct private investment by United States companies in the United Kingdom amounted to £884 million at the end of 1959. Information about the direct investment of other overseas countries in the United Kingdom is not available.
    Mr. Gower: Would not some of these figures be a great help in making an objective judgment on the value of inter-trading across frontiers?
    Mr. Lloyd: I agree that it would be interesting to have these figures, though the Radcliffe Report indicated that it would be a task of tremendous complexity. I am always being encouraged to reduce the number of civil servants, and I am not sure whether it would be possible to get more figures.
    Mr. H. Wilson: When the Chancellor expresses his belief in the uncontrolled freedom of investment across national frontiers, he is referring to American investment in this country. Would he give a similar welcome if President Nasser tried to buy shares in the Manchester Ship Canal Company?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think that a very hypothetical question.
    Mr. Ridsdale: In reply to Question No. 32, is my right hon. and learned Friend able to say what proportion of British capital invested overseas is long-term and what proportion is short-term, and what proportion of this is reflected in our balance of payments and invisible exports?
    Mr. Lloyd: Not without notice and, even with notice, I doubt it.

    Historical Monuments Commission
    Mr. McLarenasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now state the membership and terms of reference of the Working Group on the Historical Monuments Commission.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The Working Group under the Chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, will be composed of Ministers representing the other Departments concerned. It will consider and where necessary reassess the nature, scope and organisation of Exchequer-financed work throughout Britain on identifying, recording and research into historic monuments and buildings.
    Mr. McLaren: Is it the intention of my right hon. and learned Friend to make a further announcement when the work of this group has been finished?
    Mr. Lloyd: I am quite certain that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will make such a statement.

    Bank Rate
    Mr. Osborneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the fact that the Bank Rate in Belgium and Germany is 4 per cent., in France and the Netherlands 3½ per cent., and in the United States of America only 3 per cent., what are the reasons for maintaining the United Kingdom Bank Rate at 5½ per cent.; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: In considering movements in the level of Bank Rate I have to bear in mind its effect on the strength of sterling abroad and the state of the economy at home. There are thus many factors to be considered apart from the level of similar rates in other countries; it was after taking all these into account that I approved a reduction in Bank Rate from 6 per cent. to 5½ per cent., on 27th October last.
    Mr. Osborne: Would not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that this "hot" money that comes in as the result of a nigh Bank Rate is tending to build up a short-term liability which may exceed our immediately realisable international assets, and is not that of great danger to us? Secondly, why should we pay high rates of interest to what is international "funk" money, which can only be dangerous for us in a real emergency?
    Mr. Lloyd: I have to consider the question of the strength of sterling, and I think it is of paramount interest to this
    970
    country that sterling should remain strong. I am aware that a certain proportion of this money is what is called "hot" money. I think also that there is considerable investment, showing a high confidence in the strength of sterling and our future prospects.
    Mr. Jay: Can the Chancellor say why this country alone should have this very high interest rate, which Mr. Cobbold, Governor of the Bank of England, described as a "crisis rate"?
    Mr. Lloyd: We have discussed these matters, and I have set out the considerations, which are not solely those concerned with foreign rates, and I approved a reduction, from 6 per cent. to 5½ per cent., on 27th October.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Dunbartonshire
    Mr. Benceasked the President of the Board of Trade how many new industries have been established in Dunbartonshire from 1959 to date; and what steps he is taking to encourage new industries to come to this area.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Niall Macpherson): Two new industries, both small, were established in Dunbartonshire in 1959 and three others will, it is hoped, shortly be moving there. The Board will continue their efforts to encourage new industries to go to those parts of Dunbartonshire which are development districts, and the facilities of the Local Employment Act are available to firms establishing themselves there.
    Mr. Bence: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we have a new town—Cumbernauld—being developed in Dunbartonshire, that the coal industry in Dunbartonshire is not likely to hold out much longer, that the state of the shipbuilding industry on the Clyde is very bad indeed, and that, as he knows, there is a big shipbuilding yard in Dunbartonshire? Is he taking steps to increase the amount of new industry coming to Dunbartonshire, because to claim that only two new industries have come in two years is indeed a very poor achievement towards countering the situation there?
    Mr. Macpherson: We shall certainly continue to do our best. So far as Cumbernauld is concerned, there are 2,440 jobs in prospect there, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

    Barley
    Mr. Kimballasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he took to estimate the supplies of English barley before licensing imports of barley from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): Barley may be imported under open general licence from all sources and the question of licensing imports from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics does not therefore arise.
    Mr. Kimball: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a growing feeling among the agricultural community that there is a sad lack of co-operation between the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture? Will he try to see, if he is to continue to have anything to do with imports of food, that his regional officers at least become known to the farming community, that they visit the markets and make themselves known locally?
    Mr. Erroll: I can assure my hon. Friend that the closest possible co-operation exists between my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture.

  UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA (COMMONWEALTH MEMBERSHIP)
  Mr. Rankinasked the Prime Minister what communications he has received from the South African Government about Her Majesty's Government's policy regarding the readmission of South Africa to the Commonwealth; and what replies he has sent.
  The Home Secretary (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
  In reply to inquiries from Dr. Verwoerd, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister expressed to him the view that it would be appropriate and
  972
  in accordance with precedent that the question of South Africa's continued membership of the Commonwealth, after becoming a Republic, should be raised at the next meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers; and it is understood that Dr. Verwoerd proposes to adopt this course.
  Mr. Rankin: Pending that meeting, would the right hon. Gentleman agree that a Commonwealth should be motivated by something more than materialist interests, and will he not also agree that there ought to be some commonly accepted ideals of which the segregation of races can never be a part? Therefore, will the right hon. Gentleman realise that if, when the time comes, South Africa voluntarily retires from the Commonwealth, that act will be widely acclaimed by millions of people in the Commonwealth who would bitterly resent her readmission.
  Mr. Butler: These considerations, although important, are wider than the original Question. I think we must leave them to be dealt with, as I think they should be, at the next meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers.
  Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask whether that means that the question will be considered before South Africa, technically, becomes a Republic? Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that the matter will be settled at the next Prime Minister's Conference or that it will merely be discussed there?
  Mr. Butler: I think we should naturally hope that some settlement, or whatever word by which we should describe it, will be raised at the conference, but I think it would be wrong to prejudge the question prior to that. It has been agreed between the South African Government and the Prime Minister, who has said so publicly, that the issue may be raised at that conference.

  CENTRAL EUROPE (DISENGAGEMENT)
  Mr. Healeyasked the Prime Minister whether he will seek another meeting with Mr. Khruschev to discuss implementing their agreement to study the possibility of controlling arms and weapons in an agreed area in Europe.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
  No, Sir. In the communiqué issued after my right hon. Friend's visit to Moscow last year, this question was linked with that of a political settlement for Germany. It should, in our view, be included among the questions that would fall to be discussed between the Four Powers at a Summit Conference rather than bilaterally.
  Mr. Healey: In view of the very disturbing speech made yesterday in Paris by the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is much more desirable for the Western Powers to seek some agreement with the Soviet Union to limit and reduce arms and forces in Central Europe than it is unilaterally to seek to increase them?
  Mr. Butler: I cannot add to the terms of the communiqué, which, as the hon. Gentleman will know, definitely linked this matter with wider political considerations, to which the Prime Minister drew attention as late as in December last. Under the circumstances, I do not think that we can pursue this matter bilaterally.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that Sir Anthony Eden several years ago supported this general idea of an area of disengagement in Central Europe, and would not the right hon. Gentleman at any rate say sufficient to show that Her Majesty's Government have not deserted that idea?
  Mr. Butler: The idea is mentioned specifically in the communiqué, which I have with me here, and it was mentioned by the Prime Minister on 17th December, so that it is quite clear that the idea as such is not abandoned, but it has been linked with other political considerations and with a political settlement for Germany.
  Mr. Gaitskell: Will the question therefore be on the agenda of the N.A.T.O. Ministers' conference to discuss in December? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a project which many of us feel offers the most helpful possibility for agreement with the Soviet Union?
  Mr. Butler: I could not either prejudge or give a definite opinion whether
  974
  is will be included at the N.A.T.O. conference, but I will undertake to put it to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on his return from Italy.
  Mr. Healey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Her Majesty's Government have the same right as any other member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to submit questions for discussion at the meetings of the North Atlantic Council, and that it is not really a question of prejudging at all? Her Majesty's Government have the right and the ability to raise the question, and in view of the fact that the former Chief of the Air Staff gave strong support in a recent article in the Daily Telegraph to this conception, will not Her Majesty's Government return to the views expressed eighteen months ago?
  Mr. Butler: I think the hon. Gentleman is going a little too far. I said in reply to the Leader of the Opposition that I would discuss this with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I think we had better leave matters like that.

  ADVERTISEMENTS (FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENTS)
  Mr. Stonehouseasked the Prime Minister if he will introduce legislation to control advertising in Great Britain by foreign and Commonwealth Governments.
  Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply. No, Sir.
  Mr. Stonehouse: Does that quite inadequate reply mean that Her Majesty's Ministers have not considered this serious problem? Is the Home Secretary aware that the Rhodesian Federation has been spending a lot of money on a spate of advertising in the British Press which contains information which is refuted by the Monckton Commission? Does the right hon. Gentleman relish the prospect of the Soviet Union or China using Colman, Prentice and Varley to give Communist propaganda?
  Mr. Butler: I must leave the Soviet Union the choice of their own agents. In relation to the earlier parts of the hon. Member's question, we subscribe to the principle of freedom of information. I think it would be a very sorry day if we departed from it.
  Mr. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this process started with Ghana and that they very wisely have had second thoughts? Is it not a very dangerous principle when Governments, whether they be in the Commonwealth or, as my hon. Friend has indicated, outside the Commonwealth, begin to use advertising agents and advertising technique to try to influence decisions in this House, and in particular perhaps exert influence on individual Members of Parliament?
  Mr. Butler: If there are reflections on individual Members of Parliament, we have our own ways of dealing with that, but in general I cannot interfere with the discretion of other Governments.

NEW MEMBERS SWORN
Edwin Taylor, esquire, for Bolton, East.
Captain Walter Elliot, D.S.C., for Carshalton.
Jasper More, esquire, for Ludlow.
Stephen Lewis Edmonstone Hastings, esquire, for Mid-Bedfordshire.
Joan Mary Quennell, for Petersfield.
Robert John Maxwell-Hyslop, esquire, for Tiverton.

NEW MEMBER MAKES AFFIRMATION REQUIRED BY LAW
Michael Mackintosh Foot, esquire, for Ebbw Vale.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  NATIONAL INSURANCE [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the rates or amounts of contributions and benefits under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, 1946 to 1959, and the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1959, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under—

  (a) subsection (1) of section sixty if the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946 (as extended by section seventeen of the National Insurance Act, 1959); or

  (b) subsection (1) of section thirty-eight of the National Insurance Act, 1946 (as extended as aforesaid); or

  (c) subsection (3) of section one of the National Insurance Act, 1959.

  Resolution agreed to.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

  NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL

    Clause 1.—(LOWER RATES OF CONTRIBUTIONS AND HIGHER RATES OR AMOUNTS OF BENEFITS UNDER INDUSTRIAL INJURIES ACT.)
    3.41 p.m.
    The Chairman: The Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), in page 2, line 5, at the end to add:
    (4) Allowances or other benefits payable out of the Industrial Injuries Fund under any scheme authorised by the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Acts, 1951 and 1954, shall be increased by thirty-one and one quarter per cent.
    is out of order.
    Perhaps I should explain that this is a two-purpose Bill. The first purpose is to alter the rates of contributions and benefits, and the second purpose is to amend the law in respect of entitlement to benefit under the National Insurance Act, 1946. I am bound to reject any Amendment which goes beyond the scope of those purposes.
    Miss Margaret Herbison: On a point of order. I am puzzled by the fact that you, Sir Gordon, have ruled the Amendment out of order. I know that we are not expected to

    977
    question that Ruling, and I am grateful for the explanation which has been given. But, in spite of the explanation, I am still extremely puzzled, for reasons which I hope that you will allow me to give. In 1957, we had a National Insurance (No. 2) Bill, which was not unlike this Bill, and on that occasion a number of us had an Amendment on the Notice Paper very similar to this Amendment. At that time it was accepted as in order, it was moved, many hon. Members spoke to it, and the Minister replied to it. Although the Minister rejected the Amendment, it was not ruled out of order. For that reason I am extremely puzzled when a similar Amendment to a Bill which is almost the same, and which has almost the same purposes, is ruled out of order.
    The Chairman: I am obliged to the hon. Lady. Perhaps I can help her. The previous Bill dealt with many more matters than does this Bill. This Bill is far more limited, as I think she will agree if she looks at the Long Title.
    Mr. Harold Finch: This Amendment seeks to deal with payments under the Industrial Injuries Fund. I do not understand why it has not been accepted for debate, because the Bill deals with benefits under the Industrial Injuries Fund.
    The Chairman: To amend the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Acts is not one of the purposes of the Bill.
    Mr. James Griffiths: Would you for a moment, Sir Gordon, look at the Long Title of the Bill? It says that the Bill is
    "to amend the rates or amounts of contributions and benefits under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, 1946 to 1959 …."
    I presume that that includes all the Acts which have been passed since the original Act of 1946, and that under the Long Title any provision in the Acts between those two dates can be discussed and be the subject of amendment.
    The Chairman: This Bill refers to contributions and benefits under the Acts, but not to the whole Acts.
    Mr. Griffiths: But the Amendment deals with a provision in one of the Acts passed between those two dates. That is why, with respect, I submit that
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    the Amendment is in order in accordance with the Long Title to the Bill.
    The Chairman: But it arises from another Act altogether.
    Mr. R. E. Prentice: The intention of the Bill is set out in the Long Title, and it is to increase the benefits for people who have suffered from industrial accidents or have contracted industrial diseases. The purpose of the Amendment is to increase the benefits to people who have had industrial accidents or who have suffered from industrial diseases but also to cover those who had their accidents or contracted their diseases before 5th July, 1948, instead of after that date. Surely it is in line with the general purposes of the Bill. It seems to me wrong that these people have been excluded from the Bill. We wish to improve the Bill by including these old cases.
    The Chairman: That would require another Bill.
    Mr. G. R. Mitchison: Further to that point of order. Is it not a fact that these payments are payable out of the Industrial Injuries Fund and that if there were no National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, there would be no Industrial Injuries Fund? In that sense, therefore, they are certainly payments which are payable by virtue of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts having been passed. It is true that there are also payments by virtue of other Acts having been passed, but I suggest that there are payments under both sections—under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, since they are payments out of the Industrial Injuries Fund, and no doubt also under other Acts which authorise various payments. Are they not, therefore, payments under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, or at least payments under those Acts and for purposes connected with those and other matters?
    The Chairman: I understand that that is not the case.
    Miss Herbison: I have again examined the 1957 Act and the Bill before us. The Amendment which was moved to the 1957 Bill dealt with a Clause to which the rubric was,
    "Higher rates, etc., of contributions and benefits under Industrial Injuries Act".

    979
    The rubric to the Clause which we hope to amend today is,
    "Lower rates of contributions and"—
    almost the same words as in the 1957 Bill—
    "higher rates or amounts of benefits under Industrial Injuries Act."
    It seems to me that if it were in order to move that Amendment to the 1957 Bill and to that Clause, it is manifestly in order to move an Amendment to this Clause.
    There is also the further point that we are dealing here with industrial injuries, and all the money for payment for industrial injuries, whether under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts or under other Acts, comes from the Industrial Injuries Fund. If the Amendment were found to be in order, and money had to be paid as a result of its being accepted, it would come, as in the 1957 Act, from the Industrial Injuries Fund. For this reason, in spite of the explanations which have been given, I am still genuinely puzzled why the Amendment has been ruled out of order.
    Mr. Tom Brown: Your decision to rule the Amendment out of order, Sir Gordon, puts us in a very awkward position. In the Preamble of the Bill we are told that it is
    "to amend the rates or amounts of contributions and benefits under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, 1946 to 1959.…"
    It goes on to refer to the National Insurance Acts. If that is the objective of the Bill, surely we are entitled to put down an Amendment to the Clause.
    If you rule the Amendment out of order, we shall have to accept your Ruling, but it will not go down very well with representatives of industrial workers, and particularly in my constituency, where we have a very high percentage of people suffering from industrial injuries and diseases.
    I cannot quite follow your Ruling, Sir Gordon. I object to the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act being amended by the Bill. It ought not to happen. It is manifestly unfair to those who are unfortunately disabled by industrial injuries that we should not have an opportunity of discussing an Amendment to Clause 1.
    Mr. John Morris: Further to that point of order. The Long Title of the Bill reads:
    "To amend the rates or amounts of contributions and benefits under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts."
    As the Bill seeks to amend the original Act, it is proper that the Amendment should be discussed. The money comes from the same source. It is from the Industrial Injuries Fund. Either the Long Title to the Bill is right or wrong. If it is right in its statement of the Bill's intentions, the Amendment is in order.
    Mr. Douglas Houghton: Sir Gordon, may I give you further cause for reflection on your Ruling? We want to proceed with the business before us this afternoon, but your Ruling has caused great disappointment to my right hon. and hon. Friends. We were anxious to be able to deal with these benefits under the Bill.
    Your Ruling appears to be based on the very narrow point that the benefits dealt with in our Amendment are covered by separate Acts—the Industrial Injuries Act. 1946, and subsequent Industrial Injuries Acts. Is not that too fine a point when, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) said, these benefits are chargeable to the Industrial Injuries Fund? They are dependent upon the contributions and the other benefits payable out of the Industrial Injuries Fund.
    It seems strange that we can deal with the main Act, its contributions and benefits, but are debarred from dealing with other subsidiary benefits which have the same claim on the Industrial Injuries Fund as the main benefits dealt with in the Bill.
    Mr. J. T. Price: Sir Gordon, I am sorry to be tenacious about the point, but you will have gathered from the submissions already made by my hon. Friends that we feel that far too narrow a construction is being placed upon these Amendments. I hazard the guess that that view has been taken because the first Amendment to page 2, line 5 includes these words
    "any scheme authorised by the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Acts, 1951 and 1954".
    It has been overlooked, in deciding this issue, that that piece of legislation is subordinate to and an essential part of

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    the industrial injuries legislation which is quoted in the Long Title.
    Without those subordinate pieces of legislation it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to administer all the changes which have taken place since. I earnestly submit to you, Sir Gordon, that if we are to be estopped on an issue like this—you are obviously within your rights to rule that Amendments are out of order—it strangles our capacity, ability and right to raise issues which we regard as important. Those of us representing industrial constituencies have to deal with the wreckage of industry. We feel very strongly that we should be given the opportunity to raise these issues for a section of disabled persons who will not be properly considered in the debate today.
    I appeal to you, Sir Gordon, to give further thought to this, even if we now proceed to discuss Amendments which are in order. This Amendment ought not to be arbitrarily ruled out of order. Perhaps you will agree to take further counsel on this matter so that the Amendment can be discussed at a later stage.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Further to that point of order, Sir Gordon. We cannot discuss whether your construction of the Amendment be narrow or broad, but I want to bring your mind back to the submission made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison). She put to you what, in my submission, is an actual precedent in regard to the 1957 Act and the Amendment suggested to it. My hon. Friend submitted—I support her in this—that that was an actual precedent with regard, first, to a Bill which was before the Committee and, secondly, an Amendment which was sought to be made to it. The Amendment was allowed on that occasion. There is no difference in principle between the two. I therefore submit that that is an actual precedent which should govern you on this occasion. I ask you to allow the Amendment to be discussed.
    Further, is it right that in a matter of principle of this kind, affecting so many poor people, discussion of an Amendment should be barred on a technicality? That is what it amounts to. I ask you, Sir Gordon, to look at this in a broad way and allow the Amendment to be discussed.
    The Chairman: I am sorry that my decision has caused disappointment to some hon. Members. I very much regret that that should be so. I have listened with great care to the points which have been made to me, but the matter is wholly dependent on the scope of the Bill. The 1957 Act was an omnibus Act and quite different from this Bill, which is a two-purpose Bill. It is well recognised that new matters cannot be introduced into a two-purpose Bill. The same rule has always been applied in the past, and I am bound to accept that Ruling.
    I have taken the best advice I can on this matter and I am acting in accordance with that advice. Therefore, my decision must stand.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Of course, we accept your Ruling, Sir Gordon, but may I ask you to consider one proposition between now and the remaining stages of the Bill? The First Schedule proposes to reduce contributions to the Industrial Injuries Fund. If the Committee felt it desirable to put back the penny which is taken off and ensure that it is used in part for the purposes covered by the first Amendment, would you, between now and the remaining stages of the Bill, consider admitting an Amendment to increase the contribution by one penny, in other words, to restore the contribution to its present level and use that money for the purposes enumerated in the first and other Amendments, all of which come from the Industrial Injuries Fund?
    The Chairman: Of course, I shall consider any Amendment which is tabled.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Miss Herbison: I oppose the Clause, because it does not go far enough to deal with all those who are affected by industrial injury or industrial disease. That view is shared by many of my hon. Friends. The benefits for those who are covered by the Clause will be increased. Industrial injury benefit and 100 per cent. assessment for disablement benefit are being increased from 85s. in both instances to 97s. 6d. in both instances.
    We welcome that increase, but we want to deal with the people that the Clause will not help at all. It is because there are so many who will not be helped

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    by the Clause that I oppose it. As I oppose it, and am ready to take the matter to a Division, I feel that I must give reasons for my strong opposition to it.
    4.0 p.m.
    I want to compare the position of people getting the 97s. 6d. with that of those who will not benefit at all under the Clause. If we take the old compensation cases, and what were termed the time-barred pneumoconiotic cases, we find that by the 1956 Act those who were 100 per cent. disabled had the amount increased from £2 to £2 17s. 6d.
    At that time, the Minister gave very sound reasons for that increase. He said:
    "I would suggest that there is no doubt that we ought to take action in this matter. After all, the date of the accident has, in general, determined whether a man receives his compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Acts or his benefit under the Industrial Injuries Acts."
    That was said by the present Minister himself. He went on:
    "As time has gone on, the amounts payable under the one scheme, certainly in cases of total incapacity, have diverged substantially from the other. There has been felt to be, therefore—I think that the feeling has been pretty general—some considerable element of hardship, at any rate in the case of certain of these old workmen's compensation cases, because the payment these men receive is now out of line with what would have been received by a man similarly injured since the Industrial Injuries Act came into effect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th May, 1956 Vol. 552, c. 1912.]
    I could not put the case better than the Minister put it in 1956.
    The purpose of that Measure was to raise the amount received by those old workmen's compensation cases and the time-barred pneumoconiotic cases to the same level as the industrial injury cases. When the 1957 Measure came before the House we sought so to amend it as to ensure that, no matter when the disablement took place, there would be no difference in the treatment of the 100 per cent. disabled. The Minister's answer then was to the effect, "After all, in 1956—only a year ago—we raised these people's benefits, and in 1957 we feel that it is far too early to do anything about it."
    We are now in 1960, and I understand that these provisions will not operate
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    until 1961. Five years have elapsed. Has £2 17s. 6d. the same value today as it had then, or will it have the same value in 1961 as it had in 1956? The Minister knows that it has not, and that it will not. It is because there have been increases in the cost of living that on a number of occasions National Insurance and industrial injuries benefits have been increased, and we feel that it is most unjust that those people, who are now already in receipt of much less than their friends who benefit under the industrial injuries legislation, should, on the passing of this Measure, have the gap made even wider.
    Those of us who represent heavy industrial areas, and particularly those who represent mining areas, have these injustices brought to their notice every week. Not a week passes but a miner calls on me on the subject. They just cannot understand any Government deciding that those who have a bigger benefit should have it increased, but that there should be a standstill for those with the smaller benefit. I can understand that feeling of injustice, and it is because I understand it that I am ready to vote against the Clause. I can then register the very strong feeling of injustice felt by those men and their families in my constituency, and in every constituency where there is heavy industry.
    That deals with those 100 per cent. disabled but, in 1954, an Act was passed for the time-barred pneumoconiotics, giving those who were partially disabled a flat-rate increase of £1 a week. That was in 1954—not a penny of an increase has been given to the partially disabled since then.
    Who are those partially-disabled pneumoconiotics? Almost all of them are men who, as a result of suffering from this disease, are now unable to work. Very few of them are in a job. Even if they were able to work, the majority of them are in areas where work is not available for them. In addition, the taking away of Section 62 of the National Insurance Act means that many of them have lost unemployment benefit. The men for whom I am talking, and for whom I hope some of my hon Friends will talk, have been hit in every way. They got £1 in 1954 but, in 1960, the Government come forward with

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    Bill that will begin to operate only in 1961 yet yields not a penny of increase over that £1.
    The Government's decision to keep these men out of the Bill is one of the meanest I have ever come across. I know that some of my hon. Friends have very great knowledge of the working of the old Workmen's Compensation Acts, and I hope that they will deal with this position in the strongest possible terms. I hope that they will tell the Government that their decision has left a class of men, severely injured either by disease or accident, to live on a pittance of a weekly allowance—and what the Government themselves must feel is a weekly pittance.
    The Chairman: I am very reluctant to interrupt the hon. Lady, but I think that I should remind her that the present debate is on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" and that she is ranging rather wide of that Question.
    Miss Herbison: I have finished what I had intended to say, Sir Gordon, but, as I have every intention of voting against the Clause, surely it was in order for me to give my reasons for voting against it.
    The Chairman: It must be related to the Question before the Committee.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: What we are considering in this Clause, Sir Gordon, is the Minister's proposal, for the first time since a National Insurance Act came into operation, that the contribution should be reduced. Is it not in order for hon. Members—I hope at some point to catch your eye myself—to argue that this reduction should not take place because there are existing difficulties and hardships that could be met if this contribution was kept at its present level? We could say that there is so much that could be done with the extra penny, and we could reject the proposal to reduce the contribution and put it at the present amount. Surely, it is open for us to argue that.
    The Chairman: The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, entitled to advance reasons against lower contributions.
    Mr. T. Brown: As we thought, the difficulty now confronting the Committee as a result of the rejection of our
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    Amendment is becoming intensified, and it is extremely difficult for those with long experience in dealing with men who have been overtaken by industrial injury and disease to contain themselves. I have argued before that when we are improving the conditions which govern this class of case we should not leave any men by the wayside. This Clause leaves a large number of incapacitated men there. It gives them nothing at all.
    I know that the right hon. Lady the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has tried to make out that the Government are treating those men very handsomely, but she overlooked the large number of them who are not dealt with at all. It is all very well for the Government to tell us that these men can claim constant medical attention, hardship allowance and the like, but that does not compensate them. I live in a mining area, and I see these men every week. The Government boasts that they are treating these men generously, but it is an idle boast.
    We are now nearing the end of 1960. I have kept a record of Press reports and have found that, without exception, not a week has passed when there have not been three, four or five men—as my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) will confirm—who have died from pneumoconiosis. The Government claim that they are dealing generously with these people. Had our Amendment been accepted we could have commented on that but, at the moment, we are confined to Clause 1.
    Let us see how much fairness and equity there is in the Government's present attitude. How much do the Government pay towards this fund from which we are asking that the benefits and compensation paid to these unfortunate men shall be increased? They pay onefifth—that is all. The other four-fifths are paid by the employers and the workmen. Therefore, on the basis of equity and fair play alone, the Government are not entitled to act in this way.
    Many of my hon. Friends, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), know something of the old compensation laws and of how unfairly they operated. When men have sustained accidents in the pit and have been incapacitated for months

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    or even years, one looks rounds to see how their lot can be improved. That is what we now seek to do, but the Clause as it stands does not help us in that direction.
    I would respectfully draw attention to the rubric to the Clause, which reads: "Lower rates of contributions and higher rates or amounts of benefits under Industrial Injuries Act." The trouble is that we have not had any opportunity to do that. Why? It is because someone, somewhere—and I do not blame you, Sir Gordon, at all—has said that the Amendment must not be accepted.
    From time to time, when this matter of totally incapacitated men has been discussed here, I have invited the Ministry to send some of its members into the mining districts to see how these men live. The Minister may seek to refute that statement, but his Department has been so invited. If any official of the Ministry were to go to a mining area such as the one I represent he would see these men, and would learn how others like them had died painful deaths.
    I was talking to a man this weekend who had not been in bed for nine months. He cannot sleep lying down and at night he has to sit up in a chair. Do the Government mean to tell me that they are playing fair by this man? Have they any human feelings towards these men? He is only one of many cases that I could quote. When we live among these men, listen to their stories and are aware of the anxiety through which they pass, and see the distressing circumstances under which they and their families live, surely we are not asking too much when we ask that at least some consideration should be given to them to make life a little easier for them.
    If we could have retained the contribution paid to the Industrial Injuries Fund we should have been able to do something for them. But that ground has been cut from under our feet. The mining fraternity—I know that there are many other industries interested in this—has played its part, and played it well, in trying to secure some alleviation of the suffering, unhappiness and distress which these men experience. We ask the Government to have another look at this Clause and enable us to bring to these
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    men at least a degree of comfort which has hitherto been denied to them by previous Governments.
    I repeat that true statesmanship and true social reform can never be accomplished if we leave by the wayside any unfortunate person who has given years of his life to industry and the nation.
    4.15 p.m.
    Mr. Prentice: The point that we are making from this side of the Committee can, I think, be boiled down to one simple proposition. It is that people who were injured before 5th July, 1948, should not be treated any worse than those who were injured after that date, and that those who contracted industrial disease before 5th July, 1948, should not be treated worse than those who contracted industrial disease after that date.
    Our objection to the Clause as it stands is that it actually widens the gap between those covered by the Industrial Injuries Act and those later casualties of industry who, we think, should be helped by this Measure. For some years there has been a gap between them, and the Clause which we are now discussing widens the gap instead of narrowing it.
    I should like to ask the Government to consider the point that those who were injured a long time ago were injured under conditions very often much worse than those obtaining in industry at the present time. Safety precautions were less and the risks were greater. The prosperity which the country now enjoys, despite the economic policy of the Government, has been built upon the hard work and sacrifices of those who have been in industry in the past. Part of the cost of that has been the large number of industrial accidents and the incidence of industrial diseases which have been suffered by previous generations of working people. We should like the Clause to help these older people, many of whom are getting very old. Indeed, their numbers are getting less, and these people are being left farther and further behind.
    I want to make a special point about pneumoconiosis cases. Pneumoconiosis is a very distressing disease, one which tends to get worse as the sufferers from it get older. Therefore, the older pneumoconiosis cases are, on average,

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    suffering more than the newer cases which are helped under the present legislation. For a very long time, many of these cases have had no compensation at all. There is the old artificial five-year rule under which no one could be compensated if he had not worked in industry within a period of five years. It was not until 1951 that anything was done to bring some of these cases within the scope of compensation. Consequently, we are talking about people many of whom had no compensation in respect of this very serious disease for many years.
    I should like to know how the Government can justify a different treatment for industrial casualties compared with war casualties. When war pensions are increased, we do not say that we will increase them far those injured in the 1939–45 war but leave out those injured in the 1914–18 war. That would be quite unacceptable. We treat the older war casualty in the same way as we treat the newer war casualty. Industrial injuries benefits are on the same scale as war pensions. For instance, the 100 per cent. disability pension is the same in both schemes. Therefore, why, in this context, should the older industrial casualties be left out? Perhaps it is because they have no very powerful pressure group behind them.
    If the older war pensioners were to be left out, the British Legion and all its branches throughout the country would create such an uproar that the Government would never dare to do it. We are now speaking about a fairly small number of people who have not got a large organisation behind them. They could be helped if the Clause were taken back by the Government and a small Amendment written into it.
    The only reason the Government have given in the past for not doing this is that it would be some sort of breach of the insurance principle. They say that the 1946 Act introduced an Industrial Injuries Scheme, that the older casualties were not insured under that scheme and, therefore, that they cannot be expected to be treated in this way. I would ask the Government to consider a number of points in relation to this.
    First, the insurance principle has already been breached. Since the supplementation Act was passed and payments
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    were made out of the Industrial Injuries Fund to the older casualties of industry, the insurance principle has already been breached. All we are asking now is that the logical step should be taken of increasing that supplement at the same time as the main benefits under the Act are increased.
    Secondly, all those who contribute to the Industrial Injuries Fund—the mass of our working people, and also the employers—would not object to this small payment being made from the Fund to bring the older cases in. I feel that they would regard it—as I and my hon. Friend do—as being particularly mean of the Government not to include these cases as a matter of course.
    Thirdly, I urge the Government to realise that the cost of meeting what we are suggesting would be very small. The numbers involved are small. According to the Ministry's Report for last year, the figures for October, 1959, showed that the number of people under the pneumoconiosis and byssinosis benefits scheme who were totally disabled and getting grants accordingly was 2,270, and the partially disabled 6,269. There were just over 2,000 receiving workmen's compensation supplements under the 1951 scheme, and under the 1956 scheme about 7,000. That is a total of just over 17,000, and the number is getting smaller every year. In fact, the real total is probably less than 17,000, because some people who are covered by the pneumoconiosis scheme are also getting a supplement.
    The Industrial Injuries Fund is in a healthy condition, so healthy that the Clause proposes to reduce the contributions to it. What we propose could easily be afforded. A new principle is not involved. The Government's failure to do something about this seems to be absolutely indefensible. We ask the Government either to give a new and convincing reason to the Committee for not doing so, or to take the Clause back and ascertain what they can do to bring the old cases into line so that they are treated as well as the newer cases are.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I strongly support the arguments which have already been put forward in this short debate. I shall restrict my remarks to purely practical aspects of the proposition and not cloud them with the emotionalism which we

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    could all bring to bear on these questions if we were so minded. To a large extent they are emotional questions with which we are dealing—seriously disabled people who have suffered over a long period.
    There are one or two practical points which I should like the Minister to consider when the matter is being taken further. The old industrial injury and industrial disease cases, the pneumoconiosis and byssinosis casualties going back before the 1946 Act, were dealt with under old legislation which is not clearly linked with the present Industrial Injuries Act. I am willing to concede that, but who in his right senses would maintain the argument that people who have been extremely and especially unfortunate in their industrial experience should be excluded from all the benefits of the rising prosperity of the nation?
    If we are inclined to employ in all its harshness the principle of strict insurance, and nothing but insurance, we should exclude about nine-tenths of the old-age pensioners to whom we are proposing to give a long overdue benefit and a bonus in a few months' time, because they are not covered by the old insurance schemes. As to the disparity which I wish to pinpoint in this connection, the longstanding cases from before the 1946 Act to which I have referred—the Workmen's Compensation Act cases—are also gravely at a disadvantage in other respects. If these conditions had been sustained under the present Industrial Injuries Act, a totally disabled man could have claimed not only his full, amended benefit but also an unemployability supplement, a constant attendance allowance and all the additional benefits which are available to the 100 per cent. disabled man under our present legislation.
    I submit that when we are trying to consider this matter in perspective we have here a relatively small segment of insured people, many of them in middle life and likely never again to work, who have been placed constantly in an inferior category in which, as citizens of the realm, they ought not to be placed. Without wishing to be disrespectful to the right hon. Gentleman, I strongly maintain that the Minister, who has
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    accepted professional advice on these matters, has been quite wrong in agreeing that 2d. of the contributions should be abated because, apparently, all the contributors in the country have been overcharged 2d. in respect of the benefits which they might receive.
    If we have here a group of people who ought to be enjoying the higher benefits from State insurance, the 2d. ought, if necessary, to be applied to the benefit and welfare of those people. I can give an assurance on behalf of the people whom I represent in my part of Lancashire, and certainly on behalf of many trade unionists and societies with which I am connected, that they would not quibble about the 2d. being retained and so applied.
    Adam Smith once said that an old tax is no tax at all. If a person is used to paying something, the mere taking off of a penny or twopence is not noticed. However, I give the Minister an assurance that if he begins to put on 1s. 7d. a week for those people who contract out next April, he will bear about that. That is something which I should be out of order if I discussed now. However, I make the point that the 2d. is already in payment and that if it remained in payment the margin of income, which is estimated by the Government Actuary to be about £7 million a year, would be amply sufficient to do the ambulance work that we are suggesting Should be agreed under Clause 1.
    I hope that I have not exaggerated anything. The suggestions which have been made from the Opposition benches this afternoon have real substance. They have been made on behalf of a very deserving section of the people who are suffering grave hardship and who, if the Bill is carried through, will be relegated to a position of inferior citizenship, a position which we think ought not to be entertained or supported by hon. Members, as the representatives, as we claim to be, of the people.
    4.30 p.m.
    Mr. Bernard Taylor: There is genuine and sincere disappointment on this side of the Committee that special classes of disabled workmen are left out of the proposals to increase industrial injury benefits. Those classes include the time-barred pneumoconiotic

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    cases. My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) has spoken about those, and I will not repeat what he said. The others include not only post-1924, but pre-1924 totally disabled workmen's compensation cases. That is a very small class, 17,000 in all.
    When hon. Members go to their constituencies, they will be asked how in justice it can be explained that some workmen should receive greater benefit than others who have been similarly injured. As an act of humanity, those 17,000 people, many of them now getting old, should be included. I understand that there are about 2,000 pre-1924 cases and for them weekly compensation payment is 50s. There is no need even to increase contributions to deal with those cases as we ask, because the amount of money involved is "chips in broth" and yet the comfort which would be brought to many of those people is of inestimable value.
    The Minister cannot argue that the Fund cannot stand the cost, for in the twelve years since the inception of the Industrial Injuries Scheme, the Fund has risen to £205 million, and yet here we are discussing the sad cases of those who are denied even the ordinary benefits received by the post-1924 cases. I appeal to the Minister, in the interests of justice and humanity, to introduce an Amendment to include all those cases and, at any rate, to give them a rise in benefit similar to that which the post-1948 cases are to have.
    Mr. Finch: I am disturbed about the Clause and I hope that the Minister will assure us that he will try to rectify what will prove to be a seriously anomalous position for the industrially disabled. Without an Amendment such as we seek, there will be three or four classes of payment for men suffering from the same sort of disease. One man suffering from pneumoconiosis will get £3 7s. 6d. a week while another similarly disabled will get 97s. 6d. a week, a difference of 30s. It is outrageous that one should get 30s. a week less than another with the same disability and such an anomaly will create serious discontent in the coalfields.
    It would have been better to have maintained the contributions than to have left men with as little as £3 7s. 6d. a week, especially bearing in mind the
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    cost of living and the general change in circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman cannot justify allowing disabled men only £3 7s. 6d. a week. Among the partially disabled pneumoconiosis cases there will be three or four classes, some getting £1 a week, others getting two-thirds of the difference and some even getting nothing. That is the result of having a variety of payments under different pieces of legislation.
    I had hoped that the Government would co-ordinate the different payments which are creating so much unnecessary trouble and difficulty. The cost could be met from the Industrial Injuries Fund and there need not have been all this trouble and antagonism. Why should one man be paid less than another with the same disease? Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that before we part with the Bill those anomalies will be rectified, so that men who are suffering from similar disabilities shall not receive a wide variety of payments?
    Mr. Morris: I am opposed to the Clause as it stands, because I oppose the lowering of contributions at this vital time when so many different classes are suffering hardship to varying degrees. One of the terrible features of the Clause is that it will add to the injustice. Those of us who represent mining and steel constituencies, or other heavy industries areas where men are injured every day in the performance of their task—that is the price which they have to pay to the industry in which they work—will have to explain to men who come to our "surgeries" why one man is paid less than the man who lives next door to him even though both are similarly disabled. It is the weakness of the Clause that it adds to the number of classes and to the differences.
    While I welcome the increases, I think that they are not enough. The cost of living has risen and some areas are experiencing prosperity for the first time for many years. In my constituency, wages generally in the steel industry are higher than in many other parts of the country, but men who have been injured see everyone else prospering while they themselves sink lower and lower in the scale.
    The partially disabled pneumoconiosis cases have given their best to the industry

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    in which they have worked all their working lives. In the old days, especially, they got no compensation and now they get some, but the Clause will make their position relatively worse. In the valleys of my constituency there is no employment for the partially disabled and nowhere else for them to go. That is especially the case when a pit is closed, because some partially disabled have enjoyed sheltered employment in existing pits but have found no provision for them when their pits have been closed. They are now unable to do any work and the Clause will make the differences worse than they were.
    The Clause creates different types of citizenship. There will be first-class injured people, second-class injured people and third-class injured people, each drawing compensation at different rates. Paraplegics are the most tragic cases in mining and industry generally. They have paid almost the ultimate price—and what may be even worse than the ultimate price when one thinks of the inconveniences in their lives and their inability to do anything for themselves. We are told that we are living in an era when prosperity generally is increasing, in some area more than in others, and yet the Clause penalises the people I have mentioned.
    Mr. E. H. C. Leather: I should like to reinforce the pleas to my right hon. Friend which we have heard. I represent a mining constituency, and I have had something to do with compensation for pneumoconiosis and partial pneumoconiosis cases for quite a long time. In particular, I take the point made by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) about the numerous categories which there are. There are too many different grades and categories. If I understand the Clause correctly, it will create more categories and more anomalies and difficulties.
    My right hon. Friend may have an answer to the point which has been raised, but I do not know what it is. I hope that he will say that he will look at this matter again, because if there is one thing in a small mining village, above all else, which creates bitterness and social friction it is a sense of injustice. It may be based on a misunderstanding, but these are complex
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    matters and every miner cannot take part in our debates. It is difficult for us to explain every detail to them. It is difficult to explain to people living side by side why one person should get one rate, one another rate, and someone else yet a third rate. Without having regard to the cost of benefits, there is a strong case for trying to make these things as simple as possible and the benefits as uniform as possible.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will give this point his most earnest consideration.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: We are discussing the very sad cases brought before the Committee by hon. Members on both sides which arise from the fact that the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act established payment for people injured in industry upon an entirely new basis. If we had not departed from the old principle, this difficulty would not have arisen.
    In 1946, the House unanimously passed the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, which came into operation in 1948. Under that Measure, instead of compensation being based on the basic principle of loss of earnings, an Industrial Injuries Scheme was set up based on the basic principle of loss of faculty, together with other supplementary provisions. In the two years between the passing of the Act in 1946 and its coming into operation in 1948, I gave a good deal of time and thought to the possibility of bridging what I could see would turn out to be a very difficult gap which would give rise to no end of anomalies.
    With the aid of the skilled advice which was available to me, and which is now available to my successors, I tried to find out whether it would be possible to make an arrangement under which the Ministry would accept responsibility from the new Fund for all the old cases under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. It was very difficult for us to make sound estimates and to be able to say that we were absolutely certain how the scheme would work out, and I was anxious not to overburden the new Fund. That was my problem. I wanted, if possible, to arrive at a settlement between the Ministry, which was

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    to be responsible for the new Act and the administering of the Fund under it, and the employers, who were responsible under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts, or the mutual societies and insurance companies which acted for them.
    There were negotiations, but, unfortunately, they failed. I did not feel that the Fund should shoulder the burden which belonged to the employers. From the beginning we made provision by which some of the benefits under the new scheme could be made applicable to old cases. It is very difficult to translate a benefit based on loss of earnings into a benefit based on loss of faculty All that I can say for myself, as one who was Minister at the time, and for those associated with me in the Department, is that we tried to do our best, but we failed.
    4.45 p.m.
    Now, twelve years after the passing of the 1948 Act, there are under 17,000 people left for whose provision we have to fall back on old Acts, or Acts passed since 1946. I do not propose to discuss those Acts, because an Amendment which would have dealt with them has been ruled out of order. I think that it is time that we ended this transition stage. As I said, there are less than 17,000 old cases which fall outside the provisions of the 1948 Act. Cannot we settle this matter once and for all? The cases get fewer every year.
    I agree with hon. Members who have said that it is extraordinarily difficult for people living in the closed community of a mining village to understand these different rates. I have had a job to explain them in my own constituency. People have said to me, "We have the same disability," or, "We have the same disease. It is only a matter of date, and it is time that you cleared it up".
    As I said in an earlier intervention, by subsection (1) of the Clause we are reducing the contribution. I am very sorry that the Minister is reducing the contribution. I think that it is a mistaken policy. I rejoice in the fact that the Fund is so well off and that there is such a substantial surplus in it. I should like there to be an investigation into why the Fund is better off than we thought it would be. I have some ideas about the reason for this. What has
    998
    disturbed me from the beginning is this. I am convinced that the assessments are on too low a scale. We have never had a full review of the assessments. We have not had any experience of using this method of assessing loss of faculty except in the case of war pensions. With every respect to that class of pensioner, I say that the range of injuries sustained during war time is much narrower than the range of injuries and diseases sustained in industry.
    The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter)The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter) indicated dissent.
    Mr. Griffiths: I am sure that it is. It is simple to fix an assessment for the loss of a finger, an arm or an eye, but it is a very different matter to make an assessment in respect of the injuries which are sustained in the pits and on the railways, and so on.
    The Fund is now in clover, with a surplus of £200 or £300 million. I should have preferred to see the increase in contributions used for the purpose of reviewing the whole of the benefits and, in particular, for clearing up these old cases. After twelve years we should be able to do it. Apart from whether we should allow the Minister to have the Bill by which the contribution will be reduced by 2d. in respect of industrial injuries, I am sure that the Minister, with his advisers and advisory committee, can find ways and means by which we could provide for these 17,000 people an increase in benefit at least equivalent to that given to everyone else. Do not let us make the gap wider, which is what will happen if the Bill goes through in its present form.
    I hope that now, twelve years after the 1948 Act, when it is proposed for the first time to reduce contributions and with a substantial sum in hand, the Minister will promise that, if a new Bill is necessary, he will consult the T.U.C. and the British Employers' Confederation. The Industrial Injuries Act has not been too bad a thing for some of the employers. For the National Coal Board the liability is much less now than it would have been if the old Workmen's Compensation Act had been retained.
    For these reasons we ought now to be able to satisfy the legitimate grievances of these old people who were

    999
    unlucky enough to be injured before 5th July, 1948. I add my plea to those made by my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite that the Minister should think about this matter again and provide, either in the Bill or shortly afterwards in a later Measure, some ways and means by which we can remove this deeply felt grievance among what is now only a very small number of men.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Bernard Braine): It might be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervened now. In doing so, I want to say that I recognise the wealth of experience which has informed the speeches of hon. Members, including the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), on a subject of this kind. My right hon. Friend and I fully understand the sincerity of their desire to help our fellow citizens who were injured in the service of industry. I have been at the Ministry only for a short time, but I have already learned something of the complexity of the matters that we are now discussing and shall probably be discussing for the next three days. I hope that the Committee will bear with me if I approach these matters with some degree of caution, and will excuse a little nervousness on my part.
    There was no intention on the part of my right hon. Friend or myself to shy away from the important questions which the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North and others sought to raise this afternoon, although I would point out that the Committee has had many opportunities over the years to discuss problems which arise out of the differences between those who were injured industrially before 5th July, 1948, and who were covered by the old Workmen's Compensation Acts: those injured after that date, who were within the scope of the Industrial Injuries Scheme, and those who were, unfortunately, covered neither by one provision nor the other, for whom we had to make special provision.
    It might be helpful if I made some brief reference to these differences. Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts an injured workman claimed compensation from his employer, and that compensation depended upon the loss of his earning
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    capacity. In the last resort disagreements had to be settled by the courts. As was pointed out quite rightly by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North and the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), the Industrial Injuries Acts, on the other hand, provided benefit under a State insurance scheme. Benefit for a long-term disablement depends primarily upon a medical assessment of loss of faculty, and claims are decided by independent statutory authorities. We all agree that this is an enormous improvement upon the old scheme. Even when the original Industrial Injuries Bill was under discussion the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths)—who has enormous experience in this matter—reminded us that thought was given to the possibility of bringing the old cases within the new scheme.
    The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) asked why a distinction was drawn between, on the one hand, war pensioners of both World Wars, who were covered by similar provisions and, on the other hand, the old workmen's compensation cases and the industrial injuries people. The answer is that the war pensioners in both wars were compensated on the basis of loss of faculty. It was not difficult in that respect to get a co-ordinated scheme. The question of bridging the difference between the old workmen's compensation cases and those who were excluded from it and from the Industrial Injuries Scheme has been re-examined on several occasions since the right hon. Member for Llanelly spoke about it, but because of the fundamentally different nature of the two schemes—one being based on a loss of earnings and the other on a loss of faculty—their assimilation has always been rejected as impractical.
    Mr. Prentice: I appreciate the complications of trying to assimilate one scheme with another, but in 1956, in a supplementary scheme, the attempt was made. A supplement of 17s. 6d. was fixed to bring the old cases into line with the new ones, as far as possible. Part of our case is that nothing has been done since 1956 to bring the position up to date. A further increase is now to be given to the new cases, and this will widen the gap. Why cannot the formula of 1956 be applied and a further supplement be granted?
    Mr. Braine: I was proposing to come to that question, which I know is very much in the minds of hon. Members opposite.
    But I want to get to the hard core of the problem which is concerning the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North and the hon. Member for Ince most of all, namely, the third category of men who were not covered by either main scheme that is to say, those who had contracted pneumoconiosis or byssinosis, or one of the few other malignant diseases arising out of certain kinds of employment which they had left before 5th July, 1948, who were debarred from compensation because of the time limits within which claims had to be made under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. I am advised that the overwhelming majority of these unfortunate men were pneumoconiosis cases. Some were disqualified because they had last worked in an occupation in respect of which a disease was ultimately prescribed, but had not been prescribed when they worked in it. Others were time-barred because they had not made their claims within the time laid down, which I believe was a period of five years after leaving the prescribed occupation.
    My right hon. Friend and I fully understand that the exclusion of these men, both from compensation under the old scheme and benefits derived from the Industrial Injuries Scheme, was particularly hard. The dividing line between the two schemes was so drawn that if a man had no further employment in the relevant prescribed occupation after 5th July, 1948, and had not claimed or qualified for any compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, he could not qualify for benefits under the Industrial Injuries Acts. This undoubtedly gave rise to a feeling of unfairness and inequity in the minds of the people concerned and those who have spoken so eloquently for them in the House over the years.
    This is precisely the reason why the Pneumoconiosis and Byssinosis Benefit Act of 1951, and the scheme made under it in February, 1952, were enacted. They provided benefit in respect of death or total disablement from either of these diseases for persons who were time-barred from workmen's compensation.
    1002
    This is why the Industrial Diseases Benefit Act, which followed in1954, was enacted. It extended the provisions of the 1951 Act to certain other malignant diseases and provided benefit for the partially disabled.
    5.0 p.m.
    The purpose of those Acts and the schemes made under them was to fill the gap in the workmen's compensation provisions. That is the reason why the personal allowance for the totally disabled is the same as the maximum rate of workmen's compensation for a single man, 40s., although I concede the point that provision for wives or children is on the insurance scheme basis in preference to that of the Workmen's Compensation Scheme. I believe that the 20s. rate for the partially disabled was selected for simplicity, and was a concession at the expense of the Industrial Injuries Fund, for men who were entitled to nothing at all under the 1951 Act which did not apply to their circumstances.
    Clearly, it would be impossible to bring those categories of men, whose entitlement to benefit rests on events and circumstances which occurred before 5th July, 1948, before the industrial injuries scheme came into existence, into the scheme now, without opening up the whole question of workmen's compensation cases. This is the point which I want to make with all the emphasis at my command—that however much it excites our sympathy on both sides of the Committee, and my right hon. Friend's, too, it is not a matter which is within the scope and purpose of this Bill.
    Mr. J. T. Price: Let me remind the hon. Gentleman while he is still continuing to do his homework and showing such results in doing it, that we are indeed dealing with a class of pre-1948 cases for whom indemnity was given through a large number of insurance offices many of which redeemed the indemnities by lump sum payments and many of which did not. Therefore, the old liability, apart from supplement, still rests where it originally rested, that is, upon the insurance companies or indemnity companies issuing the policies for the employers before the date of the Act. I would remind the hon. Gentleman

    1003
    that every year, according to my understanding of the law, insurance companies, tariff offices and non-tariff offices, and all the people who transact this business—the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather) will know what I am speaking about—have got to make returns to the Board of Trade. Every year they have to make returns showing the amount of reserve capital they have placed in their accounts in respect of outstanding liabilities which have not been redeemed under the old Workmen's Compensation Act. I have never been impressed by the argument from the Government benches that the Government have difficulty in estimating what the liability is. They have only to look at the Board of Trade returns, and to that section under which every one of the companies has got to make a return. I am sorry to have gone on so long, but I wanted to remind the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Braine: I do not think the hon. Gentleman need apologise at all because he has illustrated the extreme complexity of this problem. He has illustrated the very problem which, if any problem ever did really baffle him, baffled the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly, or helped to baffle him, in 1946. If I followed the hon. Gentleman down the tortuous path he has opened up on this subject, I think, Sir James, you would very quickly rule me out of order. But I know what is at the back of the mind of the hon. Gentleman, because in an earlier speech he used the word "exclude", I think, when referring to the old cases; he implied that they were excluded from the social provisions of our modern Welfare State. I think I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not really mean to imply this. If one had no knowledge of the subject whatsoever and listened to them very carefully, one would get the impression that these people had been completely left out in the cold. That, of course, is just not true.
    First of all, let me repeat that it does not mean that nothing at all can be done for these men. It was precisely to meet the possibility of hardship being caused to the totally disabled that the Pneumoconiosis and Byssinosis Scheme was introduced in 1952 and that was the reason
    1004
    why my right hon. Friend introduced his 17s. 6d. supplement under the Workmen's Compensation and Benefit (Supplementation) Act, 1956. I think that my right hon. Friend put the matter perfectly clearly at that time on Second Reading of the Bill, when he said that
    "we ought not to put on the Industrial Injuries Fund … a charge in respect of an injury not within the scope of that Fund, except where we are really satisfied that some real hardship or real injustice arises. In other words, we ought not to do this merely to obtain exact symmetry or equality, but only where there is a point of substance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th May, 1956; Vol. 552, c. 1912.]
    I suggest that in 1956 there was a point of justice. It was necessary to introduce a supplement in order to relieve a condition of hardship, but the old cases today are not a segregated group of people for whom modern schemes do nothing. Those who are sick or out of work or retired—and, of course, a very large proportion of them will be elderly and retired, and these are the people with whom, obviously, one must have the most sympathy—will benefit from the very substantial advances made in this Bill.
    An advantage to those injured before 1948 is that it helps them now when they are ill. It helps those who commuted their compensation—which is the point the hon. Gentleman made—or who were unable to secure it owing to the bankruptcy of their employers or some other reason, two features of the old scheme which, I think, everyone who has studied this matter deplores. For certain categories of old case where there is hardship special help has been given out of the Industrial Injuries Fund, for example, those in need of constant attendance, or those who are unemployable. Most of the totally disabled and many of the partially disabled will receive higher retirement pensions which are to come next year or higher sickness benefit or, it may be, higher unemployability supplement in addition to the personal allowance they receive under the relevant benefit scheme.
    Miss Herbison: The hon. Gentleman is pointing out the benefits in other insurance matters which will come to these people, but does he not realise that those very same benefits which he is outlining will go to those who are getting their industrial injuries disability pension

    1005
    under the Industrial Injuries Act? What we on this side of the Committee are concerned about is the injustice which we find to those who are under the Acts of 1951 and 1954 particularly.
    Mr. Braine: With great respect, I think the hon. Lady is getting away from the hardship point. Those who derive benefit under the Industrial Injuries Act are doing so in the main from a fund to which contributions have been paid. The fact that some people are in the insurance scheme and some people are outside it does not in itself give rise to hardship. I have tried to illustrate to the Committee that a great deal is being done and a great deal more will be done under this Bill for the category of person the hon. Lady has in mind.
    Let me say at once that I concede—I think we all concede—that it may seem very hard that there should be these distinctions between those who were injured before 1948 and covered by the work men's compensation scheme and those injured after 1948 and covered by the Industrial Injuries Scheme and those covered by neither the one nor the other but for whom we have made special provision in the way I have described. However, appearances are deceptive, and I say again that, however sympathetic we may feel, I am absolutely certain that the proper approach is not to upset the present balance of what is and what must surely remain an insurance scheme. I feel that it is quite wrong to put upon an insurance fund any charge for meeting provisions which the fund was not designed to bear.
    I concede at once the point which was made earlier in the debate that this principle has been breached. I accept that.
    Mr. T. Brown: The hon. Gentleman does not.
    Mr. Braine: It was breached by the setting up of the Pneumoconiosis and Byssinosis Benefit Scheme I mentioned. It was breached by the workmen's compensation supplement. But once again I emphasise that the reason for that, given at the time—and nobody denies this—was the special condition that the provisions were to meet hardship, and the Fund at that time was sufficient to bear the burden. I think, quite frankly, that to go further down this road would be wrong in principle. In any case, in
    1006
    my view, it is not possible to deal with this matter in a Bill of this nature which is a rates Measure.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman said and thank him for his personal references to me. He raised a point which he said had baffled me. At least it was a point which I had had to consider. The point was that the Fund should not have to take the burden that belonged to the employers. These old cases are the employers' liability and the employers are being given a 1d. bonus under the Bill. I am perfectly sure that if the Minister or the hon. Gentleman went to the British Employers' Confederation and asked employers to give this 1d. to enable these cases to be dealt with they would agree to do so. Perhaps this cannot be done under the present Bill, but I hope that this suggestion will not be turned down.
    The Minister should say to the employers, "The Industrial Injuries Fund generally has lightened your burden in these cases as compared with your burden under the old Workmen's Compensation Act and therefore you have not had a bad deal. You should give the 1d. back." I am sure that they would respond. I agree that it is no good trying to marry the two schemes, but I submit that it is possible to make a supplementary provision and I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not turn that suggestion down.
    Mr. Braine: I am not turning down anything that the right hon. Gentleman says that would be within the rules of order. He has made an interesting proposal of which, no doubt, we shall hear more later, but if I follow him in his remarks now I shall be out of order. All I would say in passing is that it would have been fully in order, I understand, for Amendments to have been tabled so that the Committee could have had an opportunity of informing itself about this matter and of doing something about the rate of contribution, but this was not done. Therefore, I do not think that it falls to me to try to answer the point now, though I do not wish in any way to close any doors on the right hon. Gentleman's argument.
    We have such an enormous amount of ground to cover that I do not wish to delay the Committee unduly, but I

    1007
    must add that we ought to keep this question in perspective. I am afraid that it is a fact that there are some men who are drawing workmen's compensation who are better off than those who have exactly the same disability but who, because the disability was not caused in pursuit of their employment but was caused in some other way, are not receiving any kind of workmen's compensation.
    It is extraordinarily difficult to draw the line, but if we are to spend money to meet hardship—and in this context it is suggested that we should draw it out of the Industrial Injuries Fund which was designed for other purposes—the criterion is that the money must be used primarily to meet genuine hardship measured by an objective standard.
    Provision has already been made for this outside the Bill, by a benefits scheme and a supplement to workmen's compensation. The Bill itself, by increasing the standards of sickness and unemployability benefit, allowances for dependants, and retirement pensions, does this. Clause 1 raises insurance provision in this country to greater heights than we have ever known it before. I am bound to warn the Committee that if the Opposition vote against the Clause, as the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North has threatened, they will be voting against improved industrial injury benefits. I am sure that they would not wish to do that.
    5.15 p.m.
    Mr. Houghton: My first pleasant duty is to congratulate the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance on his new appointment and to express to him the warm good wishes of my hon. and right hon. Friends for a satisfactory and successful term of office. We should also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his maiden Ministerial speech. This is an unexpected baptism of fire for him. We were not surprised when he started his speech by asking for the Committee's indulgence owing to his nervous condition, but he soon gained in confidence and for a moment or two I thought that I saw a glimpse of the pugnacity that we are accustomed to see in the right hon. Lady the Joint Parliament Secretary.
    1008
    I should like to warn the hon. Gentleman. It is quite obvious that he has already become enslaved by the intricacies and complexities of his new job. Unless he can reduce these issues to simple terms he will get just nowhere. It seemed to me that the hon. Gentleman was telling us what we already knew at the beginning of his speech in order to say at the end of his speech how difficult it would be to do anything at all about these problems. We, of course, know that compensation was based on loss of earning capacity and that the Industrial Injuries Scheme was based on loss of faculty. We, of course, know the difficulties of marrying those two and the transitional difficulties in going from the one old basis to the new.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), the founder of this scheme, appreciated those difficulties very much in his own remarks, but I want to stress that despite all the difficulties and complexities an attempt has already been made in past legislation to bridge this gap. What is more, it has been done in money terms. All we are asking now is that the money terms shall be written up in harmony with the present improved benefits.
    We have not asked the Government to go back and start all over again. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will look at what we were hoping to do in the two Amendments which have been ruled out of order, he will find that we were restricting our proposals on the Bill to revising the money benefits under the three schemes mentioned in those Amendments. Towards the end of his speech, the hon. Gentleman gave some reasons against doing that. He suggested that when an uncovenanted benefit of this kind has once been given, when it is no legitimate part of the charges on the Industrial Injuries Fund, one should restrict such an insurance principle to cases of hardship. The hardship factor must be present. This was the argument used in revising or creating benefits which were intended to meet the particular difficulties of those who were injured in earlier days.
    But if hardship was recognised in money terms four years ago, why cannot the same hardship be recognised in the relatively higher money terms of today? Is not this the issue? We do not need

    1009
    any more money in the Industrial Injuries Fund to meet this comparatively small number of cases. It can be done within the present income of the Fund. The sole issue here is whether the Minister feels able to revise the benefits which have been given under this Act of Parliament to bring them into harmony with the new set of proposals that he is making along the whole front of industrial injuries benefit and National Insurance. In short, this is a tiny bit of the pledge that people enjoying welfare or social benefits shall have their share in the country's increasing prosperity. We are very disappointed about all this.
    Sir Spencer Summers: The hon. Member has quoted the pledge erroneously. It referred only to the old.
    Mr. Houghton: There are always so many reasons for doing nothing. This could have been done. We are disappointed that the two Amendments have been ruled out of order, but with great respect to you, Sir James, we cannot blame the Chair, but must blame the Government. They have drawn up this Bill and its Long Title, and have been responsible for it throughout. It is clear that these benefits and allowances were not excluded inadvertently from its provisions. They have been left out deliberately and that is what we complain about.
    We have no means at the moment of bringing our protest to an understandable conclusion. I agree with the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that it would be a mistake to vote against this Clause, however strongly we feel that we want to protest about the exclusion of these people, because it is the statutory authority for Schedules which contain a very large number of improved benefits. If the Clause were to be deleted from the Bill, then those Schedules would be deleted also, or become non-affective.
    I therefore ask my right hon. and hon. Friends not to vote against this Clause. I suggest that when we come to the Schedules we may return to this matter, because Part I of the First Schedule deals with the reductions in contributions. We could object to reduced contributions so long as these people are excluded from the Bill Part II of the Schedule contains the range of benefits proposed in the Bill, and we
    1010
    may complain then that the range is not wide enough.
    The Minister himself could set our fears at rest, and enable us to get on with further business very quickly now, if he would say that he would reconsider the matter and see whether legislation could be introduced under the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Acts, 1951 and 1954, the Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Act, 1951, and the Workmen's Compensation and Benefit (Supplementation) Act, 1956, in order to bring the moneys provided for in these Acts up to date and in harmony with the new range of benefits proposed in this Bill.
    If he will say that he will reconsider the matter, I am sure that we on this side of the Committee will be satisfied, and we can get on with our consideration of the Bill. We may not come to some of the later stages of the Bill until tomorrow, which will give him an opportunity for further reflection. But it is obvious both to the Government and to the Committee that feelings are running high on the benches behind me.
    It is also disappointing that only one hon. Member opposite has risen to his feet and commented on the matter. Sometimes Members opposite make the impudent claim that because of the "incompetence" of the official Opposition they are having to do the opposing themselves. There has been precious little evidence of that today. [Interruption.] My comment is justified in the light of some of the claims of the benches opposite.
    We are frustrated and angry, but all that we can do at the moment is to protest. It would be a mistake to vote against the Clause, and we hope that the Minister will reflect on the matter between now and the later stages of the Bill.
    Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said that nobody on this side of the Committee had said a word. I apologise to the Committee for not having been here at the beginning of this debate, although I have heard a good part of it.
    I am not prepared to accept the arguments of the benches opposite for two reasons. A pledge is intended to cover the generality of the country, the aged

    1011
    and the infirm. However, it does not for one moment prevent a proper argument that we must assess What is an appropriate grant to be paid in respect of industrial injuries. I do not think that industrial injuries benefits can go up or, indeed, down according to the state of the properity of the country. They do not fall into the group—the aged and infirm—for which we had a specific pledge from the Government both this year and last year.
    I want to try to put my point in an all-party spirit and not in a partisan way. I ask bon. Members opposite to listen to me for a few minutes and not to be partisan about it, at least until they have heard what I have to say. I have no doubt that I shall carry the views of this side of the Committee with me and I believe that there are some on the benches opposite who will agree.
    When hon. Members decide to ask for a substantial increase or a revision in the expenditure on industrial injuries benefits, and particularly when they ask for it in relation to those injured before the scheme came into effect in 1948 or earlier, this immediately also raises the question of the position of the war disabled.
    The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), who is not in his place at present, will remember the position at the time of the inception of the Act in which he had a great part to play. At that time, the trade union movement wanted the amount allowed per week up to 100 per cent. for those suffering from industrial injuries to be treated on the same basis as for those who suffered from war disability injuries.
    I wish to argue that whereas that decision may or may not have been right at the time—I do not propose to challenge it now—it is not right today, 15 years later, in view of the changed position. On this side of the Committee, among some hon. Members opposite, and in the country generally, there is very strong feeling that, as a matter of sympathy, those who suffered in the war should be entitled to a higher rate than those who suffer from industrial injuries.
    I do not say that that view would find support in all quarters of the Committee, but as part of the argument, I
    1012
    want to look at the position as it exists today. Those who suffer from industrial injuries are able to make a claim at common law which may lead to their receiving hundreds or thousands of pounds, whereas those who are war disabled——
    Mrs. Harriet Slater: What about the miners?
    Mr. Rees-Davies: I shall deal with that point. As the Committee knows, war disabled are often conscripted men who had to serve, and did serve the nation.
    Mr. T. Brown Mr. T. Brown rose——
    Mr. Rees-Davies: No, I cannot give way. I want hon. Members opposite to listen to this argument. No doubt they will destroy it later if they can. Those who are conscripted to serve in war have to do so, and, in doing so, they are not following their voluntary occupations.
    I shall now deal with the interjection of the hon. Lady the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater). I want to point out the total difference between a miner and a war-disabled man. A miner makes a contribution and the National Coal Board makes another. As a result, he gets a very much higher rate of injury benefit. If he has a common law claim for the loss of an arm or a leg, he will get a couple of thousand pounds or more as a capital sum which he retains and from which he derives income.
    5.30 p.m.
    If he remains a miner—and good luck to him if he does—the contribution which he makes, and the contribution which is made by the National Coal Board out of the nation's purse—I am not criticising that—put him in a position in which he gets a differential benefit which does not exist in the case of the war disabled. Therefore, the war disabled are in this situation.
    Mr. J. T. Price: On a point of order. Presumably, Sir William, we are at the moment discussing the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." I should like your Ruling as to whether any hon. Member is entitled to introduce a wide-ranging debate on war service pensions which are mentioned neither in the Clause nor in any of the Amendments on the Order Paper.
    The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): In reply to that point of order, I think that the hon. Member is strictly correct. I have not been in the Chair all the time, but I understand that the debate has ranged very widely and I do not want to be too severe. However, I am certain that we should restrict ourselves more closely to what is, in fact, in Clause 1 of the Bill.
    Mr. Price: Further to that point of order. Forgive me, Sir William, for being a little contentious about this, but with great respect to what you have said I would point out that a previous Ruling has been given of a very narrow character as far as the Amendments on the Order Paper are concerned, and some hon. Members on this side of the Committee take a dim view of the fact that this wide-ranging debate is allowed when the debate was previously restricted by a Ruling from the Chair.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I understood—it will be in the recollection of the Committee—that the Amendments were ruled out of order, but I understood that after that the general discussion on Clause 1 did, in fact, go rather wide.
    Dr. Horace King: Further to that point of order. As the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) has introduced into the debate not only something which in the opinion of some of us is very remotely connected with Clause 1, though an issue of profound importance—the relative merits of the war disabled and the civilian disabled—will it be in order for us to pursue the debate and discuss the question which the hon. Gentleman has raised?
    The Deputy-Chairman: There is no doubt in my mind that the hon. Member who has the Floor of the Committee should confine himself to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Rees-Davies: I have not had an opportunity of saying a single word in reply to the interjections made on the points of order, but with the utmost respect, Sir William, what I am saying must clearly be in order, for the following reasons. The debate has been around the scope of the Industrial Injuries Scheme. It has been suggested to the
    1014
    Government that the sums of money in that respect ought to have been increased. So far as that is concerned, I am replying by saying that, whether that be so or not, the whole essence of the matter turns upon considering whether those who would otherwise draw the equivalent benefit, in this case the war disability pensioners, should be entitled to receive a higher percentage in relation to the amount.
    I am arguing that this is directly relevant to the amount that would be granted in industrial injuries cases. With respect, therefore, I am saying that before the Government—having made a very substantial increase in the amount of money available for industrial injuries—should consider any further increase for industrial injuries, a far more paramount consideration should take first priority. It is that they should now consider giving a percentage differential increase—I suggest about a 10 per cent. differential—to war-disabled pensioners.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. The hon. Member is quite out of order in introducing that point on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Ellis Smith: On a point of order. May I point out Sir William, that your predecessor in the Chair gave a Ruling, and, after a sharp controversy, we accepted it? He gave an explanation which was very clear and which we accepted. Then one of my hon. Friends on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", raised a very narrow though a very important issue. The Chair saw that this was a narrow issue and as long as my hon. Friends confined themselves to that narrow issue the debate was allowed to proceed, and it has now gone on for two hours. What is taking place is very unfortunate, because my hon. Friends made some very well-informed speeches. The Minister has sat on the Government Front Bench for over two hours and has left it only once to consult those who advise him. I have been watching very closely and I got the impression that the Minister had been impressed with the well-informed speeches which had been made. We were looking forward to the right hon. Gentleman, following on the Parliamentary Secretary and in reply to my hon. Friends—this is the Committee

    1015
    functioning as it should—making a statement, whereas now we are having a debate ranging over a very wide field which is no help to the Committee at all.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I appreciate very much what the hon. Member has said. There is little more for me to say except to rule, as I have done, that the hon. Member who has the Floor of the Committee is going too wide. I ask him please to restrict himself to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Rees-Davies: I have said what I had to say on the matter, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will give it fair consideration. I believe that they will. I want to draw attention to the fact that when we are dealing with industrial injuries at a time of a very substantial increase in the rate, I think it important for a great many reasons that the question of what the proper allowance should be for industrial injuries and things of that nature should not become too linked with what is paid to the old-age pensioner and the infirm. The day may come in 10 or 15 years from now when the problem of the increase for the aged and infirm is not, and ought not to be, linked to what might perhaps be the problem which arises under industrial injuries.
    Injuries which people sustain whether in industry or in war are a separate issue from other matters. I would like them to remain separate and to be considered separately. However, I would urge the Committee to realise that those injuries which men sustain, be it in industry or war, must be carefully considered. We must see that a fair and right consideration and a fair and right differential exists.
    It is now fifteen years since the end of the war. Whether we are looking at the old workmen's compensation cases or at the war injuries cases, if we look at the matter in the realities of today we shall realise that very large sums of money are today being awarded in the courts by way of damages at common law and that a large number of people are themselves making contributions through insurance, mining funds, through the National Coal Board and in many other ways with a view, quite
    1016
    rightly, to protecting themselves against injury.
    Let us remember that that is a quite separate matter and that it ought not to be looked at by the House of Commons in any partisan spirit, but looked at purely as an investigation of fact. If we do that, I think it will be agreed that what I said earlier in the debate is certainly worthy of consideration, even if everyone may not wholly agree with it, and that it is time that it should be so considered.
    Mr. T. Brown: It is rather regrettable that the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) was not present when the debate began—I know that he apologised for not being here—because the whole debate has ranged particularly on unfortunate men who are disabled through industrial injuries and diseases.
    I want, first, to congratulate the Joint Parliamentary Secretary on his first innings at the Box. He did very well. He was on a sticky wicket, because the question of compensation in all its aspects is a very complicated and confusing subject. I listened carefully, as I always do to speeches from the Government side, but I failed to detect any reference in the Parliamentary Secretary's reply to the anomaly that was caused by the Workmen's Compensation Acts. It is a certain aspect of the pneumoconiosis and silicosis cases which arose in 1922. That was thirty-eight years ago, a very long time. We have travelled along the road since then trying to bring these men within the scope of our legislation, but it is because we have failed to bring them in that we feel so strongly about the acceptance of Clause 1.
    I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) that we should not divide the Committee. I am not anxious that we should divide on this Question, but I ask the Minister to have regard to all the circumstances which have been described from time to time, not only in this debate but in debates in the past when we have tried to bring in these unfortunate men who have hitherto been left out.
    I failed to detect in the speech of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary any reference to the anomalies which were created merely by the geological conditions in

    1017
    which the men worked which debarred them from receiving compensation. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister will understand what I mean. There were many men before 1930, and that is thirty years ago, who were debarred from receiving the compensation to which they were entitled because they did not work in the processes which led to the disease of pneumoconiosis or silicosis.
    In December, 1929, the Home Secretary scheduled pneumoconiosis and silicosis as industrial diseases. That regulation became operative on 1st February, 1930, but in it he specified that the rock strata in which the men worked should contain 50 per cent. of free silica compound. We had, on that account, much difficulty in proving cases of silicosis because the rock strata did not contain that 50 per cent.
    Since then, the law has been altered. The time limit has been altered and the processes have been altered. All these things have been changed since 1930, by stages, but there is still this anomaly that the men who before 1930, before 1924 and even before 1908, were debarred from receiving any assistance under the reforms which have been brought in are still so debarred.
    This matter has been discussed from time to time on the Floor of this Chamber and in the Committee Rooms. We have tried to convince the Minister and the Department that these men have a claim for an increase in their compensation. Here is an opportunity. It may be the last opportunity confronting the Minister to do something for them. That is all we ask.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary said that he did not want to upset the balance. If he concedes the point we are making, he will not upset the balance. Indeed, he will give a better balance for the unfortunate men who hitherto have been denied their compensation. The Minister and the hon. Gentleman will agree that the number of these men is limited, but, as I have said, they have hitherto been denied that to which they are justly entitled. The new point I put to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary arising out of his speech is this. Will he consider not the anomalies in amounts of compensation which have been thrown up—I do not put that point now, although, naturally, I am concerned about that,
    1018
    too—but the unfairness and inequity in the administration of the scheme as it affects those men who have been denied their entitlement not simply because of OUT legislation but because of the geological circumstances in which they worked?
    5.45 p.m.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby referred to the lone voice on the Government back benches of the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Leather). We all know why his voice has been raised. We all know from our experience in the House that he promoted a Bill which the Government themselves did not like. The hon. Gentleman raised his voice again today because he represents a constituency where many pneumoconiosis cases are to be found. I apologise to the Committee for speaking a second time, but we on these benches feel very keenly about this matter. Our keenness is born of the fact that we see these people every week. They are not just casual, occasional callers; we see them every week walking about, half-dead, and many of them are not receiving the compensation to which they are entitled.
    I appeal to the Minister. Let us not leave this subject naked, so to speak. Let us give it further consideration. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is possessed of a great deal of sympathy and of a high degree of humanity. I appeal to him to give the undertaking for which my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby asked, that between now and a later stage he will listen again to what we have to say on behalf of these men and act accordingly. I hope that he will respond to the request which has been made by so many of us on this side. Let us not leave these unfortunate men by the wayside. Let us take them with us. In all the reforms which we try to bring about, they must not be left as they have been left hitherto. Let us remember that
    "The mills of God grind slowly,
    Yet they grind exceedingly small."
    They have been grinding upon these men and they have ground slowly and hard. From the depth of my heart, I appeal to the Minister to have some consideration for these unfortunate victims of industry who are now crippled through no fault of their own.
    Dr. Barnett Stross: Very briefly, I wish to add a little of my own experience of these cases to the very moving plea just made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) to the Minister. From personal experience, I know that the Minister understands this problem and is very sympathetic towards it. It has been made apparent that Amendments connected with this matter were not in order, but I think it is in order to ask the Minister to look at the matter again, for several reasons.
    Some of the reasons have been given already. We have heard the history of the difficulty that these men had in the early days in being certified at all. That situation has been changed and no one would for a moment wish to revert to it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ince knows well, it was a situation which sometimes led to very remarkable shifts on the part of men, to find pieces of rock which would satisfy the condition of 50 per cent. silica. They knew only too well that if there was 48 per cent. or 47 per cent., although they were rotten with pneumoconiosis or silicosis, their claim would fail.
    Many men whose cases were doubtful left the industry. Then came the war, and there was a five-year extension period. But men were not offering themselves to pneumoconiosis panels at intervals to be examined after having been rejected in the first place, and some of those men are included in the 17,000 we are now considering. For reasons none of which can be ascribed to them as their fault, they are denied anything except this rather low rate of compensation for a serious disability.
    I began my work on this in 1926 on behalf of the pottery workers in North Staffordshire, and later on behalf of the miners. Every word spoken by my hon. Friend the Member for Ince is true. It is quite easy to be sentimental about cases of this type. I think that we should all feel some guilt at their having been left out of full benefits, and I Chink that we all carry some responsibility for that.
    All that we are asking the Minister to say now—and I am sure that it is all he can say—is that he will bear this matter in mind. It will not be expensive. The men are dying, and in a few
    1020
    years' time there will be no problem, either financial or otherwise. If we are to forget these men, let us forget them knowing that at the end we recognised their claims and offered them a little justice.
    The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): I hope that the Committee will be prepared to come to a decision on this Clause, certain aspects of which have been debated quite fully in the last 2¼ hours. It is, as the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) reminded us, the Clause which gives operative effect to those Schedules which make substantial increases in the general level of industrial injury benefits.
    I rise, first, to suggest that we have a good deal of work ahead of us, and that we hope that it will not be necessary for the Committee to sit to inconvenient hours on other days to deal with that work. Secondly, I want to say a word or two in addition to what my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said so well in his maiden speech at the Box on the points which have exercised our minds for the greater part of the debate.
    The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) raised the rather special point, perhaps not very closely related to this Clause—I do not say that offensively—of men who left the industry before it was scheduled by the Home Secretary. It was the purpose of the Pneumoconiosis and Byssinosis Benefit Act, 1951, and of the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Act, 1954, to pick up those cases, and I do not think that on this Clause I can carry that matter further than to remind hon. Members that that was the intention and, as I understand it, the effect of those Measures. If, nevertheless, it is the view of hon. Gentlemen that some people have been overlooked, that is a matter which, if they care to do so on some suitable occasion, or perhaps in a personal discussion, they can draw to my attention, and I shall be very happy to look into it.
    On the main point which has been raised, as my hon. Friend said, whatever the merits or demerits at this moment of using the Industrial Injuries Fund to

    1021
    supplement the payments made to men in that category, I do not think that this is a suitable proposal for the Bill. As the Chairman of Ways and Means reminded us in ruling on the Amendment, this is in fact, a two-purpose Bill. Its purpose is to raise rates and to deal with urgent difficulties in respect of the retirement condition. It was framed in that way, and I doubt whether, even if we thought it right, it would be possible at this stage, and on this Bill, to deal with this matter in the way hon. Gentlemen suggest.
    However, I would not like it to be on record that we have, even within the relatively narrow confines of the Bill, left these people out of account. In so far as they are old, sick or disabled they will benefit from the Bill in respect of the improvements in retirement pensions, sickness benefit, or unemployability supplement under the Industrial Injuries Act.
    Therefore, whether what we are doing meets the particular point raised by hon. Gentlemen is a matter that can rest between us as something on which there is genuine disagreement. The fact remains that they are sharing in the benefits which we are seeking, with the authority of Parliament, to improve in this Measure.
    Dr. King Dr. King rose——
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am sorry I cannot give way, I want to finish this point. On the main question, I think that there is a genuine difference.
    My hon. Friend quoted what I said during the Second Reading debate on the Measure which I introduced in 1956 to make these supplementary payments. I made the point that I thought that it was right at that time to impose this charge on the Industrial Injuries Fund because there was hardship to be remedied.
    It is material that at that time there were no proposals before the House, such as there are now before the Committee, for improving all these other benefits to which I have referred. The men in that category were not only suffering hardship but were not having that hardship relieved by improvements in National Insurance benefits such as, if the Committee approves, they will now receive. That is important.
    1022
    I say frankly that I made it clear in 1956 that I was not proposing complete symmetry between those injured before the schemes came into effect and those injured afterwards because that is a point on which I differ from what has been said this afternoon.
    Mr. E. Fernyhough: When the right hon. Gentleman brought in the Bill in 1956 he made a comparison of hardship. These people were at that time getting the same rate of unemployment benefit and the same rate of sickness benefit as everybody else. The only people compared with whom he considered they were having a hard time were those on industrial injury benefits. He raised their benefits to bring them into line with those on industrial injury benefits because they were already on a par with the rest of the people.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: We did not raise the benefits to bring them into line with anybody. We raised their benefits to deal with hardship. What the hon. gentleman has forgotten is that since then the main rates of benefit have been increased by the Act of 1957, and that they will be raised again by this Measure if it is approved. It was therefore a quite different reason.
    Mr. William Ross Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock) rose——
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I rose only to make my position on this clear after we had thrashed this out pretty fully.
    Mr. Ross: The right hon. Gentleman is basing the justification for his attitude on the question of hardship and what he said during the debate on the 1956 Act. Will he remember what he said about the question of disparity? He thought it right to reduce the disparity at that time, which is exactly the case that we have been making this afternoon.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have reread my speech, having seen the Amendments on the Notice Paper. With respect, I think that what I said was quite clear. What I said then makes sense in this situation too, namely, that the essence of this is not to measure precisely whether everybody gets the same amount if injured before or after the scheme. I do not believe that that is feasible. I was concerned to ensure that no one suffered

    1023
    hardship, and I took into account that at that time there were no proposals before Parliament for increases in the other benefits. I think, therefore, that on that point we must be quite clear.
    My hon. Friend put the case very clearly. It is not possible, either by way of industrial injuries benefits or by way of National Insurance benefits, to treat everybody who suffered injury before the scheme came into effect on the same basis as those who suffered injury afterwards. If one did, those who pay contributions might not think that that was wholly fair. What we are anxious to do, and what we shall continue to be anxious to do, is to secure that those for whom the occasion for such payments arose before these schemes came into effect do not suffer from hardship.
    6.0 p.m.
    I propose to keep that aspect of the matter under review and I hope that the Committee will take it from me that that is a sincere statement when hon. Members remember that I had the privilege of being responsible for introducing the 1956 Measure. I must, however, say with equal frankness that I do not consider this an appropriate matter for this Bill, nor do I think that on this occasion the case has been made. I will, however, study it and I will be very happy to have the co-operation of hon. Members in drawing to my attention individual cases, in support of the view that hardship is being suffered. I shall find that helpful and will be grateful if hon. Members will do that. I must repeat, however, that on this Bill we cannot, and I do not think we ought to, deal with this matter. I hope that we may be able to continue with the Bill so that we can discuss the benefits and improvements in other directions which it is making.
    Mr. T. Brown: I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance. If my memory is correct, there are nine regions under his Department. From them he can get all the information which he requires to enable him to formulate proposals to help the men who have been denied compensation of benefits under the Industrial Injuries Scheme.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 2.—(HIGHER RATES OR AMOUNTS OF CONTRIBUTIONS AND BENEFITS UNDER NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT. 1946.)
    Mr. Houghton: I beg to move, in page 2, line 20, at the end, to insert:
    Provided that not less than one year nor more than fifteen months after the said substituted provisions have come into effect the Minister shall review those provisions having regard to any change in the gross national product or in the prices of consumer goods and services, or in the average weekly earnings of manual workers and unless he is satisfied that the value of the benefits and increases mentioned in those provisions has not fallen since those provisions came into effect, either in terms of purchasing power or in relation to the gross national product or in relation to the average weekly earnings of manual workers, he shall amend the said benefits and increases so as to compensate for any such fall;
    And that at a similar interval after the first review a second review and any consequent amendment shall take place and so on at similar intervals until Parliament enacts otherwise;
    So, however, that a report of each such review shall be laid before Parliament and that any amendment under this subsection shall be made by an order in the form of a statutory instrument subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament.
    The Amendment is an act of political chivalry intended to help the Government to keep the pledges which they made to the country a year ago. The Bill is a partial fulfilment of the pledge that was given last year. We are not satisfied that it goes as far as it should in present circumstances. We are anxious to have a closer definition of the basis upon which future reviews shall take place and some greater assurance that reviews will take place at reasonable intervals.
    The first thing we ought to do is to look at what the Government said they would do about the level of National Insurance benefits. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers), who has temporarily left his seat, made an intervention a few moments ago in which he stressed that the pledge related to the old. That is literally true. The Bill, however, quite properly adjusts other benefits—unemployment and sickness—to the new level proposed for retirement pensioners. We would not have it otherwise. Our main thought, however, in moving the Amendment is for the welfare of the old people. The Minister

    1025
    said on 20th May last that the pledge was that
    "we shall ensure that 'pensioners continue to share in the good things which a steadily expanding economy will bring'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th May, 1960; Vol. 623, c. 1712.]
    The Prime Minister, in a television broadcast on 6th October, 1959, after a little political propaganda about the past, said:
    "It means that we have made a start on doing something all of us want—to give the pensioner a share, and a fair share, in the increasing prosperity of the country. And I give you this pledge, this personal pledge: In the next Parliament we shall go on doing it."
    The Bill does something towards the fulfilment of that pledge. The Amendment is intended to encourage the Government—and, indeed, to require them—to go on doing it. It requires the Minister, in a period of not less than a year from the passing of the Bill and not more than fifteen months afterwards, to undertake a review.
    By the Amendment, the Minister would be required to review the present level of benefits by reference
    "to any change in the gross national product or in the prices of consumer goods and services, or in the average weekly earnings of manual workers and unless he is satisfied that the value of the benefits and increases mentioned in those provisions has not fallen since those provisions came into effect, either in terms of purchasing power or in relation to the gross national product or in relation to the average weekly earnings of manual workers, he shall amend the said benefits and increases so as to compensate for any such fall."
    I stress that the criteria contained in the Amendment, while of a three-fold character, have to be judged on the test of any one of them. We do not require all three—an increase in the national product, a rise in the cost of living and a rise in the average weekly earnings of manual workers—as a condition of a favourable review. Any one of the three shall be taken as the basis of the review. I know that the Minister will criticise this proposal, first, on the ground that he does not like mandatory periodical reviews in any event, and secondly, because it would be a mistake to tie oneself too closely to any particular factor or set of factors for a review of National Insurance benefits.
    The next thing I should do it to look at what the Minister has said about those factors which he takes into account in reviewing benefits. We had some long
    1026
    debates on this matter in the course of our proceedings in Standing Committee A on the National Insurance Bill, 1959. We debated at great length what should be done, not only about the amount of increases in National Insurance benefits that we then desired, but as regards the future. The right hon. Gentleman constantly reiterated his faith—if that is the word to use—in the wisdom of the Phillips Committee. He referred to it then. He referred to it again in reply to a Question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) on 14th November, 1960, as reported in column 18 of HANSARD. Indeed, almost every time that we discuss the principles on which a review should be undertaken, the Minister takes refuge in the Phillips Committee.
    The interesting thing about the Phillips Committee is that it was the most shabbily treated committee of inquiry in my experience, because we have never even debated its Report. It reported in 1954. It was pressed very strongly by the Minister of the day to speed up its Report because he wanted to act, and he had frequently told the House that he could not act until he had the Report. So he almost coerced the Committee into making a hurried Report. Then he snatched the Report from the hands of the Committee, dropped it on the Treasury Bench and introduced proposals for improvements in the National Insurance benefits in the National Insurance Measure of 1954.
    The Minister picks out particular paragraphs of the Phillips Committee Report without saying whether the Government have ever accepted the whole of the Report. One proposal the Minister's predecessors dropped like a hot brick. It was that the retirement age should be lifted a year at a time at intervals of five years. That the Minister was not going to have, and nobody pressed him to implement that recommendation. He certainly was not urged to do so by hon. Members on this side of the Committee and hon. Members opposite remained silent in acquiescence in his judgment that it was not politically expedient then; and it is not politically expedient now. So the Phillips Committee, though it has undoubtedly assisted us in consideration of these and many other matters, has

    1027
    not had the honour of having its Report made the authoritative policy of the Government.
    I would also remind the Committee that the Phillips Committee's Report of six years ago is strangely out-dated by many things which have happened since. What it said about economic and financial problems of the provisions for old age is today obsolete because of the complete change in the financial arrangements of the Scheme embodied in the National Insurance Act, 1959. Its references to the charge upon the Exchequer of increases in the National Insurance benefits no longer hold good because of the introduction last year of the pay-as-you-go scheme which does not come into full operation until the first week in April. So it seems to me that the Minister is relying unnecessarily on the Phillips Committee for the suggestions that it made regarding the criteria to be taken into account.
    What the Committee did say, as summarised in paragraph 215, was:
    "On the whole, the conclusion we have reached is that there cannot be any stereotyped formula for fixing the level of benefit and changes should not be made except at infrequent intervals and unless there are compelling reasons; when they are made their nature and amount should be decided on a balance of a number of considerations, in particular the following …".
    The Committee mentioned
    "The change in the cost of living, due regard being had to the circumstances giving rise to it and the likelihood of its continuance."
    The Committee also mentioned
    "the extent to which pensioners have recourse to national assistance, this being broadly indicative of the relation between the pension rate and the cost of subsistence:"
    Thirdly, the Committee referred to
    "the amount of the additional contribution required by an increase in pension rates and of the increase in the future charge on the Exchequer."
    We freely acknowledge that the cost of living factor, so important six years ago, is, for the time being, not anything like of importance in fixing National Insurance benefits. I know that there are many people who will argue that the costs in the Retail Price Index do not adequately reflect the actual cost of living today. The difficulties of averages we well know, but taking the only index we have, the Retail Price Index, we
    1028
    acknowledge that the rise in recent years has been slowed down. Indeed, the pledge given last year, which we welcomed and which we ourselves would give, is that the pensioners, particularly, and others receiving social payments, shall share in the increased prosperity of the country. Their position relative to that of other sections of the community shall be adjusted from time to time.
    6.15 p.m.
    In the Amendment I do not think that we suggest anything which is too stereotyped. Indeed, if these criteria are not taken, What do we take? Surely the fulfilment of a pledge by reference to general economic conditions in the country must take account of a rise in the gross national product. It must take account of any increase in the price of consumer goods and services and it must take account of any rise in the average weekly earnings of manual workers. I regard the third of those as being much the more important. But there are circumstances in which a rise in wage levels alone would not give a true index of the adjustment which might have to be made. There are circumstances where, if there is no rise at all in average wage levels, there would be justification for improving the payments to those on a minimum basis.
    We have done the best we can in setting out in this Amendment a reasonable basis on which the Minister can take further action. I do not think that we have been unreasonable, either, regarding the time factor in the review which we ask him to make—not less than twelve months nor more than fifteen months. That is reasonable enough. If, by reference to the factors we mention, no adjustment is necessary, the Minister reports accordingly, and we move on to the next period of review. It would give these people, particularly retirement pensioners, a more hopeful basis for the periodical review of their position in the light of contemporary economic circumstances.
    Nearly every other section of the community has ways and means and machinery for making its claims upon a rise in the national income. Trades unions, company meetings, arbitration machinery, wages councils, organisations which represent different sections of the community, provide opportunities for

    1029
    saying what particular interests should be served and to what extent. There are many spheres in which very substantial claims can be made upon the national income where the Minister has no authority and no power whatsoever. There are many trade union negotiations which are just as important in their effect on the economy as any adjustment the Minister has yet proposed to make in National Insurance benefits. These people are the unrepresented, except in this Committee, and we all know the difficulty of making effective demands in the House of Commons within the rules of order.
    It is well known that under the rules of the House none but the Government can introduce Measures placing a charge on the Exchequer. That sterilises the Opposition in putting forward specific claims and proposals in particular circumstances. The conditions, business and rules of the House are not like the atmosphere of a boardroom in which negotiations can take place and where, in the event of disagreement, an arbitration tribunal is waiting round the corner. There is no Pilkington Commission for these people; there is no Guillebaud Committee for the retirement pensioners; there is no Priestley Commission for the retirement pensioners.
    There, we have three very large groups of public servants whose position relative to other workers and professional persons has been the subject of critical and exhaustive reviews by independent commissions, out of which have come proposals for the adjustment of their pay by reference to a new principle called fair comparisons, fair relativities. Where are the fair relativities for the retirement pensioners except what this House of Commons may give them?
    We do not want to leave this review to the hazards of Parliamentary business, or to the caprice—a word which I use without offence—of the Minister or the Government. We want it to be an ordered affair. We want the retirement pensioners to know where they stand, when to look for a review of their position and the factors by reference to which that review will take place.
    We hope that the Minister will not spurn this genuine attempt to help him in his task. Surely he cannot complain if the Opposition want to underwrite the
    1030
    pledges which the Government have given and wish to encourage him in the review which I know he would wish to make as frequently as may be without any directions from the House. But it is important from our point of view that same principles should now be written into our whole conception of the future of this scheme. For too long it has been left to rather haphazard action, taken in different conditions of political expediency and economic change, but especially political expediency, and we now want it to be on a more ordered basis.
    I hope that it will be possible for the Minister to study this Amendment in a constructive spirit. There is nothing here that this Committee would be rash to pass. There is nothing here which it would be unreasonable for retirement pensioners to expect. This is the only way, as we see it, of keeping these benefits in continuous relationship to the changes in the social and economic conditions of other sections of the community.
    There is only one remaining point on which it seems to me, doubt may be cast. Do we want to go on improving these minimum standards of benefit, or is there to be a fundamental change in our approach to them? No one on the other side of the Committee has challenged this principle of continuing to review these benefits in the light of contemporary conditions, and I hope that it will not be suggested that this Amendment is proposing to do something which the Minister would no longer want to go on doing.
    We believe that in this great debate, which will, no doubt, go on for a time, on the question how much as of right and how much subject to a means test, we should not falter in our determination to provide a minimum benefit as of right which will not compel a disproportionate number of beneficiaries to go to the National Assistance Board. Too many are having to go there already. We should like to see the number reduced. We should like to see pensions more adequate for a reasonable standard of living so that recourse to the National Assistance Board should not be necessary. I am not saying for a moment that there is any stigma, or that we should say that there is any stigma, in

    1031
    going to the Assistance Board. What we do say is that it should not be used as the main instrument of social benefit alongside the National Insurance Scheme.
    I therefore hope that I have submitted to the Committee and the Minister a sufficiently forceful argument to enable him to view this Amendment with favour, because we on these benches regard it as of fundamental importance.
    Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett: I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) in his closing remarks, because it seems to me that they were more appropriate to the debate that we shall doubtless have on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill". I propose to keep strictly to the Amendment.
    I was interested, in fact rather amused, to find that the hon. Member began by saying that this was an act of chivalry on the part of the Opposition, because it was helping the Government to keep their election pledges. I should have thought that there was some evidence that the Government were keeping this particular election pledge fairly well already. Indeed, the fact that we are all gathered in this Chamber discussing yet another Bill to increase pensions seems to me to be fairly conclusive evidence that that is so.
    The idea that there should be a statutory review is not a new one. To be fair to the Labour Party, it has put it forward with great persistence for a number of years, and certainly throughout the short period in which I have been in politics. I am bound to say, however, that I very much question either the wisdom or the need for a regular statutory review of this nature.
    Let me say a word, first, about the need. It is not accurate nowadays to speak of retirement pensioners as if they were a tiny, forgotten group in this country There are 5½ million of them, and their number is rising. It is true, and has been true for some time, that no political party can expect to succeed at an election if it were to pursue a policy which united the pensioners against it. The pensioners are potentially the most powerful single pressure group in the nation.
    1032
    Furthermore, and for that reason, the whole question of retirement pensions, their levels, the contributions and the whole structure of this National Insurance system is continually in the very forefront of politics. I know that there are those who say that it ought not to be, and that we should take this matter out of party politics. I do not agree about that. I do not think that it can be done, and I remember that the last time we had one of these Bills before the House the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), with whom I do not often agree, pointed out what rubbish it was to talk of taking this matter out of politics and making the whole machinery automatic, because pensions are and will always remain the very stuff of party politics. I do not see how that can be avoided. I do not think that there is the slightest danger, and I am sure that the Opposition will guard against it, of the level of pensions being forgotten when they are raised continuously inside this House, by the pensioners' associations outside and they are under continuous review, I am quite sure, within the Government.
    After all, the evidence is to be found in what has happened. I have been in this House for six years, and this is the third Bill to increase pensions which I have debated with other hon. Members during that short time. There is a certain familiarity in the arguments which take place on these Bills, although a stranger might wonder whether we were not engaged in the enterprise of reducing the pensions level. The only novel feature which I have noticed about the debate is the absence of the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) from our proceedings.
    Let me now take the question of the wisdom of a review. It may be argued, in fact, I am sure it is, by some hon. Members, that although it is not necessary to have this review, nevertheless, for some of the reasons which the hon. Member for Sowerby gave, it would be wise so to do. I do not agree at all. I think that the great disadvantage of having a regular review is that it would lead the people, in this case the pensioners, to believe that when one of the various factors which have been mentioned indicates that an increase of pensions on these grounds would be

    1033
    justified, the rise would take place automatically. He spoke with some approval and pride of the various reviews which already exist for people still in active work. He might have added the undertaking given quite recently that there should be a biennial review of the pay of members of the fighting Services. I may be alone in this, but I think that it was very unwise of the Government to give that undertaking.
    6.30 p.m.
    It is a mistake to have these regular, automatic reviews. I say that because there is one factor which the Opposition have not included, one factor which has not been mentioned in this debate, but which is the most important. I refer to the current state of the national finances. I have never been one of those who, on public platforms, or in this House, have criticised or made disparaging remarks about the Labour Government for not having raised pensions to match the rising cost of living between 1948 and 1951. I have not done that because I am certain that the reason that was not done was not because they would not have liked to have increased pensions, but because the state of the nation's finances would not have justified it. It would have been a rash act.
    Suppose, however, that when the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) introduced his Bill in the first place there had been a provision in it of this nature. I believe that the Cabinet of the day would have been faced with an almost irresistible demand to make considerable increases every year in the level of pensions between 1948 and 1951 to match the rising cost of living. Had that been done, although it would then have been very agreeable to old-age pensioners, in the long run it would probably have had the reverse effect from what was intended because it would have embarrassed still further the nation's finances and retarded our recovery after the war.
    Furthermore, it would have been unwise, even if the finances of the nation at that moment seemed to be adequate to bear a rise, to say that one should necessarily increase pensions merely because one of the three factors mentioned in this Amendment was justified. As I understood the hon. Member for
    1034
    Sowerby, although I may have misunderstood him, his theory was that we did not require all three factors to justify a rise, but any one would justify a rise. I will not say more about the cost of living, because I consider that as something quite distinct from the other factors and if the cost of living rises, if it is humanly possible the pensions must also be increased.
    Taking the other factors in isolation, there have been periods since the war—speaking from memory, 1956 was one—when the average earnings of the country as a whole rose substantially faster than the rise in output. That resulted, naturally, in a rise in prices and, as night follows day, in considerable financial embarrassment during 1957. If we had chosen that moment, at the beginning of 1957, to make a bigger increase in all retirement pensions we should merely have intensified the financial crisis which followed in the autumn of 1957.
    Nevertheless, this Amendment raises the very interesting question of what ought to be the yardstick which one should apply when carrying out a pledge such as the pledge to which we are committed, namely, to allow the old people to share in the rising prosperity of the country. That was a matter discussed at some length during Second Reading of the Bill, when three alternative suggestions were put forward. One was a rise in the gross national product, another the earnings level and the third the wage index. Although, at one time, I was an ardent supporter of the theory that if one could one should tie pensions to the earnings level, on reflection I have come to the conclusion that that would be a mistake.
    I do not claim to be a great expert in statistics, but I have noticed—as I am sure all hon. Members have noticed—that in the Monthly Digest of Statistics there is always a considerable lag before the published earnings appear. Obviously, it takes some time to work them out, and, comparing one number of this interesting publication with another, one finds that sometimes they are corrected for back years. I presume that further information shows that the first estimate was wrong.
    Earnings fluctuate violently from time to time and it would be a dangerous

    1035
    thing to use earnings as a yardstick for that reason. At present, earnings in the motor industry have dropped dramatically. Should that be a reason for lowering pensions? I think not. On the other hand, I do not think that the wage index is satisfactory because we know that earnings can be considerably increased and often are, with any change in wage rates. This happens when a shortening of the working week is negotiated. It is not reflected in any change in the wage index, but it results in a substantial increase in weekly earnings.
    Pensioners would have a legitimate complaint if we said that we should relate their pensions solely to wage increases for that reason. If one is to have a yardstick at all, I think that the best is the gross national product. That is the yardstick by which I satisfy my conscience that the present Bill adequately fulfills the pledge which has been given because, at the end of 1957, when the last National Insurance Act was introduced and the last increase in pensions was made, the gross national product was running at £19,400 million a year.
    Mr. Houghton: I want to be clear on a point about wages. We do not suggest, in this Amendment, using the wages index. The term used is "average weekly earnings of manual workers" That is the definition of the survey undertaken by the Ministry of Labour, usually published in the April of each year and based on information collected in the previous October, covering all manual workers, men, women and juveniles. It is very broadly based and an average, thus protecting the final result from fluctuations of earnings in particular industries.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I fully appreciate that, and I mentioned the wage index only because it was mentioned on Second Reading and has often been advanced as an alternative to what is contained in this Amendment. I concede that if one must use one of these figures earnings is the better, but it is not satisfactory. I think that the gross national product is better and that it is very easy to test the Bill in the light of that.
    1036
    The gross national product was running at the time of the last pensions increase at about £19,400 million a year. It now looks as if it is running at about 10 per cent. more than that, something of that kind. The increase under this Bill is 15 per cent. in the flat rate of these pensions. That, I think, shows that the pledge has been fulfilled with a great deal to spare. One also has to remember, when considering the terms of the Conservative Party's pledge at the last election, that the old people benefit in other ways than by the actual level of their pension. They benefit by improvements in the Health Service. They benefit by improvements—slow it may be, but none the less real for those who benefit—in housing arrangements for old people. These things absorb a great deal of the national income. It is only fair to take them into consideration as a whole when one is asking whether my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench have met the pledge or not.
    These are some of the reasons why I hope that my right hon. Friend will not accept this Amendment, not that I quarrel in any way with the spirit in which it has been put forward, or the way in which the hon. Member moved it.
    Dr. King: I am sorry to find the hon. and gallant Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett), to whom I always listen with interest whenever he intervenes in the debate, apparently even more complacent about the questions which we are raising in the debate than his right hon. Friend is on any issue, except when we are fighting major political battles.
    I will not follow the hon. and gallant Gentleman's last remark about the improvement in the Health Service and in housing conditions which the Government have brought in the shape of increased rents and health charges imposed on the old people, but all the time that he was speaking I felt the truth of the old, cynical remark, "How easy it is to endure the miseries of other people". Most hon. Members belong to professional groups enjoying superannuation conditions in their retirement which bear no relation to any of the factors mentioned in the Amendment, and I would have liked to have heard a little

    1037
    more awareness during the debate of the sadness and the hardships of the problems which we are discussing.
    The claim of the old-age pensioners since 1946—and both sides of the House are to blame for this—is that whatever benefits they have had come too little and too late. I concede to the Minister that the position of the old-age pensioner and his standards of living have improved during the last few years and that, as the nation's wealth has increased, so the old-age pensioner has shared in it, but there is no answering the case which the old-age pensioners themselves have put again and again—that that rise in their standards of living has been too slow and that their share in the increased national prosperity has always been too little.
    Each pension increase has come as a result of long agitation—and the hon. and gallant Member was right; it was political agitation. Indeed, if the then Opposition, when we were in power in 1946–50, had played their part as an Opposition, and had campaigned on behalf of the old-age pensioners, there might have been some improvement in the lot of the old-age pensioners in the static period, 1946–50. Ever since the present Government have been in power the Opposition have been pressing the claims of the old-age pensioners, and so have the trade union movement and the old-age pensioners themselves. The National Federation of Old Age Pensions Associations rightly complains that it has been campaigning for twenty-two years, that always the concessions made by the Government are miles behind the claims which it makes and that by the time some increase in pension takes place, events have caught up and whittled away some of the value. I illustrate this by the simple fact that 1¾ million of the pensioners who benefit by this Bill—those who have their pensions supplemented by National Assistance—will find that most of the gains which they receive under the Bill are offset by the increase in the price of coal this winter.
    Despite what the hon. and gallant Member said, the old-age pensioner associations are a very weak pressure group. They have not the financial resources of the trade union movement, of any professional group or of any busi-
    1038
    ness group. Most of them are old and tired. Indeed, to me one of the remarkable things is the energy and vitality shown by some of the 70-year-old campaigners inside their organisation, the National Association of Old Age Pensioners.
    Most of the old-age pensioners—and I am sure that I shall carry the whole Committee with me in this—shame the rest of us by their contentment, by their acceptance of the position and by their cheerfulness under hardship, and during elections they vote according to deeply held political convictions which have little to do with the issue of old-age pensions. They must, therefore, depend on the efforts of the Trades Union Congress, hon. Members on both sides of the House, and, indeed, on the Minister for the Minister's own works over these last years has been to act in fulfilment of his duty as a pressure group on his own Cabinet—a Cabinet from which, incidentally, this Minister is excluded, although I have never been able to understand why.
    Our proposal would make obligatory a review at fixed periods rather than a policy of leaving the matter until enough political pressure has been created in this country to make the Government secure a re-examination and some increase in pensions. I hope that the Minister will accept the Amendment in the spirit in which my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) moved it. If he claims that the old-age pensioners are receiving their fair share of the increased prosperity in Britain, then he has nothing to fear from such a review. If that fact is as clear as the hon. and gallant Member suggested, then the review will impose no charge on the Government.
    But I believe that in the hands of a keen Minister of Pensions, such as the present Minister, it would provide a system by which he would be fortified in the battle which always takes place between Ministers administering the social services and an unwilling Treasury; a battle which will go on right through this century and in which a social Minister could do well to arm himself with the result of such an inquiry as we propose.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I understand the hon. Member's argument. What I do not follow is how the review would result in pensions increasing more

    1039
    in proportion than either earnings or the cost of living, which has, in fact, happened.
    Dr. King: I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not understand me. If the review reveals a state of affairs such as he imagines, then there is no reason why he should not accept the Amendment. If it shows that we have carried out every pledge and that there is no need for a further advance in the standards of living of old people, then he need not fear accepting the Amendment. That is what I said just now.
    6.45 p.m.
    The issues in the Amendment are profound. We should be asking ourselves from time to time how poor are the poor—how poor are the poorest people in this country to be; and nobody, not even the hon. and gallant Gentleman, would say that the answer is either easy or final at any time. I doubt whether we think that we have reached a final answer to this question when it is a simple fact that 1¾ million people will find the proposals which we are making in the Bill inadequate; when 47 per cent. of all those who retired in 1959 had continued working after the age of 65 and had not wanted to retire because their income when retired would be so low; and when many of the others, who retired at the age of 65, retired either because it was compulsory or because they were physically unable to carry on.
    I do not think that we can call this issue settled. We cannot leave it merely to the building up of political pressures, as long as we have two nations in this country, one retiring at a proper retiring age on half or two-thirds of the salary which they have drawn during their lifetime, and the other, consisting of the great mass of the people, who fear the day of retirement. Under the Amendment, incidentally, everyone who takes part in such an inquiry as we would make obligatory on the Minister will belong to the group which is protected for life and will be inside a profession which has its superannuation provisions. The Amendment merely asks for an examination every fifteen months of the condition of those to whom the basic
    1040
    pension is the only means of subsistence, plus what they get from the National Assistance Board in their retirement.
    We have often said that everybody ought to be able to retire, when their life's work is done, in honour and in comfort. It is true that we have removed the grim poverty which haunted the lives of old people at the beginning of the century. The Trades Union Congress has asked the Minister this very same fundamental question: what is the new national basic minimum at any moment below which we say a British citizen ought not to fall? That new national basic minimum will change year by year, even if the cost of living remains static.
    The old age pensioners, in their own magazine, put it in a much simpler way, quoting an article from the late lamented News Chronicle:
    "How much money does it take, in Britain 1960, to live a decent life?"
    We might ask ourselves whether 35s. for the wife of an old-age pensioner meets the requirements.
    I conclude by reminding the Committee of my own experience, which must be the experience of many hon. Members who hold weekend "surgeries". One of the most pitiful experiences in my life as a Member of Parliament is when people come to me about pension matters and I make inquiries. We pay our tribute to the local officials of the Ministry of Pensions and the National Assistance Board. We very often find that what is wrong is not that the Ministry of Pensions and the National Assistance Board have not given them all they are entitled to, but that when we have given them all the protection of the Welfare State they are still too poor to "get by". This is the kind of question we ask the Minister to examine every fifteen months.
    Mr. Raymond Gower: The Amendment has been moved most persuasively by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and supported most persuasively by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King). Yet the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) underline the fact that, however well intentioned the Amendment may be—I believe that it is well intentioned—it seems

    1041
    to have some aspects which must cause misgivings to many of us who have been thinking about this problem.
    This is a much more sophisticated edition of proposals which we have heard for many years for the alteration of pensions with changes in the cost of living. The hon. Member for Sowerby explained how he and his colleagues had been at some pains to write into the Amendment a much more reliable formula than the rather general words which were previously employed.
    Even so, I cannot feel that this would be the appropriate means of ensuring that people who are elderly and in need shall not suffer from sudden or occasional changes in the cost of living. That object would be accepted on both sides of the Committee as most laudable. However, the formula now before us would involve somewhat regular changes in the basic pension and, accordingly, somewhat regular changes in contributions.
    That in itself may be an objection. Our experience of the pension scheme over about twelve years has been that we have changed the basic rate of pension perhaps every two and a half or three years. On the other hand, there have been far more frequent changes in the rate of National Assistance. Many people might think that this type of formula would be much more appropriate if attached to changes in the rates of National Assistance, which is designed to deal with immediate hardship.
    We are dealing with a basic retirement pension which, after all, is paid not only to people in need but to a very large section of the community, a very large proportion indeed of the whole population. As my hon. and gallant Friend reminded the Committee, this is an ever-increasing proportion of our population. It seems that this machinery may not be the most appropriate to achieve that object.
    One can imagine that regular changes in the contributions annually, or at intervals of thirteen, fourteen or fifteen months, would not only be a cause of extra administrative work in my right hon. Friend's Department, but would occasion much disorganisation in industry, because all the books and all the rates and contributions of all employing
    1042
    organisations, whether State owned, local authority, or private industry would have to be changed. Unless a very powerful case is made out, this might appear to be a too regular period for this upheaval.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I would remind the hon. Gentleman that it is necessary to put alongside his argument the fact that from April, 1961, when the National Insurance Act, 1959, will come into force with the new graduated pensions, every business which has not contracted its workers out of the scheme will be called upon to make frequent monthly or six monthly adjustments, because as wages change contributions to National Insurance will change. Therefore, there is not a great deal of validity in his argument.
    Mr. Gower: The work necessitated by the formula proposed in the Amendment would be superimposed on that work, which perhaps rather strengthens my argument.
    But there is another and far stronger point. I am not sure that the formula would enable pensioners to do as well as they have done under the system which we now have. The hon. Member for Sowerby who is a great expert in this field, will concede this point. He will recall the Measure introduced by my right hon. Friend in 1955. Had the pensioners been operating on this formula they would have been worse off than they were after my right hon. Friend introduced the Measure of that year. Similarly, pensioners would be considerably worse off if the formula were introduced than they will be when the Bill is enacted.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby may have thought, and reasonably thought, that this would be a help to pensioners, but might it not have the exact opposite effect? Might not Administrations of any complexion feel that the pensioner's case is not nearly so bad if looked after by this automatic formula? There might not be the same reason for it to be pressed so feverishly by Oppositions in the House of Commons.
    There is another consideration. If this formula were adopted and pensions were adjusted automatically, it would be done by Order. I do not consider that to be the most appropriate method of making changes of this magnitude. They should

    1043
    be dealt with in the form of a Bill, subject to debate and Amendment.
    Mr. Ross: Does the hon. Gentleman apply that argument to National Assistance?
    Mr. Gower: I will come to that in a few minutes. Our ideas about the care of the aged and the improvement and modification of the Act of twelve years ago are changing in a rapidly changing society. It would be a retrograde step for these important changes to be conferred in this way upon my right hon. Friend's Department in the form of the automatic formula, which would result merely in an Order which would, in the words of the Amendment, be
    "subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament."
    It should be in each case a Bill of the same importance as the Measure now before us. It should be subject to debate, amendment and the mature consideration of both sides of the House of Commons.
    There is another objection to the proposal, in addition to the objections mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend. Our dealings with the problems of age may vary from year to year. For example, in one year it may be deemed proper for the Government of the day not to increase the rate of pension but for some reason, as happened about a year ago, to increase considerably the rate of National Assistance and the disregards. By that method we would be able to bring the maximum assistance to those in the greatest need; by this formula we would be bringing the minimum assistance to those in the greatest need.
    It should be left to the judgment of the Government of the day, and to that of Parliament after mature consideration of a Bill, to decide whether the basic rate should be increased in a particular year, or whether the Government in their wisdom, or lack of it, should deem it preferable in a particular year substantially to increase the disregards or substantially to increase the rates of National Assistance.
    Those are some of the misgivings that I, like my hon. and gallant Friend, have about this very well-intentioned Amendment, which might have the ultimate effect of not helping
    1044
    those whom it is intended to help and who would, if the position were left as it has been in the past, find themselves in a better position.
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. Donald Wade: It is right that the Committee should discuss the whole subject of periodical reviews raised by this Amendment. I do not want to be unduly cynical——
    Mr. J. T. Price: Then do not be cynical.
    Mr. Wade: —but there will be a certain amount of agreement when I say that there is a tendency for increases in contributions and pensions to occur in a period following a General Election. Promises are made at General Elections to increase pensions of various kinds, but not so much is said about the contributions. The promises are carried out to a greater or lesser extent in the period fallowing the General Election, but that is not necessarily the most appropriate time.
    Even though it may be said that my remarks are not fair, I am sure that the political factor does tend to enter unduly into the timing of increases——
    Mr. Gower: I do not suggest for one moment that the hon. Member's remarks are unfair, but I think that on reflection, he will find that they are not historically accurate. In some cases these changes have been introduced just before a General Election and, in this case, afterwards. I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that that is so.
    Mr. Wade: If I may pursue my remarks, the hon. Member may agree with my next point.
    I further believe that increases in contributions and benefit will tend to be made at the wrong time of year, because it is politically convenient to announce these changes at the beginning of the Parliamentary Session. We all know that such changes involve a great deal of administrative work, with the result that the increases both in basic pension and in contributions occur about April, as will be the case here.
    It seems to me inevitable that increases in the basic pension should coincide with increases in National Assistance, and April is not the most

    1045
    helpful time to introduce increases in National Assistance rates. We all know that those who have to rely on National Assistance are in greatest need in the winter months. Reference has already been made to the price of coal, which is probably one of the best examples. January, February and March are the most difficult months for the elderly, but I foresee that these increases in basic pension will tend to be announced at the beginning of the Session and that the corresponding increase in the National Assistance rates will tend to occur—if it occurs at all—in April or May.
    Mr. John McKay: The hon. Gentleman's point seems to be that we must keep National Assistance rates and basic pension together. Does that mean that if we could see our way clear to raise pensions to £3 a week we must of necessity raise National Assistance rates to the same extent? In other words, has the basic pension to be governed not by an independent view of what it should be but by subsistence level?
    Mr. Wade: I look forward to the time when it will not be necessary to rely on National Assistance at all, but we must be realistic. At present, about a million pensioners have to rely on National Assistance. I do not advocate it, but I do say that as long as that is so we will find that the tendency is to increase the National Assistance rates at the same time as we increase the basic pension. Whether one likes it or not, I think that it will work out that way.
    For a long time we have departed from the principle that the basic pension should be directly related to the amount paid in by the contributor. The original idea contained in the Beveridge Report of building up the fund was departed from when the National Insurance scheme was introduced in 1948. Having once departed from that principle, it is almost impossible to get back to it.
    Mr. J. T. Price: Will the hon. Gentleman support what he has just said by quoting to me any section or paragraph of the Beveridge Report that suggested that old-age or retirement pensions on the scale then envisaged should be fully covered by contributions necessary to make them possible when, in fact, even before the Beveridge Report or the
    1046
    National Insurance Act of 1946, the whole extent of pensions was paid for by the Exchequer? I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong in fact.
    Mr. Wade: If the hon. Gentleman studies the Beveridge Report he will there see that idea of building up the fund, but it would involve quoting at great length from the Report to support that contention. However, I think he will find that that is correct.
    Once one departs from the principle that the amount a pensioner receives is related directly to what he has paid in—in other words, something similar to a contribution to an ordinary pension policy through an insurance company—one must have some other principle on which to work. I think that it would be a good idea to relate the payments, first, to the cost of living and, secondly, to the standard of living. That, I think, is the idea underlying this Amendment, though there may be technical objections to it.
    In the context of "cost of living" I refer to some special cost-of-living index related to the kind of articles that old people buy rather than to the cost-of-living index that applies to the public generally. If one is to have a principle at all, one should attempt to work out some scheme whereby the payments are related to both the cost-of-living and the standard of living.
    The other problem relates to how often the reviews should take place. I can see difficulties in an automatic review every fiften months—two years is, I think, as short a period as is practicable—and there is some force in the argument of the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) in making a distinction between basic pensions and National Insurance rates. There is a better case for having more frequent changes in the National Assistance rates than there is for having them in the basic rate of pension.
    To return to the underlying problem, we have reached a situation in which pensions are being paid on the pay-as-you-go principle, as was made clear in our debates on what is now the National Insurance Act of 1959. That imposes on Parliament the responsibility of deciding how much the community shall contribute to old people, and we cannot escape that responsibility. Again, one

    1047
    must have some principle upon which to decide how much the community shall contribute to its old people.
    The 1959 National Insurance Act has already recognised the need for periodical reviews. I do not think there is any dispute about the fact that there are to be periodical reviews. The point is whether they should be subject solely to political pressure. It may well be that some degree of political pressure is inevitable, but I should like to see the political factor lessened as far as possible.
    I therefore ask the Minister to say on what principle these reviews are to take place. Is it to be entirely fortuitous? Is it to be related in some way to the cost of living or to changes in the standard of living? Will a particular period in the Session of Parliament be chosen? Are there any principles that will guide the Minister? It would be helpful to be enlightened on that, and without such enlightenment I would feel inclined to support this Amendment because I think that the ideas underlying it are helpful.
    Mr. John Jackson: Nobody is more sympathetic towards old people or to disabled people than I. As a secretary of S.S.A.F.A. for some time I have seen some pretty nasty things, and have dealt with them, but I think that when we deal with some of these matters we forget that people are very proud. They like to look after themselves, and, of course, they require enough money on which to live.
    Pensions, however, are not the right of people. They are granted by popular wish. It is an evidence of civilisation that people are willing, when they are earning, to pay part of their earnings into a pool so that those no longer earning can take from that pool, being entitled to it because of what they have previously done; and the amount must be enough.
    On the other hand, this Amendment seems to be an extraordinary one. The Government themselves have put forward a proposal to increase these pensions, and members of the party opposite then say, "All right, the Government have increased these pensions—let us prod them to review the matter every so often".
    1048
    Her Majesty's Government are reviewing the matter—that is why this Bill is before us. I would sooner pin my faith in Her Majesty's Government than in some funny little review that may take place, perhaps by some civil servant.
    Mr. Houghton: The "funny little review" is to be made by the Minister in whom the hon. Member has such confidence.
    Mr. Jackson: I think that this matter is under constant review by the Minister. It is not, I think, altogether understood in the country that the individual National Insurance contribution does not begin to provide statutory responsibility.
    It is very easy to be humanitarian if one is not responsible for the cost. The question is what are people prepared to pay. There is no question of some widow's cruse—nothing like that. The amount of money available is calculable and has surely to be dispensed in many directions. If we say that the old people are getting too little, are we to say then that some sick people are not to be treated, that some unemployed are not to receive their benefit? This is the point.
    Right hon. and hon. Members opposite say that the contribution of the earner is too great, that the increase of pension is too small, and that the date of grant too late. Well, Euclid coined a phrase for this mathematical situation—"which is absurd".
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. J. B. Symonds: I support the Amendment. When I listen to some of the statements made by hon. Members opposite, I, as secretary of an old people's welfare committee, wonder whether they ever visit any old people who are in need. If they did, they would be only too pleased to support this Amendment calling for a review at least every 12 or 18 months.
    I have heard hon. Members opposite saying that it is a question of how much money has been paid in, and that the money must be distributed accordingly. My experience is as the secretary of an old people's welfare committee; I am not talking about an old people's club. I am speaking as secretary of an organisation responsible for looking after people who were invalids, who could not get out of the house and who required

    1049
    extra nourishment. I heard an hon. Member opposite talking about the benefits which old people get through the National Health Service and so forth. I remember the right hon. Lady the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance speaking at Llandudno where the old people were promised a chiropody service. I have not yet seen that chiropody service supplied under the National Health Service.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Diamond): The hon. Member will have very great difficulty in seeing it on this Amendment.
    Mr. Symonds: I accept what you say, Mr. Diamond. An hon. Member opposite spoke about the benefits which could be obtained under the National Health Service, and I was merely replying to him on the basis of my experience.
    A large number of the married couples who are at present in receipt of £4 a week are still independent and just will not go to the National Assistance Board. Of that £4 a week, 15s. will go in rent and 15s. for two bags of coal, if the couple can afford it, and that leaves them £2 10s. a week on which to live—7s. a day. Hon. Members will pay more than that for two cigars to enjoy after their dinner. Yet the old people have to find three meals a day out of that. What we have to consider is the price of clothing and other commodities such as butter and milk—foodstuffs of that nature which are the mainstay of the diet of old people. The prices of those commodities rise from time to time, but no account is taken of that in the amount of pension provided. Consequently, the amount made available to these people to spend upon ordinary necessities should be reviewed periodically. Is 12 months or 18 months too long for that purpose?
    It must also be remembered that the older people of this generation were at one point the young people of the generation and the backbone of the country. At one time they were lauded to the skies. We ought now to review the sum which is given to them. Yet we are told that that cannot be done because it will cause too much work in April or make too many civil servants busy.
    1050
    Yet, at the same time, the old people lack the money they require to keep body and soul together. There are some tragic cases. It is because of such hard cases that some of us can come to the House of Commons and speak with authority about the plight of these old people. The Conservative Party General Election Manifesto said that the prosperity of the country would determine the amount which the old people would receive. I have heard some marvellous statements made by right hon. and hon. Members opposite about this country's prosperity, and I have read about what certain people in the country are receiving.
    Last winker the old people expected their pensions to be reviewed, and then they expected a review and something being done this winter, but now they find that they have to wait until April of next year, when the winter is over. I am afraid that some of them will not have the opportunity to enjoy the rise next April because they will have passed on. Consequently, I feel that the Amendment is justified and that the position of the old people should be reviewed every 12 or 18 months so that they may benefit from the prosperity of the country about which we have heard so much.
    Mr. W. Griffiths: I should not have risen had it not been for the remarks of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Jackson) and his contemptuous reference to the Amendment. He expressed his views by saying that he implicitly trusted the Minister, who had the matter constantly under review. The right hon. Gentleman nodded enthusiastically at that observation. But the Minister knows—and so should the hon. Member—that even if he is moved on any occasion with the maximum amount of compassion, as I am sure he is, for the people who benefit under the National Insurance Act, he has to argue with his Cabinet colleagues every time he wants to adjust the benefit rates.
    I should lave thought that the right hon. Gentleman, so long as he remains Minister of Pensions and National Insurance—he has been in the office a very long time, and looks like being a long time there still, at least until the next General Election—would have welcomed a provision of this kind to

    1051
    help him against members of the Cabinet who want to spend a disproportionate amount of the national income on the defence programme and other forms of Government expenditure which I regard as grossly wasteful. We are seeking to strengthen the Minister's position in relation to the members of the Government.
    There had not been a yardstick which any Minister of Pensions and National Insurance under any Government since the war could apply to determine the appropriate time for benefits to be increased. All Ministers of Pensions and National Insurance, whether Conservative or Labour, have been subjected to the pressures of the National Federation of Old Age Pensions Associations and these people have undoubtedly been used by the politicians. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would welcome the Amendment. Perhaps the actual form of words is not acceptable, or perhaps the period envisaged is not suitable. If the right hon. Gentleman can accept the principle, perhaps he would suggest a better period. I am sure that he would wish to be freed from outside pressures which make pensions a political plaything.
    The hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) said that if the Amendment were accepted the pensioners would at a given moment of time have been worse off. The increases which the Government have given pensioners of all classes may sometimes have been late, but I have welcomed them anyhow. I would point out that the Amendment says:
    "… the Minister shall review the provisions having regard to any change in the gross national product or in the prices of consumer goods and services, or in the average weekly earnings of manual workers and unless he is satisfied that the value of the benefits and increases … has not fallen".
    All we are seeking to do is to put a weapon in the hands of the Minister to prevent him from being subjected to political pressure, to prevent pensioners from being overtaken by inflation, as they have repeatedly been under all Governments since the war, and to allow an automatic increase to be made by Order laid by the Minister without having to bring legislation to the House.
    If the hon. Member for Barry, who objects to this procedure, has in mind
    1052
    any alterations of principle or of substance, I agree that they would have to be dealt with by legislation. If perchance the hon. Member agrees with me that, for example, the earnings rule for widowed mothers ought to be abolished, perhaps he will help me persuade the Minister that even this Bill might be amended to bring about that desirable state of affairs.
    Unless the Minister can convince the House that there are ways in which this built-in insurance for pensioners against inflation can be arranged better than is envisaged in the Amendment, he has no right to rest his case upon his own degree of compassion and his own personal responsibility, knowing as he does perfectly well that he is subject to all kinds of political pressures and subject to the competing claims of Departmental Ministers and actions in the Cabinet.
    7.30 p.m.
    Mr. William Hamilton: This has been an interesting debate, and I want now to try to anticipate the right hon. Gentleman's reply to it. It will probably go along the lines that the man in Whitehall knows best, that he can be trusted to do his duty as he sees it, and that the Minister would not like to be tied down to a specified periodic review such as is suggested in the Amendment.
    I say at once that I should agree with that more readily if those who sit on my own Front Bench were sitting on the Government side of the Chamber in place of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. It is precisely because we do not very much trust the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues that we seek to regulate proceedings. I confess that I do not greatly like the mechanics of the procedure suggested in the Amendment. I do not like the procedure of annulment by Resolution. I like my party politics too much for that. The hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) was, I think, quite right to point out this shortcoming in the Amendment. But that is no reason for rejecting the principle behind it.
    By all means let the Minister say what his criticisms of the Amendment are, but let him say, also, whether he accepts the need for some principle upon which a yardstick can be worked

    1053
    out so that we may ascertain what the economic facts are and not only provide for pensions keeping pace with a proportion of the gross national product, as the hon. and gallant Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) said, but also to ensure that the pension has some relationship to earnings. In my view, this is the most cosely relevant point in the Amendment.
    If the Minister looks at the facts and figures for the past few years he will find that the gap between the income of the pensioner and the earning power of the average wage earner at any given time has been widening, despite what the Government have done in increasing the basin pension. This is the bone of contention of the pensioners. While their pension has increased, they have lost ground relative to the average earnings of the workers. My party has continually sought, over several years, to close that gap. When the Labour Party introduced its national superannuation scheme which was before the electorate at the last election, this was one of its prime motives, to ensure that when a pensioner retired he would have as pension not less than half his average earnings over a period of years. I believe that the Government must eventually come to the view that those two factors must be measured one against the other, the pension and the average earnings of adult workers.
    In reply to the comments of the hon. and gallant Member for Croydon, North-East, I must say that I find it distressing sometimes that party politics should play such a large part in these matters. As I say, I like party politics as well as anyone, but it is a little distasteful to feel the pressure building up. One has the impression that there is a reluctant Minister yielding the minimum to satisfy or quieten the political unrest and then, having done that, sitting back and waiting for it to build up again. This is a deplorable aspect of our society today. If we can regulate the procedure by a method of this kind, not necessarily following the exact mechanics enunciated in the Amendment, that would be for the benefit of all concerned.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Surely there is nothing to be ashamed of in party politics playing a part in these affairs. The growth of nearly all our social services has been due largely to
    1054
    the perfectly healthy rivalry between the parties in or out of power. That is the motive force which drives democracy along.
    Mr. Hamilton: I entirely agree. I do not want to take the matter completely out of party politics. Nor would this Amendment do that. Indeed, we are making sure that, every year or fifteen months, we should have a full scale debate with the Minister coming down to justify his actions periodically, but not, as happens now, with the build-up of pressure followed by placatory action on the part of the Minister, who then sits back again and waits until he takes his next decision.
    The Minister decides now when he next comes to the House, and he is subject to all kinds of pressure, on his side in one way and on our side the other way. We seek to regulate these matters, to ensure all the time that we have our political debate and argument in the House at not less than twelve-monthly intervals.
    This seems to be a very desirable objective, and I hope that the Minister, if he picks holes in the Amendment, as he is quite entitled to do, will at least enunciate some principles on which his future action will be based.
    Mr. John McKay: To my mind, this could have been one of the great debates of our time on this subject. I say that because we are dealing here with one of the things which really matters for the whole nation. It is open to a great deal of thought and a variety of opinions. I agree entirely, and always have done, with the principle of the Amendment. After all is said and done, although we may have ideals about helping people, our ideals are always governed by our ability to fulfil them.
    The question before us involves many factors. We cannot simply pass an Amendment of this character without embarking on a consideration of the principle involved. The principle must be settled before we talk about the method of moderating it or applying it from time to time according to economic conditions. To pass an Amendment like this without having any stipulated standard to which we agree would be to do nothing at all. There is not only the question of the standard

    1055
    itself but the question of the method of payment.
    When dealing with a big issue affecting the whole nation very closely we must try to establish clearly what it is that we have in mind. We have been dealing with this problem for fifteen years. There has been constant agitation for higher pensions. The political stage has altered from time to time, but so long as the present methods continue there will be the usual situation, with the political parties being governed not so much by the principle which matters but by a consideration of how we can affect the situation to our advantage as a political party. That is one of the main features of this subject.
    Have we not now reached the stage when we ought to think the matter out a little more? Is the position such that we cannot spend a little more time on this matter before we fasten ourselves down to anything definite?
    I have been working like a donkey in looking at this matter from a hundred different points of view, but I did so with the principle in mind. I tried to fix a sum which I thought we could afford to pay as pension, and then, having fixed the principle and the remuneration, I tried to work out how it should be paid. Not enough attention has been devoted to that question. There are Amendments on the Notice Paper dealing with the payment which should be made. Have hon. Members worked out how much extra in contributions is needed to meet the increased pensions which we are demanding? I have not worked it out in detail, but I estimate that instead of an increase of 1s. 6d. with which to implement the increased pension which we are trying to get an increase of 3s. 6d., or something like that, is needed. Surely the question of the contributions is as important as the benefits themselves?
    The Temporary Chairman (Sir James Duncan): Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is getting a little wide of the Amendment, the main object of which concerns a periodic review. If he deals too much with the question of benefits and contributions he may impinge on other Amendments which are to be called later.
    Mr. McKay: I agree that what I have been saying is not pinpointed in the Amendment, but, with respect, I must differ from you, Sir James, about the liberty which ought to be given in discussing this issue. We cannot pass an Amendment like this without it being laid down definitely what is to be paid and how we are to pay it. If you will give a little more consideration to the matter, Sir James, I am sure that you will allow me a little more latitude. We should not be tied down when discussing matters of national importance. This is not a triviality. We are discussing a big national issue.
    To my mind, it is wrong to talk about increased pensions when no progress is being made in the method of supplying the money for them. There are tremendous differences among contributors. Surely the question of what advantage one body of pensioners has compared with another has a bearing on the matter. Before the principle of the Amendment is embodied in legislation we must seriously consider what the pension ought to be
    7.45 p.m.
    It is a pleasure for me to see—I admit it openly—that the Tory Government have broken away from the old, silly, stupid tradition of basing things on the cost of living. They have broken the ice, although in a wrong and niggardly way. No one knows better than the Tory Party how much it could improve the situation of the pensioners. No one knows better than the Conservative Party how easy it is to get money from the people for pensions and all the important matters attached to them. There is the question of the unemployed. The situation in Coventry may get worse. Other parts of the country may be similarly affected. The trade unions should be watching the situation very carefully. They should devote more thought to and bring more pressure to bear on the question of National Insurance, because it affects their members so much. Unless a special fund for the unemployed is created it is only by National Insurance that we can help the unemployed and the poor fellow who has been lying on a sick bed for months.
    There is too much talk about the pensioners. Let us be realistic in this matter. One million people need assistance from National Insurance week by week. They

    1057
    need the money just as much as the pensioner. Therefore, to the trade union movement and to all the workers of Britain this Bill is of great importance, and not sufficient pressure is being brought to bear to bring it to a conclusion to which we look with pleasure and pride. In thinking of how the pension should be paid and how in future the amount of payment should be governed we must of necessity try to fix a figure which will stand the test of time.
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. I have stopped the hon. Gentleman once when he was speaking on this point. He is back on it again. I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that this is a fairly restricted Amendment. Much of what he has had to say might be in order on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", but it is certainly not in order on this restricted Amendment.
    Mr. McKay: I will try to remain in order. I always try to keep in order, although it hampers me on occasions. Some hon. Members can whirl about all over the world and they never seem to be called to order. I like to be obedient to authority in so far as it is suitable.
    The principle embodied in the Amendment is very good. We cannot pay more than we can afford. Despite all the theories about our always being able to keep full employment, we shall find it difficult to do so on occasions. The principle embodied in all our taxation laws is that the individual should pay according to his ability, and this principle should, as far as possible, be embodied in National Insurance. The principle is that, when it has been decided what is a reasonable payment in respect of pension and other benefits, the unemployed and the sick shall not have to depend on the Government of the day and that if the national average income rises National Insurance benefits also will rise. The principle of the Amendment is good and I hope that it will be accepted.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): It might be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervene at this stage. We have had an interesting debate on this topic, which strikes new ground in as much as it gets away from
    1058
    the one-time suggested cost of living or retail price index basis and offers a tripartite edifice on any point of which, apparently, changes in the pension may be founded. I thank the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) for the manner in which he introduced the Amendment. I assure him straight away that we welcome the spirit and intention behind what he proposes. Indeed, I assure him that my right hon. Friend has every intention of continuing the constant review of pensions with which he is so regularly preoccupied.
    The Amendment would make the rates of benefit and increases payable under National Insurance, but not those under industrial injuries, subject to review at intervals of between a year and 15 months and would make revision subject to movement in any one, irrespective of the other two, of three indices. As the hon. Member for Sowerby rightly pointed out, an increase in any one of these three indices could give rise to an increase in pension: the gross national product, the price of consumer goods and services—I cannot think why that one was chosen—and the average weekly earnings.
    Mr. Houghton: We chose the second one as a safeguard—a good one.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: It is not quite so good, perhaps, as the hon. Member thinks. If prices were to stand still and wages went up, pensions would go up. If wages stood still and prices went up and we had inflation, we should still have to put up the pensions. I welcomed the comments by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay), because he was the only hon. Member on the opposite benches who drew attention to the fact that within the Amendment, whilst there is provision for putting up pensions, there is not the slightest indication how those increases are to be paid for.
    Mr. McKay: I did not have a chance to debate that.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: It was certainly an effective enough comment for me to pick up the point that the hon. Member had in mind.
    It is a serious defect of the suggestion that whereas we would be committed by the Amendment to raising pensions,

    1059
    perhaps by small amounts, perhaps by large amounts, no provision whatever is made within it for paying for those increases. Furthermore, in the switch that could take place among the different indices, it would be perfectly possible for an increase to arise under one of them at one review, under another at another review, when it did not apply on the other two, and on the third of them at another review, with the result that no one basis would consistently be used for the increase of pensions We should be in the position that over a period of years pensions might be increased, because of the incidence of a rise in one of these three criteria, far more than the overall position of the economy justified. There is, for example, no provision in the event of a recession for any adjustment other than upwards. So that if there were a recession and difficulties arose—one always hopes that they would not—the whole working population might be hit, but the benefits would be untouched.
    I said that I thought it strange that hon. Members opposite should have chosen the price of consumer goods and services as an alternative to using the retail price index. The retail price index represents the shopping basket of ordinary, working people, and I should have thought it was a much better guide to standards for the old people, or for those on sickness or unemployment benefit, than was the price of consumer goods and services, which include Rolls Royces, furs, jewellery, luxury hotels and the rest. It does not seem to me that that is very good index.
    Mr. W. Griffiths: What is?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: I said that the the retail price index is a more reasonable index.
    In case hon. Members opposite consider that I am being unfair to the retirement pensioner, I should like to point out that on its record over the last few years, the price index of consumer goods and services has gone up less than the retail price index. So that had that index been the barometer for the rise in pensions, retirement pensioners would not have done as well as they did under the retail price index.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: The right hon. Lady will not see any reference to an index in the Amendment.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Member is quibbling over words. The Amendment specifies that the level of benefits shall be judged by the three criteria: the gross national product, which, presumably, must be assessed and worked out over the many and varied items and an index of some sort produced; the earnings of manual workers, the average of which is produced six-monthly by means of an investigation; and the prices of consumer goods, which cover a wide range of goods and of which an index would be produced. If the hon. Member likes to call it a schedule or something else, I do not quibble, but the purpose of the operation is precisely the same.
    There is the added difficulty that, with none of this information very up to date when it is announced, the effect of such an arrangement could be to give an increase of pension over the years which was much lower than the corresponding increase in the respective indices, since available information about changes in national income and consumer prices would not be available for the current year and the increase in earnings would be known for only half a year. Therefore, it might be much longer before an increase came than can be, and has been, the case when the Government, after analysis of all the circumstances and considerations, recommend, as at present, increases based not only on the price index, but also on the general situation and giving due regard to the level of wages. However, once we peg it we are tied to making adjustments possibly of very small amounts.
    8.0 p.m.
    As hon. Members know, there is a regular statutory review at the present time. The National Insurance Act provided, in the terms devised by hon. and right hon. Members opposite when they were in office, that there should be a quinquennial review by the Government Actuary of the financial condition of the Scheme and of the adequacy or otherwise of the contributions, and that has to be followed by a quinquennial review by the Minister of the benefits of the Scheme. In fact, as my right hon.

    1061
    Friend's Report after his second quinquennial review pointed out, in recent years this five-year review of the benefits has been replaced for practical purposes by a policy of keeping all aspects of the Scheme under continuous review.
    At the same time, we cannot ignore that if provision is made for these rises, provision must also be made as to how they are to be paid for. It is idle for hon. Members opposite to suggest that this would go through automatically, that millions of pounds in money could go through automatically, because there was an automatic review, without the normal procedure or the right of full debate in the House as to how the money should be raised and how it should be spent, or on decisions in the regulations as to the varying rates and benefits. Here we have a recommendation to provide regular increases without one thought in it of how we could pay for them.
    Nor is consideration given to the effect of such increases on the financial soundness of the Scheme. The 1959 Act has placed the Scheme on a sound pay-as-you-go footing. Clearly, periodical increases in benefits unrelated to any consideration of contribution income would upset the whole balance of the Scheme laid down in the 1959 Act. As the Government Actuary said at the end of his Report after the second quinquennial review:
    "It does, however, appear that any increase in benefits would have to be accompanied by a provision for increasing the income in order to maintain the 'pay-as-you-go' basis of the scheme."
    I think it would be irresponsible of this Committee to pass an Amendment which, while providing for increases, makes no provision whatsoever as to whence or how the money is to come.
    Any change in rates of pension and other benefits is a very important matter, affecting not only the beneficiaries at any one moment but also the lives of nearly all in this country, either as contributors or taxpayers, as well as the finances and security of the Scheme itself, and, indeed, the national finance. Such changes should be made only after full opportunity for Parliamentary scrutiny has been afforded by the normal legislative process. It would, in my view, be quite inappropriate to make changes of the range and consequence involved here by the procedure of
    1062
    regulations subject, as outlined in this Amendment, only to the negative Resolution procedure, by which dissent can be registered only by an attempt completely to annul the entire regulations.
    This consideration is the more powerful when, as in this case, the proposal is not simply to measure the value of the pension but also to give the pensioners an increase in real terms. On this Bill we had a second reading debate last week, and we have three days this week for the remaining stages. Yet hon. Members opposite say they would sweep all this procedure away, the proposal could be automatic and subject only to a negative Resolution. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] Where then is the claim that the Amendment will save legislative time? The central aim of the Amendment, as I understand it, and as I understand the reasons put forward for it, is to avoid the delay caused by the need for a Bill. Some hon. Members have not read fully their own Amendment. The idea of the Amendment is to replace the type of Bill which we have before the Committee, on which we are spending three days this week, by a regulation which would be subject merely to a negative Resolution, so that the whole thing would have to be either annulled or passed in entirety.
    Although it may be claimed that it would be time-saving—I think that was one of the reasons for it put forward by the supporters of the Amendment—it would still be necessary to have complicated legal instruments to give effect to the changes, not only in the main rates but also in the subordinate rates and to deal with minor and consequential amendment. For example, the regulations needed to supplement the 1957 Act extended to 44 pages.
    Then we have to consider the administrative effects. As the right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) explained in great detail when she was Minister of National Insurance, changes in benefit rates are a vast administrative operation. They involve the alteration of well over 100 million pension orders held by pensioners. Suppose that the indices, or any one of them, required an increase of 1s. on the basic rate, according to this Amendment dependent wives would have an increase of 7d., and eldest children would qualify for

    1063
    under 4d., and there would be lower, proportionate, increases for rates of pension below the standard figure. There is no provision here at all as to a limit. If there were a change of only a few pence the whole administrative machinery would have to be operated for only a small, derisory, increase. That is what would happen if we took the three items on which this Amendment has been based.
    I think that this Amendment has been outmoded by the record of my right hon. Friend. The retail price index—I use that because it has gone up more than the price of goods and services index, and so is much more generous to retirement pensioners and other beneficiaries—has gone up by 3 per cent. since the last increase in benefit rates, and the food index, the last one published in September, by less than 1 per cent. We are increasing pensions by an average of 15 per cent. So on that score there is nothing which this Amendment could do which my right hon. Friend has not done already.
    The average earnings of male manual industrial workers have risen by 11½ per cent. since the last increase. Pensions and benefits are going up 15 per cent. If we had been tied to this average the increases we have included in this Bill would not be as high as they are. As for the gross national product, this covers many aspects of our national life, but it takes no account at all of the numbers supported by that income. The figures for recent years show that to have based pension increases on this would have been less favourable than to have based them on average earnings.
    Therefore, with great respect to hon. Members who have suggested that if we were to refuse the Amendment we should be lagging behind in what we are doing for the old-age pensioners, I say that in fact the reverse is the case because, taking the three criteria which they have in this Amendment, the present increases are higher than would have been made if they had been governed by these indices. As a political exercise this Amendment would involve a vast administrative burden, sometimes for a trifling sum, sometimes for a much larger, more worth-while one. It is outmoded by the current method which
    1064
    operates on simpler lines and by which my right hon. Friend maintains a constant review of all these aspects of national and economic life and their relationship to pensions and benefits. If we had followed this formula in the past the pensioners would be worse off than they are today, and certainly worse off than they are going to be under the proposed new rates.
    Finally, as to the many choppings and changings which might take place, whilst with his usual subtlety the hon. Member for Sowerby——
    Mr. Houghton: Subtlety?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: —and also a little pugnacity—returning the compliment he paid to me—quoted very fairly the recommendations of the Phillips Committee, I would remind him that that Committee did come down against rapid and small changes.
    But far more important perhaps is the opinion very firmly expressed by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) when he answered a claim in the House that the pension should be tied to the cost of living, when he affirmed on behalf of the then Government:
    "We are definitely of the view that it is undesirable, as well as impracticable, to have automatic adjustment. This method of pegging benefits to a specific cost of living and adjusting them automatically was tried at the end of the last war in war pensions, and broke down the first time it came to be applied. We are convinced, after examination, that it will break down again."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1741.]
    I hope that the Committee will reject the Amendment, first, because it would not do as well for pensioners as the present system and, secondly, because it makes no provision whatsoever for finding the additional money. It would be wholly irresponsible to pass a Measure providing for automatic increases without giving some consideration to how the money is to be raised. Finally, if I may answer the hon. Member for Sowerby in a sentence which he applied to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary a little while ago, "Unless you reduce this to simple terms, you will get nowhere."
    Mr. William Ross: I think that the right hon. Lady the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance will

    1065
    not be surprised if we on this side of the Committee completely dissent from her forcible expressions of opinion about the Amendment. She started to speak rather sympathetically, but she then lathered herself into a perfect fury and that sympathy melted in a quagmire of quibbles.
    Let us appreciate exactly what the right hon. Lady said. First, she said that we had not mentioned anything about the financing of future increases. Indeed, I had the impression that what she wanted was not an Amendment but a new Bill. The right hon. Lady knows as well as I do that, working within Parliamentary practice, one deals with one Amendment at a time, and we have already found it difficult to get our Amendments in order today. I admit that finding the money is important, but we on this side have never shut our eyes to the need for facing the situation involved in financing increases, and we have declared that we believe that the nation is prepared to do that. But the first thing that the right hon. Lady and her right hon. and hon. Friends have to get into their heads is that we want an adequate basic pension.
    The hon. and gallant Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) said, and this was equally implicit in the right hon. Lady's speech, that if we had applied the case that we are now applying to the present pension the pensioner would not be so well off as he will be under the Bill. With all due respect, we are not asking for that application. We are asking for the application of this proposal to this Bill and to future increases. We are not satisfied with the present basic pension, and when 15 per cent. is mentioned the important question is: "Fifteen per cent. of what?" The right hon. Lady will, of course, get a better result by retrospective application of this proposal even to her right hon. Friend's activities.
    8.15 p.m.
    What we are concerned about and what I thought the whole Committee was concerned about was that, having secured a decent but not, we would say, an adequate basic pension, we should keep it that way. That is the minimum, but we are concerned also that if national prosperity rises the old people, the unemployed, the sick and the widows should share in that
    1066
    prosperity. We are not looking at the past and judging by the application of this proposal to the past. We want to keep the Minister on the right road. The Tory Party, both by speech and by pledge, is tied to the proposal that we have put forward. The right hon. Lady indulged in all the quibbling about an index and in great glorification of what has already been done, but she must realise that since the Minister made his speech on Second Reading the index has already changed, and changed for the worse.
    If the right hon. Lady likes percentages, I can tell her that 33⅓ per cent. of the slide has taken place since the right hon. Gentleman made that speech. It is, of course, a silly percentage. That is why I talk about the right hon. Lady's stale adventures into statistics and her failure to face the actual position of the old people and what the nation wants to be done about it. This whole matter arises out of the history of pensions, but all the right hon. Lady does is to present us with all the difficulties of making a review every year or every fifteen months. The right hon. Lady should realise that we are having a review every three years. There have been reviews in 1952, 1955 and 1957, and now there is one again in 1960.
    This has been the record of the right hon. Lady's party. There has been a three-year gap before we have had the redress of the old people's grievances, and the very people who cannot afford to wait three years are retirement pensioners. Three years to them means a great deal more than it does to young people who are starting out in industry and to middle-aged people. Three years to them are vital. We intend to argue at considerable length and with considerable vehemence against keeping them waiting an extra five months, but the right hon. Lady is defending a period of three years before action is taken, a period during which the position of the pensioner becomes worse.
    The right hon. Lady spoke of the record. I will speak about it in relation to the three-year gap. The Minister was asked on 4th April whether he could give for each year from 1952 to 1957 the value of the single retirement pension of £1 6s. in terms of 1946 values, that is to say, the pension that was so adventurously raised by the Labour

    1067
    Government immediately after the war. Here is the record under a Tory Administration. The value at October, 1946, prices in October, 1952, was 23s. 7d.; in October, 1953, it was 23s. 2d.; in October, 1954, it was 22s. 7d. Then, of course, we had an increase in pensions in April, 1955, but by October, 1955, the value at October, 1946, prices was 26s. 5d. In October, 1956, the figure was 25s. 5d.; in October, 1957, it was 24s. 4d.
    Thus, we find this slide in a three-year period in the standard of living of old people—and three years passing before something is done to put it right. That is what we are trying to drive home to the right hon. Lady.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: Is not the hon. Member comparing it with the basic 26s. and ignoring the increases made by the present Government?
    Mr. Ross: I am not ignoring them. These figures were given by the Minister himself. I will again read the Question, which I myself put to the Minister. It was to ask the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance
    "in which years, as at October, from 1952 to 1957, the value of the single retirement pension exceeded £1 6s., in terms of 1946 prices."
    In other words, I wanted to find out how far the old people had advanced from their standard of living in 1946.
    These were the figures: in October, 1952, the figure was minus 2s. 5d.; in 1953, minus 2s. 10d.; in 1954, minus 3s. 5d. Then came a pensions increase, and it became plus 5d. in October, 1955. By the end of another year, in October, 1956, it was minus 7d., and in 1957 it
    was minus 1s. 8d. Then we had the last pensions increase Act, which, according to the Minister's own figures, raised it by 3s. 10d. in real value, taking 1946 prices. But we must remember that 2s. 4d. had been taken off when tobacco coupons were abolished.
    Remembering all this, the achievements of this Government are not so good when measured against the affluent society of which we have heard so much. We are entitled to ask the Prime Minister and those other members of the Cabinet who pledged, during the election, that the old people would continue to share in the good things to face up to that pledge and be prepared to put into the Bill some such words as we propose.
    We are not satisfied with the pension. We have tabled Amendments to increase it. What we want is a better pension for old people which is more realistic within the terms of the standard of living which this country can afford to give them, and, having done that, to maintain it in harmony with increases in the prosperity of the country.
    We were told last night that the offer for Fords was a vote of confidence in Britain. A far better vote of confidence by the Government to the nation would be to write into the Bill some such Amendment as we propose to show that they are prepared to stand by the needs of the old people and by the pledges which they gave at the election.
    Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 161, Noes 216.

    Division No. 6.]

    AYES

    [8.24 p.m

    Ainsley, William

    Callaghan, James

    Fletcher, Eric

    Albu, Austen

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Foot, Dingle

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Chetwynd, George

    Forman, J. C.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Cliffe, Michael

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Awbery, Stan

    Collick, Percy

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Ginsburg, David

    Beaney, Alan

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Gooch, E. G.

    Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    de Freitas, Geoffrey

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Benson, Sir George

    Delargy, Hugh

    *Gower, Raymond

    Blackburn, F.

    Dempsey, James

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Boardman, H.

    Dodds, Norman

    Grey, Charles

    Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)

    Donnelly, Desmond

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Bowles, Frank

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

    Boyden, James

    Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter

    Grimond, J.

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Hayman, F. H.

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Fernyhough, E.

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Finch, Harold

    * See correction in column 1131, 23 November, 1960.

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Fitch, Alan

    Hewitson, Capt. M.

    Mapp, Charles

    Snow, Julian

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Hilton, A. V.

    Marsh, Richard

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Holman, Percy

    Mason, Roy

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Houghton, Douglas

    Mellish, R. J.

    Stonehouse, John

    Howell, Charles A.

    Millan, Bruce

    Stones, William

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Monslow, walter

    Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

    Hunter, A. E.

    Moody, A. S.

    Sylvester, George

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Morris, John

    Symonds, J. B.

    Janner, Barnett

    Mort, D. L.

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Moyle, Arthur

    Taylor, John (west Lothian)

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Mulley, Frederick

    Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

    Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)

    Neal, Harold

    Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

    Oswald, Thomas

    Thornton, Ernest

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Padley, W. E.

    Timmons, John

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Kelley, Richard

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Wade, Donald

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Parker, John (Dagenham)

    Warbey, William

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Watkins, Tudor

    King, Dr. Horace

    Pentland, Norman

    Weitzman, David

    Lawson, George

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Ledger, Ron

    Prentice, R. E.

    Whitlock, William

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Loughlin, Charles

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Proctor, W. T.

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    McCann, John

    Rankin, John

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    MacColl, James

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Mclnnes, James

    Ross, William

    Woof, Robert

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Mackie, John

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Zilliacus, K.

    McLeavy, Frank

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

    Small, William

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Manuel, A. C.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Mr. Probert and Mr. Redhead.

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

    Aitken, W. T.

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Hiley, Joseph

    Allason, James

    Deedes, W. F.

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Arbuthnot, John

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Doughty, Charles

    Hobson, John

    Balniel, Lord

    du Cann, Edward

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Barlow, Sir John

    Elliot, Capt. W. (Carshalton)

    Holland, Philip

    Barter, John

    Elliott, R. W.

    Hollingworth, John

    Batsford, Brian

    Emery, Peter

    Hopkins, Alan

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Hornby, R. P.

    Bell, Ronald (S. Bucks.)

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patrioia

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

    Bidgood, John C.

    Farr, John

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Bishop, F. P.

    Fell, Anthony

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Finlay, Graeme

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Bossom, Clive

    Fisher, Nigel

    Hurd, Sir Anthony

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Box, Donald

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Irvine, Bryant Codman (Rye)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

    Freeth, Denzil

    Jackson, John

    Braine, Bernard

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Brooman-white, R.

    Gammans, Lady

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Bryan, Paul

    Gardner, Edward

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Bullard, Denys

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    Kimball, Marcus

    Burden, F. A.

    Godber, J. B.

    Kirk, Peter

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Goodhart, Philip

    Kitson, Timothy

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Goodhew, Victor

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

    Gough, Frederick

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Chataway, Christopher

    Gower, Raymond

    Leavey, J. A.

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Grant-Ferris, wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Green, Alan

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Grlmston, Sir Robert

    Longbottom, Charles

    Cole, Norman

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Collard, Richard

    Gurden, Harold

    Lueas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Cooke, Robert

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    MacArthur, Ian

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    McLaren, Martin

    Corfield, F. V.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

    Costain, A. P.

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Coulson, J. M.

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Maginnis, John E.

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Hastings, S.

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Hay, John

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Crowder, F. P.

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Marlowe, Anthony

    Cunningham, Knox

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Hendry, Forbes

    Marshall, Douglas

    1070

    1071

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Tnornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Matthews, Gordon (Merlden)

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Mawby, Ray

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R.

    Russell, Ronald

    Turner, Colin

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    More, J.

    Sharples, Richard

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Morgan, William

    Shepherd, William

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Morrison, John

    Simon, Sir Jocelyn

    Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Nicholls, Sir Harmar

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Speir, Rupert

    Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

    Noble, Michael

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Watts, James

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Webster, David

    Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

    Stodart, J. A.

    Whitelaw, William

    Page, John (Harrow, West)

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Partridge, E.

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Pitman, I. J.

    Sumner, Donald (Orpington)

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Talbot, John E.

    Woollam, John

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Tapsell, Peter

    Worsley, Marcus

    Ramsden, James

    Taylor, E. (Bolton, E.)

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Temple, John M.

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Rees, Hugh

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Colonel J. H. Harrison and

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Mr. Frank Pearson.

    Renton, David

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    8.30 p.m.
    Mr. Houghton: I must express regret, on behalf of hon. Members on this side of the Committee, at the presence of subsection (5) in this Clause. It excludes from the provisions of the Bill those who are drawing non-contributory pensions, commonly known as the over-70 pensions. I referred to this in my speech on Second Reading, when I said that we hoped to move an Amendment to bring them in. Unfortunately, that is not possible under the rules of order, so I cannot now do more than protest against the persistent exclusion from benefits given to the retirement pensioners of the older people covered by the Old Age Pensions Act, 1936.
    Their pensions have remained unchanged since 1946 with the exception of the compensation addition of 2s. 4d. in 1958 for the withdrawal of the tobacco concession. The maximum pension for a single person under the noncontributory scheme is 28s. 4d. For a married couple, it might presumably be 42s., plus 4s. 8d. for the withdrawal of the tobacco concession. Neither the needs test nor the level of benefits has been changed for these pensioners since 1946, except for the small matter to which I have referred consequential on the withdrawal of the tobacco concession.
    It seems to be time that we should review the position of this group of pensioners. I know that they are a dwind-
    1072
    ling class, because most people are now covered through the National Insurance Scheme and benefit in that way, but there are still about 160,000 of these over-70 pensioners, and many of them are among our most worthy citizens. Many of them have been clergymen, professional workers, or small businessmen. Many of these small businessmen have paid contributions for their workers over many years, but who were excluded from the contributory pension scheme by legislation in the past. Not being employed persons, they could not come into the contributory scheme, but there was on one occasion the opportunity of persons becoming voluntary contributors, subject to an age and income limit. These persons were excluded by the law of pensions from the contributory scheme when it was introduced in 1926.
    Many of them are leading very sad lives. They have a little capital to live on, and they are having to eke out as best they can. Admittedly, the needs test for the over-70 pensioners is a little more liberal than the needs test for National Assistance, but many of them are leading lives of cloistered, threadbare poverty, and it is a disappointment to us that the Minister has not done something about this group.
    I know that they have been left out hitherto, and that he can quote their exclusion from earlier changes in pensions benefits, but it is no good brooding over the past and mistakes that may have been made in the past. We have to look at this group in the context of the present situation, and a new concept of social

    1073
    provision is now being built up behind the Bill. I express regret that the Minister has found it necessary to include in Clause 2 a provision to exclude this group from any benefit under the Bill.
    Mr. Christopher Chataway: I should like to invite my right hon. Friend to look at the position of these non-contributory pensioners, and, by the same token, those who are on modified pensions, because there seems to be a difference of principle in this increase that has not perhaps applied before. On this occasion, the increase is neither related to the previous contributions of those who are to receive the increase, nor is it in any way intent upon restoring the real value of the pension to which they may have felt, while they were contributing, they would be likely to be entitled.
    I questioned at another time whether this is the most useful way of trying to help those old-age pensioners most in need. However that may be, by the system being adopted on this occasion, if there is to be a transfer of wealth from the working population to all elderly people, irrespective of need and contributions, it seems that those who, by mischance, or through their greater age, have not had the opportunity to make the necessary contributions, will receive either no increase or a modified increase. If it is accepted by the House that it is right to increase the pensions received by elderly people irrespective of the position in which they may be, surely, irrespective of the amount of contributions they have paid, all should receive a similar increase.
    I know from cases in my constituency, and from people who have been to see me on this point, that elderly people in this position fail completely to understand why this grant should be made to their neighbours, who, perhaps, are younger and have had the good fortune to make the necessary contributions, and not be made to them. The people who are outside the scope of the full increases say, "My neighbour is getting this increase. She has in no sense paid for it. My need is greater why should I not get the increase, too?" I find that argument extraordinarily hard to meet or in any way counter. I ask my right hon. Friend to look at the matter again.
    Mr. Wade: I support the remarks of the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway), but I will not cover that ground again.
    I wish to raise the subject of the self-employed, which I think is relevant to this Clause. I understand they will pay the increased contributions and still be subject to the disadvantages which have applied in the past. The self-employed as a whole do not come off too badly, but that is not true of all of them. There are those on a low income, such as the very small shopkeepers, certain craftsmen, crofters, fishermen and others who have to pay a contribution but do not gain the same benefits as employed persons. This also applies to certain people who are treated as self-employed, some in the artistic and entertainment professions, who earn very little. They, in fact, are employed, but employed by a number of different employers. Therefore they are treated as self-employed. To them this contribution can be quite a hardship.
    I am, of course, aware of the low income exemption, but that results in a loss of part of the sickness benefit and retirement benefit, which gives rise to a real sense of grievance. It seems that fundamentally the problem arises from the fact that this is a poll tax. The amount of the contribution is the same however low the income, apart from the special low income exemption.
    I should like to know whether the higher contributions will apply to the self-employed and, as it seems clear that they will, whether the objections I have mentioned will still apply.
    Dr. King: I have two comments to make on this Clause. First, I want to raise a point about contributions. I regret very much that time after time most of the financing of increased benefits is coming from contributions. As the Committee knows, the financing of all State insurance benefits comes from Exchequer grant, on the one hand, and contributions of employers and employees on the other. State grants come from taxes, and taxes, apart from indirect taxes, are levied according to income, but the contributions, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) pointed out, are in the nature of a poll tax.

    1075
    The millionaire and the farm worker will each pay the same increased contribution, but with the difference, the ironic difference which the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) pointed out in this House and in a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph, that the millionaire will get Income Tax relief on his contribution whereas many of the poorest people in the country will not.
    8.45 p.m.
    Ever since Lloyd George's "Nine-pence for Fourpence", the whole country, including the Labour Party and the trade union movement, has insisted that the benefits should be insurance benefits and that there should be contributions from the worker, chiefly because it was feared that if the whole financing of benefits were from the State, the State which gave might withdraw, whereas by making payments of contributions the benefits would come as of right. But each increase in the contribution increases, in my opinion, the injustice of the poll tax element in the contribution. We may yet reach the stage when the mass of the people in the country, and particularly the lowest-paid workers, find the increased contributions so heavy that they will resist making further increases in retirement pensions. I do not think that that has yet arisen. Indeed, the worker is very generous, and it was the trade union movement which fought to obtain retirement pensions in the past.
    I want to point out the uneasiness which many of us feel at the steady increase in the poll tax element. While the Government claim the credit for pension increases, it is the ordinary people who are footing the bill in this way, and in the least just way time after time. I hope that some day we shall reverse this process, that the Exchequer grant element in the financing will be increased and that the poll tax element will be decreased in accordance with the principle, "From each according to his means and to each according to his needs."
    I was very interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). We have known of his humanitarian interests for a long time, and particularly of his work for the refugees. I was very glad that he supported the comment of my hon. Friend
    1076
    the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) about the serious fact that there exist in the country many people who will get nothing out of this Clause. I am able to talk about this because subsection (5) confines the new benefits to those who are qualified because they have paid enough National Insurance contributions, and we read:
    "The provisions of this section increasing retirement pensions shall not be taken as affecting the provisions of Section seventy-four of the said Act of 1946 relating to noncontributory pensions."
    I regret that this subsection is in the Clause and that we continue to exclude a group of very old pensioners. In fact, some of them are not even pensioners, because many have only their National Assistance Board coverage. Others have very meagre pensions as of right, plus some National Assistance protection.
    There are three groups. First, there are superannuitants of various kinds. Some of these have superannuation of their own, above the basic national pension, and to some extent the Pension Increase Acts take care of them, although in passing I will say that there is time for another such Act and that many of them still feel that they are unjustly treated, because the pension which they receive is by no means commensurate with the pension being earned by other people doing the same job today.
    But some of the superannuitants in the country have smaller pensions as of right than the figures which we shall fix in the Bill. There are some old teachers whose pension is less than 57s. 6d. a week—teachers who broke down in their service, teachers who were not able to qualify for a pension of 40/80ths of their salary, old ladies and gentlemen who are drawing a pension less than the basic minimum which we are fixing for National Insurance.
    There are railway superannuitants, as the Committee knows almost ad nauseam, whose pension as of right is a mere few shillings a week, far below the basic pension. In addition, there are thousands of people who have no superannuation or pension at all as of right. They receive help from National Assistance according to their means. Many of them are living on savings. Many are gradually spending their savings, together

    1077
    with National Assistance, and getting by in that way. Some have no savings at all.
    When National Insurance was introduced, it was inevitable that we could not bring everybody in. I asked the Minister for a figure in the House last week. I gather from his Answer that about three-quarters of a million people do not qualify for National Insurance benefit because they are too old. Year by year that number will dwindle. The time will come when we should call it a day and bring those people into the scope of the benefits which are the right of an ever-increasing percentage of our population.
    We can thank God for National Assistance, because it protects them. It might be argued that since National Assistance protects them we need not worry about them. If we followed that argument we could abolish the basic pension as of right for everyone. We ask that at some stage—we hope even at this stage by taking out part of the Clause—the Minister will bring into the great cover of National Insurance the ever dwindling number of people either with no pension at all or with microscopic pensions which are less than those we are discussing.
    Mr. Chataway: How can the hon. Gentleman ask for that, because he believes in the necessity of continuing with the contributory idea in pensions, which is a different one from that which I put forward?
    Dr. King: We have always argued—it is part of the common pattern of British thought—that benefits should be in the nature of a reward for insurance. There are people who could never come in under those circumstances. I am not arguing that we change the basic principle. There is a group of citizens who never could come in, for a variety of reasons—some of them were not even in the Lloyd George insurance scheme; some of them were in no insurance scheme before; some of them had no pension before; some of them had minor pensions. I ask that they be brought in at some stage without vitiating the principle which we apply for the country as a whole.
    I am very interested to find that this opinion is shared by The Old Age
    1078
    Pensioner. I quote this passage from its editorial:
    "Pensioners who suffer most are those who attained the age of 65 between 1940 and 1945."
    The editor is wrong there, because some people are even older than that. The editorial continues:
    "They never had a chance to provide for their old age, and these are now 75 and 80 (men) and 70 and 75 (women). … And, whilst some of these doubtless will have some other income apart from their pension, there will be very many who have to depend entirely on the basic pension, plus National Assistance. In my view, it is this mass of pensioners who do require relief immediately, otherwise they are never going to reap the benefit of their lives of service."
    It is by no accident that the editorial goes on to suggest that the present Minister of Pensions and National Insurance should be in the Cabinet to fight for pensions for old-age pensioners.
    I hope that the Minister will take note of the uneasiness which we feel about the lot of non-contributory pensioners.
    Mr. Norman Cole: I want to support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) and others, particularly about subsection (5). I know that my right hon. Friend will advance good arguments for the common sense purpose there is in retaining that subsection, but, even technically, I am not quite certain that there is a hard-and-fast case for its inclusion. From the Financial Memorandum I notice that even the increased contributions do not fully cover the extra cost of the increased pensions, and that an extra contribution of about £17 million towards the National Insurance Fund will be necessary from the Exchequer in the first year.
    If that principle is accepted, surely it can be extended. A prosperous State should be able to look after its old people better, and can surely afford to contribute the necessary amount of money for their benefit. Indeed, it would not seem technically impossible to have spread the net a little wider by increasing the benefit for the noncontributory pensioners.
    For the last eight or ten years we have tried to keep the retirement pension in step with increases in the cost of living.

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    That has not applied to the rates received by non-contributory pensioners, because what they get, plus what was the 2s. 4d. tobacco allowance, was fixed before the last increase in retirement pensions, which, again, was made to keep the ordinary retirement pension in step with the cost of living.
    Much more important—and I am glad of it—we are establishing by this Bill, as we promised at the General Election, the principle of giving the retirement pensioner something more than the actuarial equivalent of the contribution. We are giving him a right and proper share in the prosperity of the country which he in the past has helped to build. That is a right principle, and I just cannot see why it cannot be extended to people who cannot, perhaps, claim it on an actuarial basis but most certainly can on humanitarian grounds.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said that there were still 160,000 or 170,000 non-contributory pensioners. Even if the number was only 5,000, I would still think the same, but the fact that there are only 160,000 or 170,000 of them should commend to my right hon. Friend the extension of this principle. It is a comparatively small and, certainly, a dwindling number but, as I say, even were there only a few thousand of them, I should be equally keen because, to every pensioner—as to every one of us in this Committee and outside it—one's own troubles are of paramount importance. We should argue on that basis.
    I want to emphasise that these noncontributory pensioners are getting older; are the oldest part of our pensionable population. I know from my own experience that as one gets older one needs more to maintain life at a reasonable standard of happiness. I realise that all this has been said when we have debated past Bills of like nature, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will seek to do something, apart from the Money Resolution and the rest, to pass on some part of our abounding prosperity to those who, for reasons of age and need should receive our help. I hope that he will look at this subject again, and I add my support to those who have already spoken.
    9.0 p.m.
    Mr. Tudor Watkins: I support what has already been said about non-contributory pensioners. I have just returned from taking part in some of the by-elections, and I can tell the Committee that Government speakers at those by-elections have not made it plain that the non-contributory pensioners do not come into the affluent society at present. There is a great deal of confusion as a result, and in all the propaganda and announcements on television the non-contributory pensioners are completely forgotten. They are under the impression that the Bill gives them an increase, but subsection (5) makes it quite clear that they will not benefit.
    Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us how many non-contributory pensioners there have been, year by year, since 1946. They are bound to be decreasing all the time. If they are decreasing all the time, these are the people who ought to be getting some result of this increase in pensions. It may be argued that they will get National Assistance, but that is not the point. I should like to know how many of these noncontributory pensioners are getting National Assistance at present. They are in a different category altogether from the contributory pensioners who will be getting an increase of 2s. to 26s. a week. Some increase ought to be allowed to them. They know nothing about the Money Resolution and how impossible it is to get an Amendment through the Chair and all the rest of it. They ask, "Are we the forgotten people? When shall we get something?"
    I am concerned about this, because a has always been my religion to bring these people in. It is written that not one sparrow shall fall. These people in my constituency are not sparrows; they can speak their minds and make it plain to the Minister that they want to know why there should be the "haves" and the "have nots" in this matter.
    It would be interesting to know exactly what is the situation. As the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) said, these pensioners are surely entitled to take part in the affluent society. The Minister said on Second Reading that we are raising the standard, but we are not raising the standard of

    1081
    the non-contributory pensioners. Am I to understand that there is to be a new Bill for them? Let us have some information about it. It will be very interesting to hear what the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has to say. I read the speech that she made in the Ludlow by-election and it is no wonder that they asked me to speak the following evening. They had a very different conception of this Bill from the one that I have. If there were to be a referendum on it I am sure that the non-contributory pensioners would come within the scheme purely on their voting alone.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: It would be true to say that the Clause that we are now discussing, to decide whether or not it should stand part of the Bill, is the most important Clause because it concerns the vast bulk of the people who are affected by this Bill.
    I very much regret that I missed the opening speech of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), but I must confess that I was taken by surprise by its brevity. The part of the debate to which I have listened tempts me to repeat what I said when speaking on the Amendment, namely, that I would defy anyone coming into this Chamber and not knowing what this Bill is about to imagine that we were taking action to make one of the biggest and most costly increases in the National Insurance Scheme in the history of this country. Any stranger listening, not only to speeches from the Opposition but to some of the speeches of hon. Members on this side of the Committee, would imagine that we were engaged in reducing pensions. It really is too bad.
    I want first to say a word about the benefits. I still find that the Order Paper when it comes to Amendments of the Schedules is a very confusing document. It may be that I have missed some vital and obvious point, but I do not think that the Opposition have any Amendments down to increase the basic pension. I do not know Whether I am wrong.
    Mr. Houghton: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is, I hope, wrong. We have tabled two Amendments to the Schedules to increase the basic pension.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I am very glad to hear that. If that had not been done, it would have been quite
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    contrary to the whole theme of the Opposition's case during the Second Reading debate. I was most interested in the theme then, and I hope it is reflected in the Amendments which I have failed to perceive. The theme was that we should raise the basic rate to something on which a person could live without recourse to any form of National Assistance.
    In theory, that may be very desirable, though I am not absolutely certain that it is all that desirable, even in theory, but the point I want to make is that it is not the policy on which the Opposition went to the country at the last General Election, whereas the increased benefits which the Government are asking Parliament to approve represent very accurately indeed the fulfilment of the policy on which the Conservative Party went to the country.
    The new basic rates, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend on Second Reading, straddle the proposals made by the Opposition at the General Election. The Opposition proposed 60s. for the single person and 90s. for the married couple, whereas we are proposing 57s. 6d. for the single person and 92s. 6d. for the married couple. Speaking as a bachelor, I am not sure that there was not some merit in the proposals put forward by the Labour Party. Be that as it may, it is worth considering for a moment what Amendment would be necessary to the Clause to give effect to the Opposition's theme during Second Reading. I believe that it is necessary to increase the pension for a single person to more like £4 or £5 and that for the married couple to more like £8. It is worth considering what, in turn, the effects of that would be. If that were done, it would make the contributions which would be necessary under the Clause so high that they would have to form the sole method of saving for the great bulk of the population.
    The Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman. We are dealing with the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill". He is now suggesting amendments to the Clause.
    Vice-Admiral Hnghes Hallett: I bow to your Ruling, Sir Gordon, and will leave that point.

    1083
    I now turn to the contributions. During the earlier part of the debate the expression "poll tax" was again used. This would not be a poll tax. Nothing could be more misleading than to describe the contributions required under the Bill——
    Mr. Houghton: On a point of order, Sir Gordon. May I have your guidance? The hon. and gallant Gentleman, if I may respectfully say so, is anticipating consideration of and debates upon the Schedules which deal with contributions and with benefits over the whole range of National Insurance benefits, and, indeed, industrial injuries benefits, too. Clause 2 is really, it seems to me, the basic authority for the several improvements in benefits and changes in contributions which are written into the Schedules. I submit that we are to have a debate upon the Schedules. The hon. and gallant Gentleman can then deal with all the figures there and all the arguments will then come out. What I should like to know is whether we are to have the debate on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", or on the Schedules.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Further to the point of order, Sir Gordon. Might I point out that you allowed the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) to develop an argument to considerable length as to why it was wrong to pay for the increased benefits under the Bill by means of contributions, and it is his argument to which I should like to reply now.
    The Chairman: It is desirable to have the main debate on the question of contributions and benefits on the Schedules, but passing references may be made to the Schedules now.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Perhaps I might say at once, if it will be in order to do so, that I do not wish to refer to the actual figures at all. The point to which I wish to refer is the principle of paying for the extra benefits under the Clause by contributions as opposed to paying by some other method. May I have your guidance, Sir Gordon, as to whether that is in order?
    The Chairman: I am sorry, but I did not quite catch what the hon. and gallant Member said. I think he is in order.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I am much obliged. The suggestion has been made that we propose to impose by this Clause an additional poll tax on the people of this country. It is nothing of the kind, because there are several very important categories of people excluded from the contributions, no matter what their level. There always have been. To begin with, the pensioners themselves pay nothing towards it. To go on, students can be, and usually are, excluded from paying. Those on small incomes are excluded from paying.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: That is all part of our case.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Finally, the wives of insured persons also are excused from paying such contributions if they wish. It is, therefore, quite misleading to suggest that the Clause will lead to an increase of any form of poll tax at all, because the contributions cannot accurately be so represented.
    If it is in order, Sir Gordon, I wish to invite the attention of the Committee to what would happen if we followed the advice of so many hon. Members opposite—I say again that this has been raised since the debate on the Clause began—and made no provision in the Clause for an increase in contributions but allowed the money to be collected through the ordinary revenue. That is what would follow from the argument advanced by hon. Members opposite.
    This theory that we are penalising unduly the working population of the country in proceeding on these lines is totally unsound and should be exploded once and for all. I do not propose to go into the details now because I think that it would not be in order to do so, but anyone can calculate what the figures are. It may surprise the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), who raised this point on Second Reading, to know that the average wage-earner in this country would have to pay more if the cost of this Measure were borne on taxation instead of being borne in the way proposed in the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is a matter of fact. It is true, whether the cost is borne entirely by Income Tax or half by Income Tax and half by indirect taxation. I shall be

    1085
    glad afterwards to show any hon. Member who wishes the figures on which I arrive at that conclusion.
    Mr. Bruce Millan: If a wage-earner is paying no Income Tax at all because his income is insufficient to require him to do so, and if the cost were spread over general taxation, he would be paying nothing. That is part of our case.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: That is perfectly true, but he would be a very unusual wage-earner.
    Mr. James Dempsey: No.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: He would be a very unusual wage-earner. This Bill deals with the population as a whole. Therefore, we do not go far wrong if we consider the effect on the average member of the population, and that is the person I had in mind when I made that statement.
    We recognise, of course, that it is always the duty of the Opposition to belittle the concessions and the extra benefits which are contained in a Bill of this nature and to ask for more. That is perfectly understandable, and no one quarrels with it. Equally, it is the duty of the Government to go forward at whatever speed the general state of the nation's finances can bear, and any attempt to go beyond that will in the long run do harm rather than good to the people it is intended to benefit. That is why I support the Bill as a whole and this Clause in particular.
    It is a very interesting point in the debate, which should bring satisfaction to my right hon. Friend, that so much of it has been concentrated on this occasion, for the first time when one of these Bills has been discussed, not on the main beneficiaries of the Bill but upon special groups of them such as those who are in receipt of non-contributory pensions.
    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. T. Brown: After listening to the two speeches from the Government Front Bench I felt inclined to come to the conclusion that they supported the plea from this side of the Committee on behalf of the non-contributory pensioner. The noncontributory pensioners make up the oldest section of the old-age pensioner
    1086
    population. We are very anxious, as we were previously in the debate concerning pneumoconiosis and industrial diseases, that they shall not be left out. The Amendment which we tabled to subsection (5) indicated our opinion. We should keep in mind the vast number of old people who, as I have said, make up the oldest section of the ageing population. We should also remember that their numbers are diminishing. In a few years' time there will be very few of them left.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) asked the Joint Parliamentary Secretary whether she could give the number of noncontributory pensioners. I looked up the record and found that in 1948, under the first National Insurance Bill of any substance, there were 453,417; in 1952, there were 375,000; in 1953, 344,000; in 1954, 315,000; in 1955, 286,000; in 1956, 257,000; in 1957, 233,000; in 1958, 205,000, and in 1959, 179,000. I am given to understand by the Department that at the end of September this year there were 162,000. These figures are a clear indication that the people on whose behalf we are again pleading are diminishing in number.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, or even the Minister himself, cannot advance the argument that if we pay a pension to to the non-contributory pensioner who has been left out it will upset the balance or the financial structure of the Bill. With a will, the matter can be dealt with quite easily Looking through the record, I find that the majority of non-contributory pensioners are between the ages of 70 and 85. In heaven's name, if we are prepared to bring about an improvement in the standard of living of the old-age pensioners, surely we ought to extend our generosity a little and bring in the noncontributory pensioners. The figures which I have quoted indicate that they are diminishing in number. Surely we can lend them a helping hand rather than ignore them, as they are ignored in this Clause.
    I do not want to advance the cost of living argument. It has been debated until it is almost threadbare. Next door to me, however, lives a non-contributory pensioner who was 87 last week. She is finding it extremely difficult to manage. She is one of the 162,000 of these pensioners and there are many like

    1087
    her who find it extremely difficult to make ends meet. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to say that they must seek recourse to National Assistance. What a tragedy it is that old people who are well past the eventide of their life must go to the National Assistance Board to maintain themselves in a degree of comfort. As Members of this honourable House and claimants to the British characteristics, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves to leave them high and dry without any pension.
    Mr. Chataway: Since that is said so often and since consistently 20 per cent. of old-age pensioners have been in receipt of National Assistance since the inception of the scheme, may I ask the hon. Member whether he does not feel that it is terribly wrong to spread the idea that there is something degrading in accepting supplementary benefits?
    The Chairman: This is getting far away from the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill".
    Mr. Gower: I merely want to follow up what was said in his intervention by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) about the financing of the benefits covered by the Clause. On reflection, the hon. Member will, I think, concede that the feature of these benefits is that for the first time my right hon. Friend has been able to come to Parliament and not impose extraordinary burdens on the lower paid wage earner in industry. That is unique.
    Mr. Millan: The fact is that the reduction in contribution which some people were to get will no longer come to them.
    Mr. Gower: That is a negative thing. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, it is not."] After the Bill is enacted, as we hope it will be, the lower-paid wage earners will pay no more in contributions than they have been paying recently. That is a positive achievement. It has to be related to the fact that in the last twelve months or so, my right hon. Friend and his advisers have been able to put the whole of the accounts of the National Insurance Scheme on a sound financial basis, which is another considerable achievement.
    1088
    The other remarkable feature of the Clause is not solely the extent of the benefits, but that for the first time such benefits have not been either partially or almost wholly destroyed in value beforehand by increases in the cost of living. That, again, is a great achievement of the Clause.
    Mr. Millan: Hon. Members opposite keep talking about the scheme having been put on a sound financial basis. What they mean is that they are putting it on a pay-as-you-go basis, which is not necessarily more sound financially than what we have been doing before. Our criticism is that when hon. Members opposite talk about putting the scheme on a sound financial basis, what they mean, although they do not say it, is that the scheme is now on such a basis that the increased Exchequer contributions that were to have come will no longer be forthcoming. In other words, the Government are saving money on the kind of scheme that is now put before us.
    We seriously object to the fact that the Exchequer contributions will not now be increased, as until recently was contemplated, and that the burden is being placed upon the backs of the contributors.
    Mrs. Harriet Slater: I rise mainly to support those hon. Members who have spoken about the non-contributory pensions, but I would say at once, in answer to the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower), that my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) made quite clear that the benefit of this pension for old-age pensioners is not increased to the amount which some hon. Members opposite seem to think it is—in real money value terms. He used, not our figures, but figures used by the Minister himself in answer to a Question put to him some time ago.
    People use the phrase which he also used, that this pension is for the first time to be put up without the cost of living having gone up. I wonder whether people who talk like that have really ever assessed the cost of living. About a fortnight ago there was an article in The Guardian on the page "Mainly for Women". I very rarely read that page, but travelling in the train I had plenty of time, and I read it. It gave a budget

    1089
    for four people with less than £6 a week. As a housewife, I went very carefully through that budget. I will tell the Committee one or two of the items in it.
    It was said that for tea, for four people, a man, his wife, and two growing children, sardines and toast fingers could be had for 1s. I defy any hon. Member in this Committee to go out and buy a tin of sardines for less than 1s. He would still have to buy the bread and the butter. I defy any hon. Member to be able to give four folk, including two growing children, a really good tea of sardines at that price. Apparently, that family could have an apple charlotte for 6d. If I were to try to buy apples to make an apple charlotte for myself and my husband I could not get apples at less than 5½d. a 1b. I should still need butter and sugar to make the apple charlotte.
    To suggest those sorts of quantities and those sorts of prices is to express the attitude which some people have about the cost of living and their attitude as to how much old-age pensioners need to live on. They simply cannot have assessed the needs of old people—of a widow, say, living all alone. The old folk, widows living alone, cannot afford to buy a tin of sardines at 1s. 4d. Many of them have not the necessary facilities to keep perishable food for more than a day.
    Another item in that budget was a chicken at 11s. with a little sausage, and four people, apparently, could make it last for four meals. That is the sort of basis on which we try to assess the cost of living. It simply takes no account of the real value or cost of food. So many people have no real conception of how the old folk live.
    We on this side have made very clear that we do not consider the present rates adequate, especially in a society which, the Government claim, is affluent. As my hon. Friend pointed out, what is a small amount for a man with a very large income is a very large amount to lower paid people.
    The Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but this argument applies more appropriately to the relevant Schedule.
    Mrs. Slater: All right, Sir Gordon, we will argue this when we reach that Schedule.
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    May I come to the question of the non-contributory pension? There is one hon. Member opposite who seems to me particularly unrealistic, and the hon. and gallant Member——
    Mr. Ellis Smith: The admiral.
    Mrs. Slater: —the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett), who is in receipt of a pension because he was employed in an occupation in which a pension, and a good pension, was possible. He has taken up an extraordinary position in this debate.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Where is he?
    Mrs. Slater: To my mind, he completely ignored this very small group of people who, for several reasons, are not receiving any pension at all and are not benefiting at all from this Bill. There are the old people who may have been self-employed as small shopkeepers, for example, and I remember that when I was a teacher those who earned £420 or more were not entitled to join the scheme. It is only since the new scheme was introduced that everyone has been brought into it.
    9.30 p.m.
    A man of 83 came to see me the other day. He has lived a good life and has done a tremendous amount of voluntary work, especially in cultural circles. His wife was a former school teacher who had a very small pension and when she died he had no resources at all. I told him to go to the National Assistance Board. I am not one of those who, in my own personal case, would think it was wrong to go to the Board, because if the assistance is there people ought to take advantage of it. But to these old people who have grown up in a different age, and who do not understand present insurance schemes at all, National Assistance is nothing more or less than charity. It is a relic of the Poor Law in their lives.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: We remember it, and I remember who was responsible for it, too.
    Mrs. Slater: The fact remains that National Assistance is the only resource left to these people. Even if they have been good savers—and many of them have had few opportunities of saving, especially if they have brought up a family—they have used up all their

    1091
    savings by the time they are over 80 and they try to depend on less and less to keep them going.
    If the Government's claims are right—and they keep reiterating them—that we are living in a wealthy and affluent society, the least that they can do at this stage is to bring within the scope of the Bill this very small and decreasing number of non-contributory pensioners. That, at least, would be justice and, what is more, these people would feel some sense of justice being done to them. They have been living for a long time with the feeling that they have been left out of everything. In the last few years of their lives they should be spared their present feeling that their only hope is to apply for National Assistance which in their minds means charity.
    Before the Bill finally becomes law I hope that the Minister will consider bringing this small group of people within the terms of the Bill and will accordingly alter the provisions of subsection (5).
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: In answering the debate, I think that it would be to the benefit of the Committee if I dealt mainly with the non-contributory pensions and not with rates of contributory benefits, which we shall have an opportunity to discuss when we come to the Schedules. As the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) so firmly said, this has been a form of pension which successive Governments have felt unable to bring into, or in any way justify being brought into, the full contributory scheme. These pensions are paid by the Exchequer and are not a charge on the contributory National Insurance Scheme. The obsolescent nature of these pensions has been recognised by all Governments and has been accepted up to the present time. No new non-contributory pensions can be awarded to persons, except blind persons, reaching the age of 70 after the 30th of September next year, because, under the terms of the original 1946 Act, people who were then 55 or over did not have the opportunity of joining the new Scheme under the normal conditions and so were accepted into the noncontributory Scheme. But by September next year they will all have reached 70, and there will be no new awards.
    I shall not go into detail about the rates of the non-contributory pension,
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    which the hon. Member for Sowerby quite fairly set out, particularly as I understand that one of his hon. Friends would like to get into the debate after me. I would like to give figures for which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) asked.
    There are at present 160,000 of these pensioners. It is quite wrong to suggest that they will not go to the National Assistance Board. They get their noncontributory pensions from the Board. The Board assesses whether or not they are qualified to have this pension according to their means, and at the same time it identifies any additional need which may qualify them for assistance.
    The answer to the suggestion that these non-contributory pensioners are too proud to go to the National Assistance Board is simply that they are already under the Board's care. These pensions are paid directly from the Exchequer, but they are administered by the local offices of the National Assistance Board, and if a pensioner is in need the Board——
    Mr. Watkins: Has not an applicant to make a separate application for a second visit to be made for this purpose?
    Miss Herbison: They have to have a means test.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: In many cases, the pensioners do not have to pay a visit at all to the offices of the Board, because if an officer goes to visit one—as he will, on request, visit all these people—he can at the same time—perhaps to use the phrase "killing two birds with one stone" is the wrong expression—assess whether the pensioner is also entitled to the additional allowances of the Board.
    I can assure the Committee that the officers of the Board do just that. Of these 160,000 non-contributory pensioners, 113,000, or 70 per cent., are receiving additional assistance allowances from the Board. It is quite untrue to say that they have had no increase, that nothing has been made up to them. In many cases, if they are receiving the Board's assistance as well, including rent allowance, they will be drawing more than they would be drawing if they had only a contributory pension. If many of them were put onto the contributory pension they would,

    1093
    financially, be no better off, for the simple reason that they are drawing additional grants from the Board.
    Hon. Members should not forget that those receiving National Assistance include quite a few people with fairly substantial capital. That capital is treated more favourably in the case of the noncontributory pensioner than under the National Assistance test of need. A man and wife can have as much as £1,730 of capital and if they have no other means they will still receive their non-contributory pension at the maximum rate.
    Mr. G. A. Pargiter: Would not the right hon. Lady agree that if a person is under the age of 70 the Assistance Board assesses his need, but if he is over the age of 70 the Board does not because such a person has an automatic right and therefore there would be no cause for assessment?
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: The pension is always subject to a means test because it is a non-contributory pension. The hon. Gentleman is confusing it with the insurance pension, where there is no earnings rule after 70, but that is quite a different thing.
    Thus the corresponding figure for a single pensioner—I am sorry, I was bringing out the fact that for a man and wife the figure of capital is £1,730 and that with that amount they would not lose any part of this pension even though it is assessed according to means. They would not lose the pension entirely—which is a point the hon. Member might care to listen to—until their capital exceeded £2,990. The corresponding figures for a single pensioner would be £865 and £1,495. Therefore, my right hon. Friend does not feel that he would be justified in transferring this, as it were, as a liability to the insurance fund, against all past precedents, since it is a non-contributory benefit based on a test of need. Nor is he prepared to regard an increase in the contributory benefits of the National Insurance Scheme as the occasion for increasing rates for what we believe is an obsolescent pension for which special provision was made. The numbers are falling rapidly and the cost does not fall on the National Insurance Fund but Domes directly from the Exchequer.
    Mr. Ross: It is rather depressing once again to hear the right hon. Lady confess her inability to take any step forward in relation to this matter. She takes examples from the past. She says that successive Governments have failed to do this and therefore the present Government cannot do it. There is one grave omission from that argument, and that is the 1946 Act. We are talking here about what is rightly called the old Age Pensions Act, 1936, under which a single pensioner was paid [Os. For the married couple it was 20s. and that was paid on a means test. In 1946, when my right hon. Friend introduced the Act of that year, he did not take the attitude which the right hon. Lady has proclaimed tonight. Then there were between 400,000 and 500,000 of these pensioners. He increased their pension from 10s. to 26s. In other words, he brought it into line with the contributory pension. All we are asking is that the right hon. Lady should give some consideration to taking a similar step. Today there are not 400,000 of these people, but only 160,000 of them, and by the time the provisions of this Bill come into force in April there will be a lot fewer than than number.
    I am indeed sorry that the right hon. Lady went into the argument about the National Assistance Board and the merits of that. I do not think that arises. Let us face the fact that these people have two separate means tests. There is the test in relation to the actual pension and there is another test of means relating to the additional help. There are two separate sets of standards which they have to pass. The right hon. Lady herself admitted it.
    Miss Hornsby-Smith: With great respect to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), if an officer of the National Assistance Board obtains the information for the purpose of assessing this pension he already has the information on which he can assess entitlement to assistance in addition.
    9.45 p.m.
    Mr. Ross: The fact is that in relation to the legislation by which he makes (a) a pension and (b) an assistance grant, he has two separate sets of regulations and standards. It may be one set of information, but these people are subject to a double means test, and the logic of

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    this business, if the right hon. Lady insists upon it, is that she should wipe this thing out altogether.
    I do not think that this is an adamant attitude in relation to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance at all, because, as the right hon. Lady so rightly said, this has nothing to do with the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. Financing this type of pension is the job of the Treasury; it is done by an Exchequer grant. That was why our Amendment could not be called, because it would be putting a charge, not upon the Insurance Fund, but upon the Treasury.
    I appeal to the Minister to have a talk with the Treasury before we reach the other stages of the Bill, to see whether the Government would not like to look with favour on this diminishing number of pensioners. This is not an obsolescent class of pensioner; it is a dying class. Let us be quite blunt about it. I do not think that it would ruin the nation if we took this step, but it would be showing an attitude of understanding and sympathy if we brought them up to the standards of the contributory pensions. This is not a lot to ask, and it is not a tremendously important thing from the overall pensions aspect; but from the point of view of the people who are affected it is important, and it is something that we could quite well afford to do.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 3.—(ENTITLEMENT TO RETIREMENT PENSION.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Houghton: Clause 3 brings a very welcome change in what has been commonly called the 12-hour rule. At a time when the Minister is having so many knocks over not improving the benefits in the Bill as many of us would wish, we should acknowledge that he has brought in a remedy for a grievance which particular types of employees have felt for some time.
    I acknowledge straight away that I have a very important constituency interest in Clause 3, and so have some of my hon. Friends, those representing textile
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    constituencies particularly. The lifting of the earnings rule, accompanied by the old condition that to work more than 12 hours is inconsistent with retirement, placed many, women especially, in the position that they could not reach the limit of earnings now prescribed by working 12 hours or less. They have felt that that was a very great disadvantage with other workers, especially men, who were able to absorb the margin permitted in the earnings rule with 12 hours' work a week or less, while the woman could not.
    This Clause now proposes that a person shall be treated as not in a position inconsistent with retirement if he or she, irrespective of the number of hours worked, earns not more than the limit of earnings. I think that that will completely remedy the position. It will mean that they can go to the limit of the earnings rule irrespective of the number of hours worked without finding themselves questioned as to whether what they are doing is inconsistent with retirement. Therefore, I wish to thank the Minister for bringing this Clause into the Bill.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 4 and 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    To report Progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  LAND DRAINAGE [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of this Session relating to the drainage of land, it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the making out of moneys provided by Parliament of advances and grants in respect of expenditure incurred in, or with a view to carrying out, work towards which, if the work will be or would have been properly carried out, grants will or would have been payable under section fifty-five of the Land Drainage Act, 1930, or section fifteen of the Agriculture Act, 1937;

  (b) any increase in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under the said section fifty-five which is attributable to any provisions of the said Act of this Session extending the powers of drainage boards to carry out drainage works;

  (c) any increase in the sums so payable under section fifteen of the Agriculture Act, 1937, or section fifteen of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) Act, 1940, which is attributable to any provision of

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  the said Act of this Session extending the class of drainage schemes in respect of which grants may be made under those sections respectively;

  (d) any increase attributable to the said Act of this Session in the sums payable under paragraph 23 of the Ninth Schedule to the Agriculture Act, 1947, and

  (e) any increase attributable to the said Act of this Session in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland.

  Resolution agreed to.

  CRIMINAL JUSTICE [MONEY]
  Resolution reported.
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the law with respect to the powers of courts in respect of young
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  offenders and to make further provision as to the treatment of prisoners and other persons committed to custody, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable under any other enactment out of moneys so provided, and of any sums required by the Secretary of State for the payment of remuneration and allowances to members of Recall Boards constituted for purposes of the said Act of the present Session and for defraying the expenses of such Boards.
  Resolution agreed to.

  ADJOURNMENT
  Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]
  Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes to Ten o'clock.