§ 14. Mr. Lawsonasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what steps he is taking, in consultation with 867 the Service Ministers, to ensure that persons serving with Her Majesty's Forces have their National Insurance cards properly and regularly stamped.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterSpecial arrangements have been in existence for a long time for the payment of National Insurance contributions by the Service Departments in respect of persons serving with Her Majesty's Forces. These are perfectly satisfactory. They do not normally involve the stamping of cards.
§ Mr. LawsonIs the Minister not indicating that he made a mistake when he told us last Monday that a man out of the Forces was in the same position as a prisoner from one of Her Majesty's prisons when he presented himself at the employment exchange to look for a job without having a card which had been properly stamped? Was not this an example of one of those smart aleck answers that the Minister is so often apt to give, which means that he does not face up to the kind of problem with which hon. Members on this side are concerned?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterNo. On the contrary, it shows that, as is so often the case, the hon. Member is chasing a dummy hare. If he studies my main Answer, he will see that a man coming out of the Services is not able to produce a recently stamped card and that, therefore, the example which I gave him last week is perfectly accurate if he is capable of understanding it.
§ Mr. LawsonIs it not unfair to compare the position of a man coming out of the Forces, when it is known perfectly well where he has been and he can say, "I have come out of the Forces", with the very different position of a man who has to stand with a card before some clerk at an employment exchange who asks him "Where have you been all these months and years?" Does not the Minister realise that it is humanity which prompts us on this side to try to get an improvement in this position?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterIt would be if even 5 per cent. of those facts were accurate, but as in both cases a card without back stamping is issued to the person, either on discharge from the Forces or on release from prison, or in the other example I gave to the hon. Member, there is no question of a clerk demanding 868 an explanation of that sort. Really, the hon. Gentleman ought to study the procedure before working himself up into a fantigue.