HC Deb 12 February 1962 vol 653 cc896-7
11. Mr. Lipton

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he will alter the name of the National Assistance Board to Supplementary Pensions Board.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

No, Sir.

Mr. Lipton

Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that many decent people, poor but proud, still believe, however illogically, that there is some stigma about applying for National Assistance? We all come across cases of that kind. Would it not help these deserving citizens if the name were changed as I have suggested, as it is obvious that it is impossible to live on the present basic scale of pension without some form of supplementation?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

There is something in what the hon. Gentleman says, but his suggestion is not practicable when one remembers that the National Assistance Board makes about 700,000 weekly payments to people who are not receiving a pension to which this could be a supplement. I think that we have already largely met the substance of the matter by renaming the order books on which supplements are paid to retirement pensioners.

Mr. J. Griffiths

Bearing in mind that what we want to do is to induce people to go to the National Assistance Board, where that is necessary, will the right hon. Gentleman consider taking a long-term view of the reorganisation of local offices and absorbing local National Assistance Board offices into offices of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, and so making them one local service?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I very much doubt whether that idea, which the right hon. Gentleman himself emphatically rejected in 1946, would help towards the end he has in mind. I would prefer to say that the very good reputation which the National Assistance Board and its officers have built up for humanity and discretion in their extremely difficult job is an asset which I should be reluctant to forfeit.