HC Deb 08 July 1964 vol 698 cc577-88

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

11.45 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)

I welcome this opportunity to raise a very important problem in the treatment of old people under our National Insurance structure. I raised it in Questions to the Minister on 22nd June.

Two facts are becoming increasingly clear. First, a number of old people are eking out existence on less income than the scales provided by the National Assistance Board. Secondly, for some reason or another—either ignorance of the provision available to them on application or reluctance to apply—they are not getting the help to which they are entitled.

It is our duty—and I include all right hon. and hon. Members, the Minister himself and the National Assistance Board—to find out how many old people are living in dire poverty on incomes less than the minimum laid down by us through the Board. Having done so, it is also our responsibility to find out why they do not apply for assistance so that we may take steps to ensure that no one lives at an income below even the subsistence level provided by the Board.

I raise the matter at this time because a number of investigations have been carried out by competent and responsible people working for important institutions. Their conclusions are much the same. An investigation published as "The Economic Circumstances of Old People" has been carried out by the Department of Applied Economics of Cambridge University, under the leadership of Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn. All these investigations used modern survey techniques.

They concluded that 750,000 old people are living on incomes below the level provided by the scales of the National Assistance Board. The Minister made a reference to the survey carried out by Cambridge in reply to supplementary questions on 22nd June. He will know that those who carried it out are responsible people. They are concerned about the implications of some of the things he said. I will mention two of those things, but I will not go into detail tonight. Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn has written to The Times, and I believe she has corresponded with the right hon. Gentleman. Certainly she has written to the Chairman of the National Assistance Board.

In carrying out these surveys, the researchers, in seeking information, agreed to treat it as confidential. But now there is concern among them—perhaps wrongly, for we know that the right hon. Gentleman is a man of honour—that some of the remarks he made on 22nd June seemed to imply that they have given the names and addresses of people who gave them information in confidence. This is a matter of very great importance in this work, because such inquiries are done on the basis that information given is treated as confidential. I am sure that the Minister will have read the correspondence in The Times and will have seen a copy of the letter sent to the Chairman of the National Assistance Board.

In addition to that survey, two other opinions have been expressed—I put them no higher than opinions at the moment—about the number of people in this category. There was a very well informed article in The Times by that newspaper's correspondent, who gave it as his opinion that there might be even a million old people whose incomes were less than the scales provided by the Board. The Minister will have seen also the article in the Observer last Sunday by Mr. Jeremy Tunstall, which, I understand, was based on a survey to be published in the magazine "Twentieth Century". He offered it as his opinion that there might be 600,000. So here are three responsible and well-informed students of our social insurance services, giving estimates of between 500,000 and 1 million.

The Minister and the Board owe it to the country to conduct their own survey. I am sure that the Minister will not say that he cannot do so, because there is a Social Survey Department for which the country pays and whose job it is to conduct surveys of this kind, and we also have the Central Office of Information. These private investigations show that there may be 500,000 or 600,000 or even a million people living in dire poverty in this way, and I plead with the Minister to make his own investigations.

Whatever the number, no one will deny that there are old people living in dire poverty who could get assistance from the Board and who do not get it, either because they are unaware that they can get it or, being aware, are reluctant to ask for it. This is the second problem. The National Assistance Board was set up in its present form in 1948 when, among others, it took over many functions of the old public assistance authorities. All of us with experience of it have nothing but the highest praise for the way in which the officers of the Board's local offices do their work, but the fact remains that there is something radically deficient in our arrangements. We are not finding these old people who eke out an existence in dire poverty in this year 1964.

Mr. Tunstall provided us with a challenge in his well-informed and well reasoned article when he said that there was a psychological barrier between these old people and the Board which, for all its efforts, the Board had not so far been able to penetrate. We know that there are old people living in dire poverty whom we are not finding. What are we to do about this problem? I know all the steps which have been taken. We now call it a supplementary pension. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is providing every person who qualifies for a retirement pension with a leaflet which sets out how to apply for assistance, the scales of assistance, and the conditions under which assistance can be obtained. Every step in that direction is welcome, and I welcome it most warmly, but that is not enough.

We must have a radical reappraisal of the future of the National Assistance Board. We ought now to carry out this work of social insurance and National Assistance from the same place. The fact that there is a separate National Assistance Office is itself a barrier to overcoming the problem. This is an Adjournment debate and so I am not able to put forward what I think ought to be done by way of legislation. I therefore go no further than saying that we cannot leave the matter where it is.

We have been given these various estimates of the numbers involved. The public are becoming deeply concerned about this matter. I am sure that every Minister—and I was one myself some time ago—will pay tribute to the fine work done by the students who carry out these surveys in an effort to discover the weaknesses, not only in the legislative action that we take, but in the way in which we organise these things. They are all convinced that something is lacking. We have to find out what it is. Why is it that we are not able to discover just how many old people are living in dire poverty? Why are we not able to discover why they will not go to the National Assistance Board?

I ask the Minister to use the resources available to him in his Ministry, in the National Assistance Board, and in the social survey departments of the Central Office of Information, to carry out an investigation into this matter. The right hon. Gentleman owes it to the House and to the country to carry out such an inquiry and to let us have an estimate; of the number of old people who are living in dire poverty. His second duty is to discover the barriers which stop these old people from receiving the assistance which they so badly need, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will carry out those investigations as a result of my plea tonight.

11.58 pm.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Richard Wood)

The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has expressed concern—indeed, it has been expressed by a number of people recently—that there are a large number of people who are eligible for National Assistance, but who, for one reason or another, are not willing to apply for it.

I have no possible charge against the right hon. Gentleman for his speech tonight, but the suggestion, to which I have just referred, is occasionally accompanied by the suggestion—which, I hope, the right hon. Gentleman will agree is deplorable—that some people do not apply for help from the National Assistance Board because it involves a stigma or humiliation.

I am sorry to say that that charge is sometimes made by people who should know better, and I am particularly sad that in the booklet "New Frontiers for Social Security"—which, incidentally, gives the right hon. Gentleman a most honourable mention—there are references in derogatory terms to National Assistance.

I am particularly concerned about this, because if influential people, and an important political party, suggest that recourse to the National Assistance Board sometimes involves distress or humiliation, it is hardly surprising if some people become reluctant to apply, and there is a real danger that pensioners who need help may come to feel that they ought to avoid availing themselves of the help which the National Assistance Board can give, and is only too ready to give.

Apart from this, I seriously suggest that this is a dangerous game for any party to play. One of the proposals of the Labour Party, as I understand it, is to institute an income guarantee. This is not the time or the place to examine that proposal, but I understand that under it the National Assistance Board would still be necessary, both for those who came within the scope of the income guarantee, but perhaps had high rents which would have to be supplemented, and for those to whom the income guarantee would not apply, such as the sick. For such groups as these the National Assistance Board would still be necessary.

But the suggestions in this booklet, and the suggestions I have heard on other occasions—that recourse to National Assistance somehow involves shame or stigma—must surely deepen the shame or stigma of those who will have to apply in the future. The right hon. Gentleman reminded us, if we needed reminding—which I do not—that he played an important part, although he said it rather more modestly, in the post-war Government in initiating the present arrangements under which the National Assistance Board does its work. I have been very fortunate, during the last few months, to have very close contact—as any Minister of Pensions must—with the Board, and I cannot speak too highly of the sympathetic understanding and kindness of all its officials. I am glad to say that my opinion is corroborated by many people whom the Board has helped.

I am also glad to find that Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn, in her survey, says: The overwhelming impression which we gained from the people who were actually receiving National Assistance was one of satisfaction with the way that the system was administered. People like this, who have been helped by the Board, certainly do not talk in terms of humiliation. They regard the Board's services in the same way as many other services which are provided by central Government or local government, of which some make use and others do not. But it is the excellence of the Board's arrangements and the kind efficiency of its performance which make me anxious, as the right hon. Gentleman is anxious, that large numbers of people who need it shall not deny themselves this service.

I want to refer, as the right hon. Gentleman did, to the work that Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn has done, and I want to take the opportunity of correcting what seem to have been two misapprehensions arising from what I said to the right hon. Gentleman in answer to his Questions of 22nd June. One statement was that Some of the cases were subsequently investigated which led to a misunderstanding, and the other was that those concerned did not qualify because of capital and other resources."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd June, 1964; Vol. 697, c. 16.] I had no intention of suggesting, and I do not want to suggest, that there was the least breach of confidence in the course of Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn's investigations. I was also aware that, after her interviewers had talked to over 1,000 people, 21 out of the 58 people that the interviewers thought eligible made application to the National Assistance Board, and that 18 of those were subsequently found eligible for a supplementary grant. If there has been any misunderstanding I apologise to Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn. It was not intended.

But the right hon. Gentleman made clear that Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn's work has been called in aid in support of far larger estimates of people not applying for National Assistance—far larger estimates than are justified on the figures that she produced; and it is claimed that those not applying are in need of assistance or are suffering actual hardship. This is very important. I think that this is hard to sustain on the basis of the survey which she made.

Apart from the 18 cases which I mentioned just now, there were a number of people who, as a result of the interviews, seemed to be entitled to assistance, but all of those had either income or capital which the National Assistance Board would disregard, or were sharing a home with others. The point that I am, therefore, trying to make is that many people may have a theoretical entitlement to National Assistance, but that this does not necessarily mean that they are in need. It does not necessarily mean that they are suffering hardship, and certainly it does not mean that they are necessarily in dire poverty, to use the right hon. Gentleman's words.

Let me take someone living with a son or a daughter. Under the National Assistance Regulations he or she is assumed to be contributing a proportionate share of the rent. Suppose that the son, and possibly his wife as well, is taking home good wages. I would feel it quite likely that the son would probably try to dissuade his father or mother from any thought of contributing towards the rent and claiming perhaps a few shillings in National Assistance.

There is nothing the least wrong with that situation. We all know that parents do a very great deal for their children, and a number of children later want to help their parents. But, in fact, an aged parent, in a case of this kind, goes down in the statistics as being eligible for National Assistance and not receiving it. I say that to try to elucidate that not everyone eligible for National Assistance is necessarily in what we would call need—certainly not in dire poverty.

Much has happened since Mrs. Cole-Wedderburn undertook her survey. The scale rates of the National Assistance Board have been substantially increased and there has been, as I pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman the other day, a development of the Board's public activities. The Board has taken various steps to make better known the service that it offers.

On the National Insurance side—my own responsibility—I recently, as I announced to the House, took a further step by inserting a special leaflet into retirement pension order books to try to ease the path into National Assistance for those possibly reluctant to apply. I am quite convinced, as I said the other day, that it was right to concentrate on and to give the first priority to these positive measures, which are aimed at encouraging people to make application to the Board.

I explained to the right hon. Gentleman on 22nd June some of the difficulties of an inqury—and the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) also asked me a Question about it—which would involve asking many old people to disclose their circumstances, without any probability of their getting benefit from it. Another factor I had in mind at that time was what I call the "non-statistical" evidence, or, indeed, the lack of it, because the lack of this evidence seemed to me to argue strongly against the existence of large numbers of people eligible for National Assistance who are suffering hardship and yet are reluctant to apply.

For if these large numbers existed it is really difficult to believe that social workers and others in close touch with them would not have drawn our attention to a good many actual cases. It is also significant that from time to time, particularly when the Board has given special publicity to what it can do and would like to do in the future, an analysis of the new applications apparently resulting from the publicity that the Board has undertaken rarely brings to light a case of someone in real poverty, hitherto struggling on because of reluctance to come to the Board.

Again, I do not know whether my own constituency experience in the last decade has been typical—indeed, it may not be worth much—but I certainly have found a diminishing reluctance and a greater willingness to approach the Board than in the years just after the last war. In spite of all this "non-statistical" evidence, which certainly appears to me to point in the opposite direction—against the existence of these large numbers—suggestions that there are large numbers not applying for assistance continue to be made; and the right hon. Member for Llanelly based his speech on this supposition.

It is necessary, therefore, to balance what I described the other day as the difficulties of an inquiry against the need to collect sufficient evidence from which agreed conclusions, which we should all accept, could be drawn. As I see it, the Government have an obvious interest in getting all the information they can about the needs of old people. There are certainly a great many old people and, of course, they are gradually increasing in number. All Governments in a civilised society must rightly attach great importance to their well-being. This to me means paying attention not only to financial needs, but also to needs such as special housing and hospital care.

As the House may know—it was made public some time ago—the National Corporation for the Care of Old People, in co-operation with the Government Departments concerned, has worked out plans for a pilot survey to find out more about those needs. A comparable inquiry into the National Assistance sector, which we are discussing, would not only yield information about the numbers of people eligible but not applying: a good deal of evidence would probably also emerge which would assist the National Assistance Board's administration and might, perhaps, enable it to make further improvements in its service to the public.

What I have had to do, therefore, is to try to weigh these real advantages against the disadvantages, which I have expressed before to the right hon. Gentleman. Having weighed them against one another, I have decided that it would be right to institute an inquiry. I believe that such an inquiry would be the most effective as well as the speediest method of removing such doubt as still exists, and that it would be of lasting value to the National Assistance Board and the Government in trying to direct help where the need is greatest.

12.13 a.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North)

I am very grateful that the Minister has finally decided to carry out this inquiry. The speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), in which he quoted the views of people who are most reputable in this field, as well as the opinions of those who have done a great deal of work for the elderly, showed that there is much concern in the country about old people who do not apply for National Assistance.

Although there is less reluctance on the part of old people to apply, I am sure that the Minister is still finding old people in his constituency who either do not know—and they are few in number—or who do know but who are reluctant to seek assistance. Only yesterday I received a letter from a woman of 74 who lives in my constituency. I will be calling on her next Saturday and I will do as I always do in such cases; tell her what the National Assistance Board can do, how kind the officers are when they call to see her and how they will try to help her to get over what she still feels is a stigma and, perhaps, a kind of disgrace.

It is up to all of us to try to get rid of this idea and I am sure that the vast majority of hon. Members are doing it. Again, I say how pleased my hon. Friends and I are at the decision of the Minister to carry out this inquiry.

Mr. J. Griffiths

I, too, would like to offer my thanks to the Minister. He is right to have decided to hold this inquiry. I am sure that it will be thoroughly done and that it will be rendering a service to the community.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a quarter past Twelve o'clock.