HC Deb 08 June 1964 vol 696 cc198-208

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

11.13 p.m.

Sir Eric Errington (Aldershot)

I take this opportunity to raise the cases of certain wives in relation to allowances from their Service husbands from whom they are estranged, and, in particular, in regard to marriage allowances.

The Regulations under which the matter is administered are under the authority of the Royal Warrant, issued on 19th March, 1951, and while it is unnecessary for me to read the terms of that Warrant, I refer to the provision at the end, which states: Provided always that Our Army Council shall be the sole administrators and interpreters of these Regulations, and shall in any matter not affecting the rates or quantities therein laid down, except where a temporary variation is expressly provided for by these Regulations, have power to alter them from time to time as may appear to them to be expedient. I hope that the circumstances which I shall outline will enable those whose responsibility it is to consider the position favourably.

Under the Royal Warrant and the terms of the Regulations dealing with allowances, we see that the first Regulation, in paragraph 2, states: Marriage allowance to which all eligible married officers and men will normally be entitled will be in aid of the provision they will make from their pay for the maintenance of their families. Further on, paragraph 12 reads: Marriage allowance is an emolument of the officer… Perhaps the most critical is paragraph 117(a), which reads: An officer or other rank who is a widower, or who is estranged from his wife… will be entitled to marriage allowance at the full rate if he is voluntarily maintaining one or more children ". It is really that point which I wish to outline and elaborate, because it has actually occurred in relation to a particular officer and his wife, whose names I do not think I need mention. I ought to say straight away that this position in the matter of marriage allowance does not arise where an order has been made by a court of legal competence in the United Kingdom. Provisions are laid down in Sections 150 to 152 of the Army Act, 1955, dealing with that position.

The circumstances which have brought this specific case to my notice are that the wife wrote to me, informing me that she and her husband were in Malaya and that a decree nisi had been granted to the husband by the courts in Malaya. The wife may, unwisely, have gone to Malaya instead of remaining in this country, but she was anxious to obtain a rescinding of the decree nisi and so she went to Malaya. There she found that her husband was living with another woman and two children and was not prepared to pay any money to his legal wife for a period of more than a year, although he was drawing full allowances, including the marriage allowance.

Advice was given to this lady, the wife, to the effect that she should take legal proceedings in England; but this advice was not very useful in view of the fact that both parties were in Malaya. At the same time, it is fair to say that the relationship of the parties had become rather complicated, and many of the issues could be resolved only with considerable difficulty. However, the amounts involved were quite substantial. The marriage allowance was 28s. 6d. a day, and the allowance for accommodation varied between 42s. 6d. and 68s. 0d., depending on whether the officer was accompanied by his wife or not. This allowance was paid to him, and, although I am not dealing with the accommodation allowance, this helped to add up to a substantial sum of money. If this man had been unaccompanied, he would have got approximately one-third of the rate he was, in fact, receiving.

So, the effect of this Regulation, as interpreted by the War Office, was that, in spite of all the problems which existed in this particular case, the husband was deemed to be keeping the children and nothing could be given to the wife; in other words, the husband could continue to draw not only his marriage allowance but also his "accompanied officer" allowance while in Malaya.

The result has been that it has been impossible for the wife to have her case properly conducted in Malaya, and in spite of a generous offer of an indulgence passage by the War Office this lady is naturally unwilling to have her two chidren in the custody of her husband, to say nothing of a subsequent decree nisi made against her, and against which she had no financial means to defend herself.

The reason I raise this matter is that paragraph 117(a) of the Regulations as at present drafted seems to me to contain the seeds of great unfairness to estranged wives. It lays it wide open to the husband who is serving overseas—and the difficulties in these matters arise specifically when the parties are out of this country, as very often happens with Service personnel—to provide for one child but not to make any provision at all for the wife and any other children, of whom there may be two or three, and yet at the same time continue to draw marriage allowance. This, in the case I have in mind, might have meant a different result in the divorce proceedings. I hope that consideration will be given by my hon. Friend to so amending the Regulations that marriage allowance will not be paid when a marriage has broken up.

11.23 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Peter Kirk)

My hon. Friend the Member for Alder-shot (Sir E. Errington) has raised a point of considerable interest on which he and I have corresponded for some time in connection with a particular case, but he has raised it tonight rather more on the principle of the matter than on the individual circumstances, though, of course, he has quite rightly illustrated the point he wished to make from the case about which we both know. Like him, I can see no point in mentioning names nor drawing any particular attention to the case, although I shall refer to it incidentally in what I have to say.

I am glad to have this opportunity of explaining to the House, even at this late hour, our policy in the Ministry of Defence about allowances paid to an officer—and, indeed, to a soldier, because we make no distinction in principle between officers and soldiers in this matter—in respect of his wife and children.

Whilst, as I have said, I am glad to have the opportunity, and will explain as fully as I can, I hope to my hon. Friend's satisfaction, why we think that the allowance should be paid to the officer or soldier rather than to the wife—which, I am sure, is right—I should like at the outset to set on record my feeling that it is only in cases of individual dispute—and the cases where an officer and his wife are separated and are in dispute about the maintenance of the wife and the children of the marriage must, happily, be rare—that the trouble can arise. Cases like this are extremely distressing but, happily, they do not occur very often.

The important thing, as it seems to us, is not how the allowance is paid, but the fact that it is paid at all. In the vast majority of cases where there is a normal relationship between husband and wife and where, depending on the exigencies of the Service, they are, with their children, sharing a home, an officer's wife can have no more interest or wish to require that her husband's marriage allowance be paid direct to her than she can have to require the Army to pay his whole salary to her rather than to him. I agree that there are some who might like that to happen, but, in the main, the system works extremely well.

My hon. Friend has explained quite fairly the authority on which the allowances are paid. The authority is the Royal Warrant, and my hon. Friend has referred to the particular proviso which makes the Army Council, or the Army Board of the Defence Council as it now is, because it has inherited all these powers, to be the sole administrators and interpreters of these Regulations. We have the power to vary them, except in the matter affecting the rates or quantities, from time to time without reference to the House or indeed to anybody. We therefore have the power to do what my hon. Friend wishes us to do, and I would hope to try to convince him that it is right that at this stage we should not use it.

Paragraph 124(a) of the Allowance Regulations states that Married officers' marriage allowance will be paid direct to the officer, unless in time of war he elects otherwise. This is the Government's directive as far as those of us who administer these regulations are concerned, and the Army Board's view is that marriage allowance should be issued to a married officer and, where possible, to the married soldier, and not direct to the wife. It is issued to be expended on the maintenance of his wife and, or, his children. I would emphasise the "or." Provided that he is maintaining one or other, and preferably both, it is right for him to receive the marriage allowance.

The marriage allowance can be, and is in some cases, currently paid to a widower with children, and would be paid to an officer to support his children where he was separated or divorced from his wife but remained responsible for the maintenance of the children of the marriage, which is the position in the case to which my hon. Friend has referred. This is stated in Allowance Regulations. It is issued for the maintenance of wife and children when a formal claim for it has been made. An officer is not compelled to claim it, although I think that it would be surprising if he did not.

The allowance is issued to married personnel to assist them in meeting their current family obligations. The precise expenses which it is intended to cover have not been laid down, but in part it is in lieu of the accommodation which the single officer or soldier is provided with in kind. A married man does not want this accommodation which he had when he was single. He does not want, for instance, to live in the officers' mess or sergeants' mess or barrack room. As a result, the Army saves a marginal amount on the fact that he does not take the accommodation which the Army can offer him. We do not find him a place in a mess or barrack room and, in return, we help him with the expense of his own home.

This point can be seen more clearly if we examine the circumstances in which the allowance was brought in. It was introduced immediately after the war, in 1946, and replaced certain other specific rates, particularly the married rates of lodging, furniture, fuel and light allowance, so that it is in this respect, even more than in the respect which I have just mentioned, in large part what one might call a "living out" allowance.

A great deal of the difficulty which has arisen in this case—and it might arise in other cases—is that the expression "marriage allowance" is misleading. I have been beating my brains out in the last few days to think of another name which might more accurately describe what it is. It should be emphasised also that marriage allowance is paid to an officer only on certain conditions. He has to claim it and he has to expend the whole of the gross amount currently, without tax deduction, on the maintenance of his wife or children. In cases where officers or other ranks neglect without reasonable cause to maintain their wives or children, the Army Board or an authorised officer may order such a sum to be deducted from pay and appropriated towards the maintenance of the wife or the children as the Army Board or the authorised officer thinks fit. Such an order may be made whether an individual has claimed marriage allowance or not.

In assessing the amount which might be ordered, the rate of marriage allowance would not have significance other than to be included in the assessment of the individual's total emoluments. Again, therefore, on that provision, too, it would appear that marriage allowance is not specifically designed for the support of the wife but is considered to be part of the total emoluments of an officer made up to him in consideration of certain circumstances, of which the fact that he is married and has children is one.

This action can be taken under Section 151 of the Army Act, but it would be a serious step to take because it carries with it the public implication that an officer, or, indeed, a soldier, has failed to carry out his social and moral obligations towards his family and could not be persuaded to carry them out but could only be coerced into doing so. Such cases would, happily, be rare, because in normal circumstances a wife who felt that she had a claim against her husband on the grounds that he was not maintaining her or her children would have the same right as any other civilian or Service wife of applying to a civil court for an order requiring her husband to make a contribution. We feel strongly that it is up to the husband and wife, if they possibly can, to sort out such a problem between themselves and for one partner or the other to invoke the aid of the courts if the problem cannot otherwise be resolved.

In normal circumstances, a wife has ready access to the courts. This is sufficient to protect her position. It is certainly true in this country, as, I am sure, my hon. Friend will agree. Only where access to the courts is impossible would we be justified in invoking Section 151 of the Army Act and compulsorily deducting part of an officer's income. Otherwise, we would find ourselves in the invidious position of trying to adjudicate between the husband and the wife, judging issues which were properly of their own concern or, if they could not solve them themselves, for a court to decide, and not matters which the Army should have to decide.

In this case, as my hon. Friend has said, the wife had recourse to the courts of Malaya. Indeed, she managed to persuade the courts there to set aside the earlier decree nisi on the grounds that it had been granted without her knowing anything about it. I believe that it happened when she was at home in England. In the circumstances, we felt that she had the proper recourse to the courts to which a wife is entitled and could have obtained maintenance if the courts had felt inclined to grant it to her.

As my hon. Friend has mentioned, the Army not only made the wife the offer, which still holds good, of a free passage home from Malaya should she wish it, but also paid out of regimental funds her fare from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur so that she could attend the second hearing in the divorce court. My hon. Friend will, I think, agree that other than this problem of the interpretation of the marriage allowance, we have done what we can, without taking sides in what has been an extremely painful marital dispute, to ease the wife's passage as much as possible.

The difficulty that arises in this case is the fact that the phrase "marriage allowance" is, possibly, misleading. We have explained to the wife—more than once, I feel—that the marriage allowance is, and always has been, an emolument of the officer and in no way a right of the wife, simply because an officer may claim the allowance at his discretion—he may not claim it if he does not wish—and he is entitled to receive it provided, among other things, that he expends the gross amount of the maintenance on his wife or children, and that the Army cannot be brought into disputes between husbands and wives which might arise if we were to treat the marriage allowance, as it were, as something for the wife rather than the husband.

It is true, as my hon. Friend indicated and as I have admitted, that it would be relatively simple to make a change in the present arrangements so that the allowance was paid to the wife rather than to the officer as the allowance is paid under regulations made by the Army Board and the Army Board can at any time change them.

Sir E. Errington

The point here, surely, must be that a husband can escape the responsibility for the whole of his family provided that he is able to show that he is keeping one child. That is the weakness, in my submission.

Mr. Kirk

I do not think it is true, if my hon. Friend accepts my view that it is part of the emoluments of the officer. If it is, then the wife who is aggrieved has the right of recourse to the courts, as any subject of the Crown has, and, indeed, did have in this particular case.

What we believe is that it is far better that we should carry out the wishes of the court wherever possible and only in exceptional circumstances use the powers we have under section 151 of the Army Act to make provision, rather than to put ourselves in the position where we would have to decide whether the wife was aggrieved or not. That we do not believe to be our duty, any more than it is the duty of any civilian employer, to provide that a stoppage be made out of a man's wages. Stoppage can be made if the court orders it to be made. We believe it to be the position we adopt as well.

These cases, as far as I can make out, are extremely rare, where the wife complains that she is not receiving maintenance from her Service husband, and there is no reason to suppose that, except in isolated instances, officers in receipt of marriage allowance fail to maintain their wives or children. We safeguard the family's position by the conditions on which the allowance is paid. We can pay under the Army Act a quite substantial part of the husband's income for the support of his wife, and there is open to the wife the usual remedy of the civil courts where that is possible. We believe these are sufficient safeguards.

To go further, and pay marriage allowance direct to the wife, would be a drastic departure from the practice of paying an officer for his services and recognising his peculiar needs by special emoluments to meet the circumstances of each individual. I think it would cause great resentment among officers who are maintaining their wives—who are the vast majority—and who could with reason feel that we no longer placed any trust in them to look after their wives and children properly. Furthermore, we would really be interfering in the relations between a man and his wife, and that would inevitably lead us into domestic dispute, if circumstances arose in which we had to decide whether we would pay marriage allowance direct to the wife if she were separated from her husband—

Sir E. Errington

The marriage allowance could be stopped.

Mr. Kirk

We could, of course, stop the marriage allowance, but the husband in this case has maintained his children, and it would have been grossly unfair to the children if we had stopped the marriage allowance for them. We felt—I think rightly—in this case that we would maintain the marriage allowance to the husband, particularly as his wife, as I have said, had opportunity to appeal to the civil courts.

I do recognise that this is an exceptionally difficult problem. I have thought about it a lot since my hon. Friend first brought it to my attention. I think, as I have said, that a lot of the difficulty arises because of the name which is attached to this allowance, but I do not believe the situation would be improved if we made a change of this kind, and I think that, although very rarely occasions will arise in which it appears that the wife has suffered in this respect, on the whole the system works well and should be maintained.

I hope, therefore, that though my hon. Friend may not be wholly satisfied with my answer, he will at least be satisfied that the problem he has raised has been very fully investigated indeed, has been looked into with extreme care, and that we really do believe the situation which we have now is the best one available.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to Twelve o'clock.