HC Deb 16 February 1966 vol 724 cc1430-5

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Sir K. Joseph

We would like to congratulate the right hon. Lady on her good fortune and her good will in being able to legislate McCorquodale so quickly. Clauses 6 and 7 are "McCorquodale" Clauses. There is a technical point on the next one which I should like to ask, but I take it that Clause 6 is going to bring great benefit to relatively few people. I think that the number is about 1,000 people, is it not?

Miss Herbison

Yes.

Sir K. Joseph

I thought that it was that sort of order of magnitude. Can the right hon. Lady tell us, from the experience of the Ministry, whether it will benefit some hundreds of people each year in future or probably only some scores, if the previous pattern continues?

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

The Clause is an advance, but, looking at it, I am not sure that we could not have improved it a little. It helps the few people who require constant attendance, but I am not sure that we have got the definition of " constant attendance" on disabled people exactly right. There are those people who are disabled and who require constant attendance in their homes, and I gather that the Clause is to help them with the increase that is available under it of £3 a week.

9.45 p.m.

Miss Herbison

The £3 will go not only to people at home—these are the people who get the normal constant attendance allowance—but to pensioners and industrially disabled people in hospital who do not get this allowance.

Mr. Lewis

That is the point which I wanted the right hon. Lady to clear up.

If a society, a hospital, or a home, is looking after disabled people, and has attached to it a small workshop where these people are employed, will it get the extra £3? At the moment, if an organisation has such a set-up, it takes almost the whole allowance which an individual gets from the State and gives that person a small amount of pocket money. Because the present allowance is small, the individual concerned gets a very small sum of money indeed.

I hope that this Clause will help those people. I should like to hear from the Minister that the extra money will be given to the organisation running the establishment, and that it will then increase what it pays out as spending money to the people working there.

Mr. Harold Davies

The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) is, of course, correct in saying that this Clause is the result of the work done by the Committee on Assessments, or, as it is better known, the McCorquodale Committee, and I think that we would all like to pay tribute to its work.

The £3 will be paid out to the organisations which the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) has in mind. I doubt whether it will be paid to the people who are employed in their workshops. Whether the extra money will be paid to people in institu tions will depend on the severity of their injuries, but, generally speaking, the answer is that it will be.

This Clause introduces into the Industrial Injuries Scheme a special increase of disablement benefit for the exceptionally severely disabled. It is the increase which was recommended by the Committee on Assessment of Disablement. Unless hon. Gentlemen opposite want to inquire in greater depth into this matter, I shall leave it there.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

The Ministry, the Government, and hon. Members on this side of the Committee are trying to ensure that disabled people can undertake small jobs so that an increasing number of them will be encouraged to do simple jobs. Despite the fact that these disabled people do simple jobs, they require additional staff to look after them, and I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that he did not think they would be susceptible to this increased amount.

Mr. Harold Davies

On a point of order. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I doubt whether he is in order, because this is a completely different approach to the problem.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

In deference to the hon. Gentleman, may I say that perhaps this does not apply to the people about whom I am talking. This is what I am trying to discover. If it does not, I am saying that it should.

Therefore, this is of concern to me and must be of concern to both sides of the House. An increasing number of these people will be encouraged to do jobs. Because of this it might be thought that they should not qualify for this increased attendance allowance, but they will nevertheless still need attendance in their leisure hours and when they go sick, and therefore, should get this increase. The societies making provision for these people and the people themselves will be disadvantage^ because they will not get this allowance.

Mr. Harold Davies

I apologise to the hon. Member for having interrupted. I was dealing with the Report to which this Clause refers, namely, the Committee on Assessment, known as the McCorquodale Committee, which dealt with this £3 allowance for the exceptionally disabled. There is great sympathy on both sides of the House for the hon. Gentleman's point, but at this juncture, I am afraid, it has nothing directly to do with Clause 6. Those of us who have seen the work which paraplegics already do know that provision exists for help to them through this Ministry and other organisations.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary or the right hon. Lady herself to clear up this point, because I am very serious about this and I do not want to let it go? Can this be looked at before Report stage to see whether, since this is limited as it is at the moment, it can be extended to include these people?

Miss Herbison

I think that there is a misunderstanding here. The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East and the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Tiley) showed clearly that they understood that Clauses 6 and 7 implement the recommendations of the McCorquodale Committee. The Committee's Report is one of the most lucid Reports which I have ever read, and I hope that the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) will read the Report. Because of his particular interest in this subject, I know that he will find the Report most interesting.

We have carried out to the full those recommendations which could be dealt with in a Bill of this kind. The Committee considered both limb and other disablements. One recommendation which they made was based on the fact that a man may be assessed as 100 per cent. disabled, but cannot be assessed as 150 per cent. or 200 per cent. disabled. The highest basic pension which a man can receive is 100 per cent., no matter how serious his disability.

The men who are catered for under Clauses 6 and 7 are those very severely disabled men who the McCorquodale Committee felt deserved something extra. The Government decided to give them an extra £3 a week. This extra £3 a week will be paid not only to those with above the normal constant attendance allowance but also to those very seriously disabled men who are in hospital where the constant attendance allowance is not paid. This applies to people in any kind of hospital—it does not need to be a State hospital—they now get no attendance allowance because the hospital provides attendance for them, but, under the Bill, provided they are very seriously disabled, they will get the extra £3 in recognition of the nature of their disability.

That is all that these two Clauses provide. The other matters mentioned by the hon. Member are, of course, of great concern to all of us and we are giving much thought to them in the general review.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

I do not want to prolong the debate. I was not suggesting that these two Clauses did not meet a very great need. Of course they do. I accept entirely what is in the Clauses. But it is only by probing in the debate that I have suddenly discovered that they do not cover certain cases which we have begun to treat rather differently since the McCorquodale Committee reported.

Mr. Harold Davies

On a point of order. I feel that this has nothing whatever to do with the Clause, Sir Samuel and I should like your Ruling on the matter.

The Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey)

I have given the matter careful thought and what I have heard so far was in order.

Mr. Lewis

All I am suggesting is that since the McCorquodale Committee reported there has been a move to get more and more of these very disabled people—possibly not 100 per cent. disabled, but certainly 80 per cent. disabled—into homes where they get help and assistance and where they can do a minor job. The right hon. Lady knows my interest in the matter. She also knows that many of these organisations which give assistance to this type of person have no support from the National Health Service and are working outside the National Health Service. Many of them have to raise their money through charity. These organisations ought to be assisted in providing the extra attendance which they give, in the same way, as under the Clause, the right hon. Lady will provide attendance allowance for those who are 100 per cent. disabled. That is all that I am saying. The Clause goes reasonably far but, in my view, not far enough, and she ought to reconsider it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.