Clause 28.—(THE APPEAL TRIBUNAL.) (Hansard, 17 June 1966)

§ Dame Joan Vickers
I consider this is be an old-fashioned Clause. I understand that the Minister has power to have on the Tribunal people who appear to the Minister to represent work-people. I have already made a protest at women being designated in the Bill, and thought it unnecessary because they should be treated as human beings. Now we are to have workpeople.
The right hon. Lady will have to be extremely clever if she is to know who represents workpeople. What kind of references will she have, and what kind of inquiry will be made into their background? I should have thought that this would make class distinctions even greater than they are at present. I thought that we were going to get away from this. I pray in aid the opinions of some of her hon. Friends. On 11th February, 1948, the late Mr. James Carmichael, Labour M.P. for Glasgow, Bridgeton, moved an Amendment, on the National Assistance Board Bill with regard to workpeople as members of the Appeals Tribunal.
12 noon.
I will not quote all he said but take two points. He started by saying: I hope that my trade union friends will not object to what I am about to say, but I an more anxious to have a member of a local authority sitting on these tribunal. A trade unionist's functions are well defined in his responsibility to his work-people; but I think that a member of a local authority has a function that cannot he performed by an employer … I think that 'work-people' is too ambiguous a term to be included, and I would like the Minister to look at that again. I will not press the Amendment, but I plead with him to realise that important work is being done by the local authorities and how valuable it is that they should be represented on the tribunals."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 11th February, 1948; c. 2787–8.] 1890 We think that all sections of the people should be members according to their understanding and their knowledge and not because they appear to come from certain sections of the population.
Furthermore, I put down an Amendment to the Race Relations Bill, and I said to the then Home Secretary that I thought that on the Board and the conciliation committees there should be the same sort of people. I said that people should be appointed: by reason of colour, race, ethnic or national origin". I said this because I felt that many people in this country had little understanding of the origins of these people, the countries from which they came, and their language, because many of them did not speak English. My Amendment was turned down.
The then Home Secretary said: We envisage the Board as being limited in number. … We think it essential that we should obtain the right people to serve on the Board, and that that shall be the sole criterion. By 'right people' I mean people, whatever their colour, race or origin, whose character and intellect are such as in the judgment of the Minister responsible, mainly myself at the moment, would he able to bring to bear a mature and balanced judgment in … the committees. The prime object we have is to select the three people whose character and qualifications best fit them for the work which they have to undertake which we not only hope, but firmly intend, should be entirely divorced from political influence or pressure. He went on to say, a little later: It would seriously impair their qualifications for that job if they were selected in any sense because they have a loyalty to any particular racid group or minority group. One cannot say that of any particular workpeople—whatever that means in this day and age. He went on: The last thing that we want is to do anything which could possibly seem to represent jostling or fighting to any particular group."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th July, 1965; Vol. 716, c. 1022–3.] That was the view expressed by a Minister who has gone to another place, who felt this very strongly, and listening to his reasoning I withdrew my Amendment. I would hope that the right hon. Lady herself would agree, and in any case I would be very interested to hear from her this morning how she would define "workpeople". What does "workpeople" mean? What qualifications do people have to have to be workpeople? 1891 Do they have to be wage earners, or can they be wage earners, or can they be paid monthly? Do they have to have been to a certain type of school? Are they people who work with their hands? can they not be clerical workers?
Before she decides to write this term in I hope she will give this further consideration. Scotland, I suppose, has less class distinction than Great Britain has as a whole, and the right hon. Lady comes from Scotland. She will see, I hope, that this term is really unworkable, if we were to try to define that category. Therefore, I hope that she will be kind enough, on Report to remove this classification, as I would call it, so that the people appointed can be judged entirely on their merits.

§ Mr. Braine
I am sure that the whole Committee all be indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Dame Joan Vickers) for drawing attention to what I must say is the rather extraordinary wording used in the Bill where it is laid down that one of the persons appointed to an appeals tribunal shall be appointed from among persons appearing to the Minister to represent work-people. I would ask the Minister where else in the statutes is the Minister required to act on what appears to him to be a fact? How in this case does a suitable person appear to be suitable? Must he wear dungarees and carry a spanner? Must he have a trade union card? What appears to one Minister to be a suitable person to represent workpeople may not appear so to the Minister's successor.
It would be difficult to excuse drafting of this kind if it followed a precedent, but I rise to say that it does not. I refer to paragraph 3 of the Fifth Schedule to the National Assistance Act, 1948, which lays down that The chairman and one of the other members of every Tribunal shall be appointed by the Minister, and the other member shall be appointed by the Board from a panel of persons nominated by the Minister to represent work-people. That is perfectly clear and reasonable and straightforward.
As I think the Minister will presently say that it has always been the case that nominees of trades councils and other equivalent bodies should sit on National Assistance appeal tribunals I will say that 1892 there is no one on this side of the Committee who would wish to alter that very happy arrangement, but I would hope that we could avoid this sort of imprecise language—I might almost say, sloppy drafting—which has crept into this part of the Bill, I hope that the Minister can give an undertaking that she will do something at a later stage to put the matter beyond any doubt.

§ Miss Herbison
I am not surprised that we have had this short debate on this matter, though, perhaps, we are making a little heavy weather of it. What we want to ensure is that there will be on these tribunals people who understand the kinds of people who will be coming to them to try to make a case. There will be all sorts of people, particularly if we get applications for non-contributory benefit from a wider field. It is merely to ensure that there will be these people of understanding.
I do not feel "hot under the collar" whether they are called workpeople, or trades union people, or what they are called. All I want to ensure is that when the tribunals are set up there will be on them men and women who will have some knowledge of the background of those who are coming before them, that they will have some knowledge of the kind of lives those people live and of their needs. That is what I want to ensure.
This provision is not unlike the provision in the Fifth Schedule to the National Assistance Act, repealed by Schedule 8. So, although someone may take objection to the term "workpeople", I think that I have said sufficient to show that there is still need on any such tribunal to have people who have a great deal in common with the kinds of persons coming before them, and who will well understand their needs. I am not "hot under the collar" about whether we call them workpeople or not.

§ Mr. Braine
Before the right hon. Lady sits down, I would say at once that we entirely agree that it is desirable that people with this kind of background should be so appointed. The right hon. Lady referred to the Fifth Schedule to the National Assistance Act. My point was that the wording in that Schedule is precise. It is good sound drafting and I cannot understand why that precedent 1893 was not followed in the Bill. We will not press the point, but simply ask the right hon. Lady to consider whether the rather loose and imprecise wording employed in the Bill might be replaced by something much more precise, which would have exactly the same effect as the one which she desires.

§ Dame Irene Ward
I wanted to ask the right hon. Lady, after all the arguments and her explanation, whether she could not give an assurance that the matter will be reconsidered in the light of what has been said. It seems to me that everybody wants the same objective. I do not think that this drafting is right. As this Clause deals with appeals, I should also like to raise one point which has caused me considerable surprise, though I am sure that it is absolutely in order as it relates to the Appeal Tribunal.
As we are concerned with ensuring that people who go before the Appeal Tribunal have confidence in it, I wanted an explanation about why, when an appeal against refusal of pensions and that type of problem comes before the Tribunal, the Minister tells the Tribunal, "This must be accepted" or something like that. I am sure that that is quite in order, but is she aware of how devastating that is to somebody who goes before the Tribunal and who has not been told the background of this situation?
I have been handling the case of a deserted wife——

§ The Chairman
The hon. Lady will understand that this Clause deals only with the composition of the Tribunal and not with how it works.

§ Dame Irene Ward
But I am relating this to the composition of the Tribunal. I can say specifically that, if the Tribunal had been properly composed on the occasion which I was about to quote, somebody on the Tribunal would have realised the difficulty of anyone appearing before the Tribunal to be told that she can put forward no arguments, because the Minister had already said—this is quite in order, I am sure—that the Ministry posit on had to be taken.
The woman appearing was told that she could not even argue her case, which I am sure has some relevance to the situation. In view of the right hon. Lady's concern with getting the proper 1894 composition, with which we all agree, surely there ought to have been someone on the Tribunal who could have explained to my constituent the extraordinary situation of her arriving for an appeal before a tribunal, to be told that she can say nothing. She found herself outside the appeal hall, not having been able to argue her case, although she had thought that she was going before the Tribunal to do so.
12.15 p.m.
I consider that had the Tribunal been properly composed, this would have been a good idea. As the right hon. Lady is concerned with the composition of the Tribunal, surely somebody should be there to explain to a bewildered woman why she was called to make an appeal when the Minister had issued these instructions. No one on the Tribunal took the trouble to explain to my constituent why she was there if she was not allowed to make a case. I do not consider, in the light of the composition of tribunals, that people have all the knowledge they ought to have about human beings.

§ Dame Irene Ward
But I should like an answer!