HC Deb 07 July 1967 vol 749 cc2207-29
Mr. Pardoe

I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 18, to leave out from 'substituted' to the end of line 19 and to insert: 'benefits at the rate of two-thirds of previous earnings, subject to a maximum of two-thirds of twice the average earnings of an adult man in industry'.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Ronald Russell)

With this I think that it will be convenient to take Amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 20:

In Schedule 2, page 11, leave out line 10 and insert:

4. Widow's allowance half the late husband's wage or salary, subject to a minimum of one-third of the average earnings of an adult man in industry, and a maximum of earnings of an adult man in industry. — — — —

In line 11, leave out from beginning to end of line 12 and insert:

5. Widowed mother's allowance half the late husband's wage or salary, subject to a minimum of one-third of the average earnings of an adult man in industry, and a maximum of earnings of an adult man in industry. — — — —

In line 16, leave out from beginning to end of line 21 and insert:

(a) for a married couple one-third, rising by seven equal annual increases to one-half, of the average earnings of an adult man in industry. — — — —
(b) for a single person one-fifth, rising by seven equal annual increases to one-half, of the average earnings of an adult man in industry. — — — —

Mr. Pardoe

This group of Amendments introduces into some sections of our National Insurance system an entirely new principle for this country. It is a principle which in a sense sets my party apart from the other two.

On Second Reading, I criticised the Government for failing to set the target which they believed in and which I wanted them to believe in. I criticised them for making proposals which, while admittedly interim, were totally inadequate. What I have done in these Amendments is to set out the targets as they should be. They are not related in any sense to a specific figure, because to have a specific figure is to fall into the trap into which Lord Beveridge realised that he had fallen when before his death he admitted that his scheme had been overtaken by inflation, which is what has happened to our social security schemes.

Amendment No. 4 deals with unemployment and sickness benefits. It says that instead of trying to produce a whole range of benefits which I find extremely complicated and difficult to wade through, the benefits which any man can expect if he is made unemployed or becomes sick should be at least two-thirds of his previous earnings. What we are discussing is not an insurance scheme but an income maintenance scheme. What we have to decide, therefore, is what penalty society requires a man and his family to shoulder when he becomes unemployed or sick through no fault of his own. The benefits which are listed in the Schedule are entirely inadequate to that task of income maintenance, and so we propose that there should be this factor of two-thirds of previous earnings.

Obviously, a scheme of this sort has to be subjected to a maximum and the maximum, which I have suggested is two-thirds of twice the average earnings of an adult man in industry. I have chosen that because, roughly speaking, it is the division in industry between junior management and the upper echelons and it gives a figure on present average earnings of about £2,100. We are saying that no man should get more benefits than two-thirds of that figure, that is to say, no more than £1,400. It has to be remembered that that would be in addition to the child and dependent relative allowance which we also want.

This should be a permanent benefit. It is entirely wrong that such a benefit should cease after so many weeks. I have never yet been able to discover why that should happen, other than for actuarial reasons, but from my constituency experience I know that it is grossly unfair in operation. It is wrong that, after a man has been unemployed or sick and away from work through no fault of his own as a result, after a certain period he should find himself forced down to lower benefits. I wanted to make an Amendment to Clause 1 which would have deleted Section 21 of the National Insurance Act which relates to exhaustion of and requalification for benefits, because I believe that to be wrong. Not many people are involved and it would not be hideously expensive to make this concession.

Thirdly, there should be basically no distinction between industrial injury and long-term disability benefits. At present there are fairly important distinctions, with which I do not now have time to deal.

The remaining Amendments are to Schedule 2. Here, again, we need to simplify matters, and these Amendments would make it obvious to anybody exactly what he was to get as benefit if he was overtaken by disaster. For instance, I want to know what my wife would get out of the State scheme if I should die. I find it extremely difficult to discover from wading through the various Schedules exactly what the State would give her. I am one of those people—I imagine that most hon. Members are—who are worth far more to their wives dead than alive, but that is entirely because of occupational and private schemes. It is largely to clear up the uncertainty about widows' benefits that I have moved this Amendment.

Amendment No. 15 deals with widows' allowances for the first 26 weeks of widowhood and concerns widows with or without children. We have said that a widow should get at least half her husband's previous earnings and should not be expected to fall below that level for a period of 26 weeks after his death. As a minimum, we have stipulated that the amount should be one-third of the average earnings of a man in industry, which at present would give her about £7 a week. Again, there would have to be a maximum and, related to the figure of £2,100 which I mentioned earlier, as she would get half that, the maximum would be £1,050.

The next Amendment deals with widowed mother's allowance. It has to take account of the fact that we would pay her the increased child allowances which we hope will materialise, although I do not suppose that the Government will introduce the increases that I want. Again it is the same definition which I outlined in Amendment 15, and is related to the average earnings of an adult man in industry.

Amendment 20 produces an entirely new definition of what a retirement pension should be. We have kept this principle going throughout. It should be related not to any specific figure decided upon now, but, in order to overcome the problems of inflation and of old persons who do not always share in the increased affluence of the community in which we live, it is to be related to the earnings of an adult man in industry. In this way we shall have solved many of our pension problems.

We have taken as a starting point for a married couple the present level. That is why I have said one-third of the average earnings of an adult man in industry. The present retirement pension which the Government propose for a married couple is about one-third of the average earnings of an adult man in industry and we have said that over a period of seven years it should rise to what we regard is the ideal figure of one-half. In other words the pension for a married couple should be half the average earnings of the adult man in industry, which at present is between £10 and £11 a week.

For single persons, we have again taken the present standard to start with, one-fifth, and we want that to rise to one-third. It is important to point out that we are not asking for any of these increases immediately. It would be foolish for anyone to come to this House and to ask at once for the kind of increases in contributions and taxations which these would inevitably involve. We would like to see all of these things introduced over a period of seven to eight years.

I have tried to answer the criticism which I have directed to the Government, that they have not stated what are their ideal targets. In any social security scheme we should start from a definition of what we think is an ideal scheme and try to discover whether we can afford to pay for it and how best we can do this. If we find it is totally impossible, we may have to think again. I do not believe that the cost is impossible.

Taken together, with other things, these four Amendments would involve an increase of about 9 per cent. of personal incomes being devoted to social security purposes. In other words, I am asking the average man for 9 per cent. more of his personal income to be devoted to these very beneficial causes. That is not something from which he would immediately shy away, unless he were asked to pay at once. He is not being asked to do this. If we get the kind of rate of economic growth that we would like we would get an increase of about 30 per cent. in eight years.

We are asking him to pay 9 per cent. out of that increase. Even if we only get an increase in our rate of economic growth of about 3 per cent. a year, these proposals are still feasible. What I hope that the Government will do, rather than tear them down and say that they are impractical and impossible and too expensive, is to say whether they accept these as being the ideal standards for the benefits with which they deal.

1.15 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Social Security (Mr. Charles Loughlin)

The first Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) which he said related to sickness and unemployment benefits does not do so in practice. If he will look at the Amendment he will see that it relates solely to the Industrial Injuries Act. He says that it introduces a completely new principle into the Industrial Injuries Act, but it does not do so.

What it means is that we revert to the old principle of the Workmen's Compensation Act which was related totally to a man's average earnings. At present we have a system in which the main industrial injuries benefit is the disablement benefit. At the same time we have the maintenance benefit, in the same way as we have maintenance and sickness benefit in other matters.

If the principle, as distinct from the wording of the Amendment was accepted, and that was the plea of the hon. Gentleman in his closing remarks, it would be a complete change in our approach to compensation for industrial accidents. At present this is based upon a loss of faculty. A great number of people suffer accidents in industry and, while there is no loss of earnings, they have a loss of faculty, in consequence of which they are able to get additional benefit under the disablement provisions of the Act.

One would have a situation, under the principle enunciated by the hon. Gentleman, whereby people affected by an accident in industry to a very substantial extent, would, during the period that they were off work, receive a percentage of their earnings, but on returning to work may well earn precisely the same amount of money as they were earning before the accident.

Let me illustrate this. A young lady, in the normal course of industrial work, has met with an accident in which she receives substantial scarring of the face. It is not an extreme illustration because it does happen. Under the provisions of the hon. Gentleman's principle, she would receive industrial benefit during the time that she was unemployed in consequence of the accident, on the basis of a percentage of her earnings. She would still have the loss of faculty, and scarring on the face, for a young lady, is a pretty substantial loss of faculty. For this she would receive no further compensation, and would be a substantial loser. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman's intentions are sound but his examination of the problem is very limited.

I speak as one with considerable experience in dealing with industrial accidents before I came into this House. Take another example, of a clerk who loses his left hand, or the fingers of that hand. During the time that he was away from work he would receive a percentage of earnings. It may be that he was right-handed, and could go back to his work, but he would still have a loss of faculty, for which he would get no compensation, unless he had other grounds, such as a Common Law damage claim, which does not always apply because there has to be negligence proven, of either omission or commission on the part of his employer. When this clerk returned to work, although he had lost his hand, or his fingers, it would mean that he received no disablement benefit of any kind. He would simply have had the earnings-related benefit for the period during which he was not able to work.

Under the Amendment, a person would be allowed to receive 66⅔ of his pre-accident earnings during the period he was unable to work as a result of the accident. I do not think that I need quote cases, but in practice a person can get in excess of 85 per cent. of his earnings. The hon. Gentleman's intention might be good, but the Amendment is ill conceived and badly thought out. I therefore hope that he will withdraw it.

The other three Amendments and the case deployed by the hon. Gentleman clearly demonstrate the degree of difficulty inherent in a re-examination of the kind of benefits to which the Amendments refer. We considered carefully what the effects of the Amendment would be. Perhaps I will be able to show the hon. Gentleman that the effects would be very anomalous. Amendment No. 15 relates to the widow's allowance. Its effect would vary tremendously, but the most important thing is that, because the effect would vary according to the husband's earnings, it would give an unfair advantage to the childless widow whose husband's earnings were reasonably high before his death and would worsen the position of widows with children whose husband's earnings were not very high.

Take the case of a man earning £9 a week whose widow has no children. Under the Bill, the flat rate benefit would he £6 7s. a week. Under the Amendment, the benefit would be £6 16s.—the minimum of one-third of average earnings on the current figure of £20 6s. Then take the case of a man earning £9 a week whose widow has three children. Under the Bill, the flat rate benefit would be £11 16s. 6d. plus family allowances. Under the Amendment it would be £6 16s. plus family allowances.

I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman's intentions are wrong, but the Amendments would not have the effect which he desires.

Mr. Pardoe

The difficulty is that when one tables Amendments one deals with the whole policy. I accept that the hon. Gentleman's mathematics, using the present family allowances, are entirely right. There are later Amendments in my name dealing with the family allowance situation. One cannot possibly take widows' allowances within the context of family allowances. That is why the hon. Gentleman's mathematics are not the same as mine.

Mr. Loughlin

That may be so. But we are dealing with a series of Amendments which have the same effect. Hypothetical matters later cannot be the concern of the Committee at the moment. I am dealing with the effects of the Amendment. Precisely the same sort of anomalies and difficulties arise from the other two Amendments.

The problem is that we are trying to deal with a very complicated situation in which there is a tremendous number of variants in the circumstances of the recipients of the benefits. I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman anything. All that I can say is that the Amendments would not have the effect which he intends them to have. This is an indication of how difficult it is to deal with the complicated question of paying benefits which are equitable to everybody.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the principles enshrined in his Amendments as they relate to widows will be carefully examined in the review which we are undertaking. I must, however, make it clear that, for the Industrial Injuries Scheme, I am not moving from the principle of loss of faculty. I can only ask the hon. Gentleman to be a little more patient. I hope that, in view of this explanation, he will withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Pardoe

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan

I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 19, at the end to insert: 'with the addition that these provisions shall apply to any person suffering from a substantial handicap, as a result of loss of physical or mental faculty, who is not able to qualify for any benefit under either the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act;'.

The Temporary Chairman

It would be convenient to take at the same time Amendment No. 27, in line 19, at end insert: 'with the addition that these provisions shall apply to any person suffering from a substantial handicap, as a result of loss of physical or mental faculty, who is not able to qualify for any benefit under either the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act or the National Insurance Acts;'.

Mr. Macmillan

I must apologise to the Committee for some confusion arising from the wording of the Amendments. There are two Amendments virtually the same. One is more or less correctly worded and one is wrongly worded. We are discussing the wrongly worded one and taking the correctly worded one with it. There was a slip of the pen, and I hope that it has caused no inconvenience.

Even the correct form of words is not—and I admit this freely—adequate to achieve the result which I should like to achieve. The nature of Clause 2 and the fact that it deals with matters relating to other Acts make it difficult to frame Amendments without being extremely detailed and perhaps delaying the Committee unduly with a lot of consequential Amendments.

1.30 p.m.

The object of this Amendment is to obtain for the disabled, regardless of the cause of the disability, allowances which are strictly and exactly comparable with those which they obtain under the Industrial Injuries Act. I quite appreciate that this needs a further Amendment to bring in those who get something because, as worded, it deals only with those who get nothing under either of the two Acts concerned. I propose this afternoon to apply a twofold argument, first on the subject of the allocation of our admittedly scarce resources to the social and other priorities given to the disabled, and secondly, on the general principles on which the so-called civil disabled should be treated, that is to say, people whose disability results from natural causes rather than from either war or accident.

On the question of the allocation of resources, I think the entire Committee would be very sympathetic to the right hon. Lady. I know she has great difficulties, as any Minister in her position has, in getting the money she would like for the purposes she wishes to achieve. In all conditions the spending Ministers have a considerable argument with those whose function it is to achieve economy. One of the difficulties with which we all have to contend is that the National Plan—which itself almost qualifies for a death grant—assumes a rate of growth for the six years up to 1970 which would match the 25 per cent. increase in real wealth achieved in 1959–64. It is unlikely that this will be attained.

This has made the problem of allocation of resources to priorities within that allocation more acute than otherwise it would have been, since the resources must depend to a greater extent than we all hoped on taxation and contributions rather than on national growth. Those figures in the National Plan would produce something like an extra £378 million of social security spending by 1970 and a great deal of it would be pre-empted by the wage-related benefit, by the costs and expenditure of the Ministry of Social Security, and the new measures contained in this Bill and would have to be available for the half-pay pension scheme when it comes forward.

On the matter of resources, I ask where and how the right hon. Lady can manage to move the disabled from the bottom of the queue where they appear to be at the moment and how we can hope to see the future pattern of resources for social spending developing to include the needs of those disabled through reasons other than industrial injury or war. I admit that the sort of proposals I should like to see for increasing the long-term sickness benefit up to the Industrial Injuries benefit level and the provision of benefit for those who do not get those benefits at all, would cost money and we should, have to find that money. I am very conscious that what I am asking for would require more spending.

What I ask in turn of the right hon. Lady is what consideration the Government are giving to shifting the emphasis in social benefit spending on behalf of the disabled in general terms, and specifically whether she has considered any of the sort of adjustments to the short-term sick benefit suggested by various sources from time to time. I quote two of them. There was the suggestion put forward in the Economist on 24th June that the short-term sick benefit should be as it were, taken out of the National Insurance system and that employers should pay in full for the first few weeks of sickness in salary or wages. Many of them pay the present benefit to the level of full salary or wages.

That was one consideration put forward for easing the burden on the taxpayer of the short-term sick and enabling a redistribution to the long-term sick and the disabled. Another suggestion was that of allowing firms with sick-pay schemes to contract out of the graduated pension scheme where their schemes are as good or better. That was envisaged in an Amendment which was put forward from this side of the Committee to the 1966 National Insurance Bill.

Finally, on the whole question of the allocation of resources I suggest an argument which might appeal to the Scrooges of the Treasury. The selective use of money resources might well make savings possible in the use of real resources by keeping people out of institutions when they can manage on their own in their homes with a considerable degree of help but find it too difficult to do so and are therefore eventually forced into a hospital or an institution.

I do not make too much of this argument because it is highly unlikely that it would lead to a reduction in the existing number of people receiving care since once people cease to care for themselves it is difficult for them to leave an institution and go back to ordinary life. But, if we could find a method of increasing the income of the disabled, it would help at least some of them who would not then call on the community for full care and attention.

The second part of my argument deals with the principles on which those who have the misfortune to be disabled should be treated under the Welfare State and the social security system. I know that the right hon. Lady agrees at least on one thing, that the more we can help the disabled to lead as normal a life as possible in their own homes the more effectively will our money be spent. The more we can enable the disabled themselves to contribute to society from their own work, the better it is not only for us but for them as well. One of the surest tests of civilisation is the extent to which we can manage to bring in the elderly and disabled to the true life of the community rather than tucking them away out of sight and merely looking after them.

There are two anomalies arising from acceptance of that principle at present. One is the difference in treatment between the long-term sick and disabled and those industrially or war disabled. I shall not discuss that at length because it has been much discussed on previous occasions. The second anomaly concerns the housewife, crippled early in life, who does not get anything at all because she has never been in a position to take part in a contributory scheme. The Amendment does not affect the first anomaly, but clearly it should affect the second.

I do not want to press this Amendment to a Division because I fully accept that to achieve the purpose I have in mind much more careful discussion of the detail of the Bill is required with a new approach to the whole problem which we understand the right hon. Lady is giving to it. I hope that we can get some assurance from her, first, that she accepts as a matter of principle that the anomaly between the long-term sick and disabled and the industrially disabled should be ended so that all are treated alike regardless of the causes of disability and, secondly, that these benefits should be extended to those whose disability has prevented them from ever becoming contributors. This would mean that in future measures should be framed to include housewives and those disabled after marriage as well as young people who are disabled early in life.

Thirdly, I hope that the right hon. Lady will accept that in all these cases payment must be made not only up to the present level of Industrial Injuries benefit, but that there is also a strong case for making direct payments or helping through tax allowances on a much higher level designed to cover the extra cost of disabled people leading a normal life. I think that this is probably the most important aspect.

Therefore, what I most regret of what is left out of the Bill is the concept of a positive effort by society not to allow accident or disability or misfortune of that kind to exclude some of its members from full participation—the exclusion of a method which would enable them themselves to contribute.

I think that perhaps one of the saddest things about today's debate is that lack which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) touched on earlier, the imaginative approach to the problems of National Insurance and social security, and the persistence of the generally rather conventional thinking which we all still seem to have, and which it is so difficult to breach. I hope that we shall be able this afternoon to see signs in the right hon. Lady that she and her colleagues are aware of this problem, and that she understands that, if she is hoping for support from this side of the Committee, this is a type of selectivity, which I am fairly certain she would not disapprove of herself, which we must expect to see from her, if not this afternoon at least on some future occasion.

Mr. James Griffiths

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) has raised a number of fundamental questions about the future of our social security schemes. As the Amendment stands, it seems to me that it would bring within the cover of the Bill disability caused through certain miners' diseases. That is a very deep question indeed. The Industrial Injuries Act was in itself a radical departure from the way we compensated people for injury arising at work. The hon. Gentleman would have to take into account the change in 1946 and in 1948 when the Act came into operation. Prior to that the responsibility for providing compensation for a man or woman disabled in industry rested entirely on the employer and the insurance companies.

We transformed that, by what, I think, was complete agreement in the House, to a social service to which employers and workers and the State made contributions. We have to remember that that was a very important matter, since it was the first occasion on which workmen were being asked—indeed, compelled—by Act of Parliament to make contributions for compensation for injuries they suffered in the service of their employers. Unless opinion has changed very radi- cally, 1 would say to the hon. Gentleman that the prevailing view in industry would be that the Industrial Injuries Act must stand on its own to cover injuries received within industry.

I agree with him that this raises the whole question of what to do about people disabled and not able to attribute their disability to their industry. Under the Act itself there are two kinds of anomalies. We have removed one part of one of them in this Parliament, and we are grateful for that. One of the most difficult things of all is to meet two men—and this is an experience I very often have—one of whom is certified to be disabled from pneumoconiosis, while the other who has exactly the same kind of symptoms, which I believe arise from the same cause, is outside the provisions of the Act. This question of making provision for those who are disabled outside their employment does raise very deep problems indeed.

1.45 p.m.

The hon. Gentleman has asked the Minister to look at it, and I hope that it will be looked at in a general review. Meantime, I would add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) said the other day. He knows that when I was Minister one of the things that I was most anxious about was to see that the Industrial Injuries scheme was, in a sense, patterned on the scheme adopted for war pensions, which included special benefits, and that that scheme should have application in the industrial field. I would hope that we should be able to introduce those benefits into the long-term sickness benefits.

The people who have had the least out of the improvements we have made under the scheme are the long-term sick. I would hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend and the Government would give very serious consideration, when they come to their general review, to a review of the whole of these schemes, and the application of sickness benefit to the long-term sick, and that some of the special benefits provided under the Industrial Injuries scheme, such as constant attendance allowance and unemployability allowance, may be applied for the long-term sick. We ought to make provision for the long-term sick as we do for those who are provided for under the Industrial Injuries Act or under the warrants for war pensions. That would go some way to meet the problem which the hon. Gentleman has raised.

For the rest, I think that if we are to make provision for those who are disabled outside industry—and I appreciate that this indeed becomes daily more urgent because of the number of accidents we have, the number of road accidents, for example, and accidents in which people are disabled for the rest of their lives—it requires much more thought than we can give it at this moment. I think the hon. Gentleman has rendered a service by raising the matter, and I hope very much that my right hon. Friend and the Government will give consideration to it. It may be some time before they can complete their consideration of it, and in the meantime I strongly support the views, put forward on Second Reading, by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty, whose speech I listened to with very great interest. I hope we shall consider applying to the long-term sick the extra benefits. I think that this is something we can do while we are thinking about the major, fundamental problems raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

I should like to join the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) in his plea for a review of our provisions for the industrially injured and the long-term sick. No man in this Committee speaks with greater authority than he on this subject, and few have made a greater contribution to practical work in this field. I agree with him, too, that we have here come in our consideration of the Bill to a point of very great importance.

This Amendment seeks to close one of the most glaring gaps in our present social security arrangements. Whatever else the Bill does—and, of course, I warmly support its general provisions—it does nothing for the permanently disabled; it does nothing to end the discrimination which exists between people suffering from the same degree of incapacity. We have made, thanks to the efforts on both sides of the Committee under successive Governments, generous provision for those disabled by war and by industrial injuries. We have made less generous provision for those breadwinners who are permanently incapacitated by accident away from work, or by serious illness.

We have made no provision at all for persons born crippled, or incapacitated in some other way in body or mind, or for the wife who, as a result of accident or disease, is stricken down and becomes completely helpless in her own home. I have raised this matter before, as, indeed, many hon. Members have, and I shall not do so again today in any detail, except to say that I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax—[HON. MEMBERS: "Farnham"]—my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan). I remember when he was the Member for Halifax and made such a deep impression on me that the name of his former constituency has stuck.

I agree with my hon. Friend when he says that giving practical help to people who are disabled to enable them to live lives as full and as creative as their disabilities will permit not only makes good social sense but good economic sense as well. Yet the fact is that it would be hard to find a more deprived group in our community than the disabled. They encounter difficulties at every turn. If they are employable, they are restricted in their job opportunities. They have difficulty in getting to work. Even the Royal Commission on Taxation recognised that disablement put upon a man and his family an extra burden which the rest of the community does not have to bear. I may say in passing that that was one reason why we sought to exempt disabled workers from the Selective Employment Tax.

If they are permanently disabled and unemployable, inevitably their families are put to a great deal of additional difficulty and discomfort. Those of us who work closely with the disabled know that disability cannot be isolated. It leads to a chain of other disabilities affecting life as a whole. It affects personality. It affects social, emotional and educational development. It imposes an enormous strain upon others in the family circle. Moreover, the disabled often endure a degree of discomfort which very often is similar to the pain and discomfort which normally fit people experience when they are temporarily incapacitated by sickness; yet this is not recognised in any way.

There are a number of ways in which help can be brought to the permanently disabled and their families. Within the context of this Clause and the proposed Amendment, effective help could be brought if the will to do so existed. I have no doubt about the desire of the right hon. Lady and her colleagues to grasp this nettle. I suspect that the matter is being investigated very closely in the review.

The right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) delighted us in all quarters of the Committee with his speech, even if it was a little wide-ranging. He brings a great humanity and experience to bear on the subject. In his pamphlet "Paying for the Social Services", he says: There are many more casualties of the Welfare State than many of us know about. I feel particularly strongly about all forms of 'civilian' disablement (that is, all disablement due to accident or disease other than conditions covered by war and industrial disability schemes). We know very little about the nature and extent of this field of disablement. The sufferers can claim no disability pension; some of the incapacitated are on sickness benefit, and many, of course, are over pension age. Those afflicted may be housewives and widows as well as those at work. When I left the government, research was being done on this—first to find as much information as possible. We have a lot still to give to those who have lost some of the faculties we enjoy and some of the joy of living. I am sure that none of us disagree with a word of that. However, if the Minister intends to reject my hon. Friend's Amendment, we are entitled at least to ask her to raise the veil enshrouding the review, which has been going on now for a very long time, well over two years.

There are many anomalies to which I could refer and which no doubt are the subject of examination in the review. I wish to draw attention to just one of them, because it baffles me completely, and it is one which would be removed if the Amendment were accepted.

It is quite a small point, except to the people most affected. A death grant is not payable in respect of a person over the age of 19 who has been severely mentally handicapped since childhood. The point at issue is quite a technical one which, at first sight, might not seem to be important because it does not concern very many people. However, for the parents or near relatives of someone who has been afflicted by a substantial mental handicap from birth, it raises a very important point of principle.

As I understand it, if a substantially handicapped young man or woman with a parent living dies before the age of 19, a death grant is usually payable by virtue of the parent's insurance—

Miss Herbison

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but time is going on. Unless we get this Bill, it will be impossible for us to make the payments, and it seems to me that what he is saying has nothing to do with the Amendment.

Mr. Loughlin

The Amendment was not selected.

The Deputy Chairman

Order. The first part of the right hon. Lady's remarks is not a matter for the Chair, but I am sure that the Committee will take note of what she says. On the point of order raised in the intervention by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, the Amendment was selected and the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) is in order in replying to it. I understand that the consequence of the Amendment, if accepted, would be to give benefits, one of which is the death grant. If that is so, it puts the hon. Gentleman's remarks in order.

Mr. Braine

I have no desire to impede the progress of the Bill, and I was very careful to say that I did not intend to go over all the anomalies, apart from the question of the totally incapacitated wife for whom no provision is made. I was careful to say that I intended to select just one anomaly. I will be as brief as I can, but the Committee is entitled to know what the anomalies are and how unjust they seem to the people most closely affected. It is no less unjust because it only affects a few thousand people instead of a few million. The injustice is there, and I want to know whether this is the sort of point which is being covered by the review about which we hear so often in general terms but the details of which are still hidden from us.

I want to take the case of a widow earning a small wage and struggling to bring up a number of children, the eldest of whom is about 20 or 21 and has been seriously mentally handicapped from birth. I have a constituent in that position. Her eldest son died. If he had died a few months earlier, his mother would have received a death grant by virtue of her own insurance. Because he was over 20 when he died, she got nothing, although there was no change in his condition. He was and always had been a helpless dependant.

I concede at once that we are faced with a number of difficulties here. It may be argued that, if we accept that these are circumstances which warrant a breach of the requirement that benefits are only paid where contribution requirements have been met, we open the way for the erosion of that principle in other—[Interruption.] I hope that I can have the attention of the Treasury Bench. I do not know whether the Joint Parliamentary Secretary wishes to intervene. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to prevent me from saying what I have to say shortly, I shall say it in greater detail. This is a point of some substance to those who are most closely concerned. If the hon. Gentleman would like me to read out the long list of anomalies which exist, and which may or may not be the subject of the review, I shall do so. I hope, therefore, that I may have the attention of the Minister.

2.0 p.m.

The right hon. Lady knows that this is an anomaly. It is a difficult one, and I have no doubt that she would wish to do something about it. In fact she has said on a number of occasions during the last two and a half years that she is considering what to do. The Parliamentary Secretary, too, has indicated on several occasions that he is going to do something about it. The sole purpose now is to ask for an assurance that matters of this kind are being dealt with in the review, and if they are, to ask when the review will be made known to the House. I recognise the difficulties, and I am not seeking to harry the Minister, but, given the earnest and sincere desire of the Government to find a solution to these problems, it is high time that a veil was lifted from the review which has been going on for so many years.

I hope that when the right hon. Lady replies she will give the Amendment sympathetic consideration, or at least take the Committee and the country into her confidence and answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham about determining the social priorities. I think that his question requires a frank answer. Social security is the business of every man and woman, social priorities touch the conscience of every man and woman, and we are therefore entitled to know a great deal more about the Government's plans than has been revealed thus far.

Miss Herbison

A number of matters have been covered in the discussion. The hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) made it clear that neither of the two Amendments really covers all that he wants to deal with, and I remember that when I was a back bencher I often tried to table Amendments only to find that quite often they did not cover everything that I wanted. I take what he said in that spirit and I shall deal with the matters that he really wishes to raise. What he is asking for is that we should extend the whole range of benefits provided by the Industrial Injuries scheme to all people who are disabled in any way, and for any reason. This is really what he wants to achieve.

I was interested in the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths), who was speaking from long experience. I believe that there is a fundamental difference between a limited scheme—and it is, indeed, limited—of compensation for disablement arising from accidents at work, and what is in effect an attempt, by means of the Amendment, to compensate the individual citizen for physical or mental disablement. I think that my right hon. Friend was right in saying that in industry there would be a great deal of support for something extra for the risk which a person takes in, say, mining or heavy industry. But this does not mean that I do not think we need to do far more than we have done for other disabled people. I feel this very strongly indeed.

I would like to consider the various people who are not covered by the Industrial Injuries Acts. First, there is the chronic sick man or woman who is covered for sickness benefit. These people may be chronically sick from a very early age, and all that they have during that time is the National Insurance sickness benefit. But if it is a man who is disabled, he can receive a payment for his wife; and supplementary benefits are also provided to help these people.

Very often a comparison is made between what a man can get if he is industrially injured, adding not only the disability benefit but all the valuable extras he can receive, and the £6 10s. which a disabled man receives for himself and his wife. But if one considers the supplementary benefits available for the long-term sick and adds to this the full rent and rates which are allowed, one sees that there is a big difference between the flat rate sickness benefit and what the chronically sick man can get.

I am not saying that that is sufficient, because very often the chronically sick man needs constant attendance. I can tell the Committee that I have been doing quite a lot of research into this to see how we can provide some form of constant attendance allowance for such people. But again the problems are very great, even in the assessment of the disability. I do not want to take a long time over this. There is such a lot that I was going to say. We have to contend with the difficulty of the shortage of medical manpower, particularly when one is considering not merely the chronic sick but the person who is not covered by our insurance schemes.

I come now to deal with the physically or mentally handicapped people who have never been able to work, people who perhaps have been born physically or mentally handicapped, or who have become so at a very young age. From the age of 16 onwards they can get a supplementary benefit in their own right, irrespective of the income of the parent or parents.

In addition to what we call the basic scale of supplementary benefit, National Assistance as it was, a person who has been in receipt of it for more than two years receives a special long-term addition of 9s. a week. On top of this, further special additions can be made for the cost of laundry—and this is sometimes very important in such a home—the cost of a special diet, additional fuel costs, the cost of domestic help, and so on. All these special additions can be granted by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, both to the person who has no insurance rights, and to the person who is chronically sick and is receiving National Insurance benefit. I think that in this respect, particularly since supplementary benefits were introduced, we have made considerable improvements. In other words, while we have been examining these problems in more detail we have tried to ease the burden wherever we could.

I come now to what I consider to be one of the most difficult problems that of the disabled housewife whose husband is in work. The disabled housewife, because she is not insured, receives no no benefit in her own right. And because her husband is in work, and because she is considered to be his responsibility, she can get nothing from the supplementary benefits scheme. This is one of the most serious difficulties encountered in making provision for the disabled.

I realise only too well that financial hardship can be caused when a disabled person is at home—whether that person be a child or adult. Great distress and great strain can be caused, and anything that can be done to relieve this is worthwhile doing.

I now want to answer one or two points raised by the hon. Member for Farnham. He asked if I had been considering suggestions made in various articles. One was that short-term sickness should be taken out of the sphere of insurance benefit and paid for by the employer. Some employers pay full wages for a certain time when a man is sick. Sometimes they merely deduct the amount of the insurance benefit which the man gets. I have been considering this proposal, but it is not as simple as it looks. We must remember the difficulty that might occur with the vast number of smaller employers, even if they paid less than the full wage to an employee who was off sick and at the same time had to employ someone else.

The hon. Member will be aware that in 1969 unemployment benefit will cease to be paid for those on short-time work. This is to become the responsibility of the employer. I have been considering all the suggestions that have been made.

This has been a good debate. The hon. Member for Farnham and others who took part in put forward their arguments in a reasonable way. They tried to be helpful in giving their ideas—and I want all the ideas I can get.

We still have a lot to do. We have been discussing one of the most important questions. It is of the greatest importance to bring help and happiness to these people. I realise that although a lot of welfare work is done in this sphere a lot more could be done. Nevertheless, for the reasons which I have given, I hope that the hon. Member will feel able to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.