Strikers (Supplementary Benefits)

HC Deb 20 October 1969 vol 788 cc747-8

42. Mr. Bruce-Gardyne

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what has been the aggregate cost to date of payments of supplementary benefit made to the families of dustmen on strike; and what has been the average payment per family.

Mr. O'Malley

Up to Tuesday, 14th October—the latest date for which figures are available—951 payments totalling nearly £4,800, an average of just over £5, had been made for the dependants of strikers.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne

Is it not adding insult to injury to expect citizens who have been gravely inconvenienced by the strike to have to subsidise its prolongation? In view of the accumulating evidence of the abuse of the supplementary benefits system, is it not time that the whole principle of paying supplementary benefits to the families of men on strike was reviewed?

Mr. O'Malley

I would remind the hon. Gentleman that, even in the days of the old Poor Law, the wives and families of strikers were given assistance. If the hon. Gentleman suggests that the way to deal with strikes of this kind is to get at workers by depriving their wives and families of benefits, I utterly reject that philosophy.

Mr. Winnick

Is it the intention of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends that strikers and their families should starve to death? Is not my hon. Friend sick and tired of constant Tory baiting of people who are not rich?

Mr. O'Malley

My hon. Friend is right, because that is precisely what the hon. Gentleman was suggesting.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis

Since supplementary benefits are not paid under the P.A.Y.E. code, will the Minister arrange that these benefits are caught up and charged to income tax so that they pay tax on them?

Mr. O'Malley

My hon. Friend the Minister of State, in reply to an earlier Question, has stated that there is a partial regard of income tax refunds which strikers receive. Concerning the making of arrangements for recovery of supplementary benefits, the administrative costs of doing so would be disproportionate to the amount received, particularly because there would no doubt have to be provision for abandoning recovery where hardship might otherwise occur.