ELIGIBILITY OF PENSION BY VIRTUE OF SECTION 1 (Hansard, 15 July 1970)

§ Mr. Houghton

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

The Clause would provide a death grant of £15 in respect of any person who becomes eligible for a pension under Clause 1. I say straight away that I am aware that in the mammoth Bill of the former Administration there was express exclusion of persons over pension age in July 1948 from the benefit of a death grant. That, I think, must have been an aberration, a printer's error, or something of that sort. I do not feel committed by it. In these matters, hon. and right hon. Members opposite must make allowances for changes of opinion with the passage of time. After all, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State said last Friday that the Government were of opinion that the logic against this Bill seemed narrowly based, and they thought that it should be broadened out. I am bringing the same broader point of view to bear as did the Secretary of State.

Over the months and years when we have been discussing this matter, we have all heard of the rapid rate at which these old people were passing out, and we 1634 were told that, if we did not hasten with the pension provision which is given in this Bill, there would be no one left; they would all have died.

The benefits given under the first part of the Bill may go to persons who are fairly old, women of 82 and men of 87. I am told that 87 is a great age, though when my father was 87 he was still a full-time textile worker. When one of my uncles died soon after retiring at the age of 90, my father said, "That is what comes of giving up too soon". None the less, for the ordinary run of people, which excludes members of my family, 87 is a great age, and one cannot expect to last much longer then.

The new Clause would provide a kind of bonus at the end of life of five weeks' pension for a death grant. It is very small. I roughly calculate that the total cost would be less than £2 million by the time all death grants have been paid.

On earlier parts of the Bill, we heard that those who are to benefit from it have been excluded from the benefits of the retirement pension scheme for over 20 years. In considering what recompense or restitution they should be given, we have to bear in mind that this benefit is provided very late in the day. Unhappily, many will not live long enough to enjoy it for any great length of time. No doubt, a number of them are worried about what will happen when they go. So we think that, having regard to the fact that the Government have picked out this group of people for particular treatment, there is justification in the context of this Bill for providing the lower rate of death grant. Many people are sad at the exclusion of the older generation from the death grant of the 1948 scheme. But we realised then that it was a benefit that would have had to be paid in respect of everyone in due course, and it would have been a heavy burden on the National Insurance Fund.

The benefit proposed would be payable out of the fund, but it is a small additional charge and I am sure that it would not be begrudged by the contributors. It seems a suitable restitution to be made along with the modest pension provided under the Bill. I hope that we may at long last, towards the end of the Bill's passage, have a gesture from the Government Front Bench. May I give the Under-Secretary a little advice? You 1635 must always keep something up your sleeve, some concession to be made to the Opposition at a suitable moment in the debate, and then everything goes so much more smoothly. I know that the hon. Gentleman did his persuasive best on the last Amendment, but if he had gone just that little bit further he might have saved himself any consequences of the rejection of my new Clause.

I hope that the Clause can be conceded. The hon. Gentleman does not have to bring the Treasury Ministers into the matter, although we understand what wrestling with conscience there must have been in the Treasury on some of the Clauses. We can imagine the hon. Members for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) and Worthing (Mr. Higgins) wrestling together, each wanting to outdo the other in the provisions of the Bill, bearing in mind that one sponsored such a Bill one year and the other did so the next year. We can imagine each of them wishing to go down in history as having really done a good job of work for the Conservative Party.

Here is the chance to round off that job and to provide a death grant of £15 for all who receive a pension under Clause 1. It is a small thing to ask—less than £2 million, £15 per person on death for those, and only those, who are covered by Clause 1.

I sincerely hope that we may have a generous response from the Under-Secretary to satisfy not only right hon. and hon. Members on this side but, judging from the eager looks of his hon. Friends behind him, right hon. and hon. Members opposite as well.

§ Mr. Dean

The right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) does his best with his blandishments to wring a concession out of the Government, but he has chosen a provision which I think he and the Committee will feel is not as practicable, as good in principle, or as inexpensive, as he may think.

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman admitted, with that disarming frankness which he always shows to the Committee, that he has already found cause to regret an omission from the Bill of the previous Administration. He talked about the passage of time changing attitudes. It is remarkable what 3½ weeks will do. I 1636 wonder how many more weeks we shall need before he disowns the whole of that Bill.

One of the difficulties of the Clause is that it will produce some very odd results which I do not think the right hon. Gentleman or the Committee would regard as fair. It would provide for only a minority of all the elderly people who have no title at all to death grant. It would therefore produce anomalous results. Death grant is not payable for the death of anyone over pensionable age on 5th July, 1948. There are about 640,000 people who are not covered for death grant, and under the Amendment the deaths of 100,000 who have paid no or few contributions under the pre-1948 scheme would give rise to title to death grant. But the grant would not be paid for the deaths of over 500,000 people who have paid substantially or in full under the pre-1948 scheme. The right hon. Gentleman can see that his proposal therefore has grave objections.

9.30 p.m.

While it is true that the right hon. Gentleman's proposal would probably cost less than £2 million, to extend the grant to include the deaths of those over pension age in 1948 would bring in 640,000 people, and at the rate of £15, which is half the rate paid for the death of those within 10 years of pensionable age in 1948, the cost would be about £10 million, spread over a number of years. Therefore, for practical reasons and also because of the substantial cost which would inevitably flow from the right hon. Gentleman's proposal, I must ask the Committee to resist the Amendment.