TELEPHONES (CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS) (Hansard, 16 May 1972)

§ Mr. John Golding (Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Against the present background of industrial conflict, I shall deal with a most bizarre situation. It is a story of a trade union struggling to enable its members to work for nothing in support of the chronically sick and disabled.
It is not a new story. In the early 1960s, the Post Office Engineering Union members offered to install hospital telephone trolleys without pay. The Post 489 Office refused, as Mr. Ryland, on its behalf, later refused in 1964 a much bigger offer from the union that its members would install telephones free of charge for the house-bound, the elderly and the infirm. This idea was put to our National Executive Council by Blackburn Branch, and when the other branches were consulted, 79 replied in favour and only four were against.
Originally, the idea was to provide an emergency lifeline, but some of us were also made aware by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition how important it was to combat isolation. In July, 1964, a union offer of free labour, described by the Post Office as both novel and generous, was turned down on the ground that the Post Office would have to make a substantial contribution in kind and that Government policy was against subsidising particular services. It was one of the last acts in office of the then Postmaster-General, Mr. J. R. Bevins.
In 1965, in a different spirit, his successor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), convened a conference of welfare organisations to discuss the problem with the union and the Post Office. From this conference emerged a survey which later led to the establishment of a two-year fellowship at the University of Essex. Mr. J. M. Atkinson was appointed to study the problems of isolation in society and the means of improving essential communication for the aged, the handicapped, the ill and the house-bound by the use of existing Post Office services or facilities which it would be appropriate for the Post Office to provide. Over four years later, we are still waiting for the Post Office to publish this report.
Also emerging from the 1965 conference was the portaphone experiment in Manchester. Portaphone is a piece of receive-and-talk apparatus which, when plugged into ordinary mains supply and switched on, can be used to put a person with one piece of equipment in touch with a person with a similar piece of equipment within a range of about half a mile, provided that they are on the same phase of electricity AC supply.
Unfortunately, for technical and social reasons, the experiment failed. That is why we still need telephones. From the point of view of this debate we should 490 note, however, that the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance advised that the voluntary work of our Manchester members would be most unlikely to be considered to be insurable employment, and suggested that the Post Office should cover the industrial injuries problem by ex gratia payments. The Post subsequently readily agreed.
With the failure of the portaphone experiment the union would have waited for the Essex report had it not been for the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970—known as the Alf Morris Act. In Committee on that Bill we were able to insert a provision requiring local authorities to provide telephones for those in need. At this point the union nationally came to rely on the local authorities, and did not object when the Post Office nationally told its regions not to provide cheap telephones for the chronically sick and disabled.
In justice, we thought that the local authorities would implement the Act and that the Government would assist them to do so more generously than proved to be the case. In the event, it was the Post Office Engineering Union branches which realised that too little was being done and wanted again to show an example. The attitude of the union was: let us shame them into it.
It was learned in June, 1971, that the Wales and Marches Union Regional Council had reached a tentative agreement with the Welsh Telephone Board—which experimentally had been given a great deal of autonomy—by which telephones would be fitted without pay. The Post Office would then charge the local authorities £12.50 less than the full charge. Although disapproving very strongly the Post Office nationally, under pressure from many union local branches, local authorities and parliamentary questioning agreed in February, 1972, to allow this voluntary work throughout the country.
Then, just as enthusiasm for the scheme was riding high, not only in Wales but throughout the country, it received a big setback. In response to a parliamentary Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox), the Minister replied: It does not seem that under the arrangements at present in operation this work is covered by the provisions of the Industrial 491 Injuries Act. The matter is, however, being discussed with the Post Office and I will write to the hon. Member as soon as the position has been resolved.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th January, 1972; Vol. 829, c. 92.] That answer produced the only successful cooling off period achieved by this Government.
When branches replied to our 1963 initiative, many of them, although enthusiastically behind the proposal, insisted on industrial injury benefit cover as a condition. This is understandable. The job involves hazards of poles and ladders, and we can hardly expect our members to put their families at financial risk.
Before the Welsh agreement was concluded the Post Office had been advised by its lawyers that the volunteers would be covered for industrial injury purposes. This view was shared by the union's legal department. The Minister's reply came as a blow, because the men would not volunteer without insurance cover. If the Minister does not act quickly to provide that cover we shall find it difficult to pick up steam again. In January we were annoyed with the Department. In passing, may I ask whether it is not most unusual for a ministerial decision of a judicial character to be anticipated in such a way in a parliamentary answer?
Whether or not the pronouncement should have been made, one must challenge whether it is correct. Has alarm been caused amongst our members, and have the house-bound been denied telephones, unnecessarily? The union's legal department thinks so. It advises me that the commissioner has ruled that it is not necessary for men to be paid to be covered for industrial injury benefit. After all, the men are under the control of the Post Office, and, indeed, use Post Office vehicles and equipment. Their agreement in Wales provides for voluntary duty.
But if we were annoyed in January, today, five months later, we are angry—angry that so far no progress has been announced. We know that the Minister has been "talking" with the Post Office—they are probably arguing about who should pay this small amount. Let me say, however, that the Post Office has no interest in helping this scheme. The union—and particularly the union branches—has pushed the Post Office into this against its will. It is the Minis- 492 ter who is responsible for the chronically sick and disabled, and it is the Minister who should resolve this deadlock. We have been advised that he could solve this problem easily by using his powers under the Industrial Injuries Act. Our men are not asking for much—some small insurance cover. In return they will work, not for themselves, but for the chronically sick and disabled. They are public spirited and want to get on with the job.
If the Minister believes in voluntary effort, if he has any concern for the house-bound disabled, he will, as a matter of urgency, provide for the insurance cover of Post Office engineers who fit telephones on a voluntary basis for the house-bound chronically sick and disabled. We believe that the Minister has already delayed too long.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) for raising this important subject in spite of the fact that it is nearly five o'clock in the morning.
I am grateful for two reasons. First, this short debate helps to underline that to the elderly and the handicapped, contact with people outside is very important whether it be by telephone or by other means available through modern technology. Secondly, it gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to the public spirit of the Post Office Engineering Union—in which I know the hon. Gentleman has an interest—in offering to install telephones in their own time, and also to the Post Office for agreeing to install without connection charges.

§ Mr. Golding
I hate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman so early in his speech, but the Post Office has not agreed to connect without charge. It makes its own charge of £12.50 or more to the local authority. It is only the union members who are making any financial sacrifice.

§ Mr. Dean
I do not want to argue on that detail with the hon. Gentleman. My understanding is that the Post Office is also making a contribution in the cases where members are installing phones in their own free time. The main point that I was making is that there has been a display of public spiritedness on the part 493 of both the Post Office and Post Office workers.
A number of the points the hon. Member has made are for the Post Office rather than for me and I will deal with the aspects which concern me and which I am able to answer. Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, requires the appropriate local authorities in England and Wales to examine the need of substantially and permanently handicapped people, including the elderly, for a telephone, and if satisfied of the need, in a particular case, to provide the person concerned with a telephone or assist his obtaining one. As the hon. Gentleman said, an experimental scheme has been in operation in the area covered by the South Wales Post Office Headquarters which includes parts of Shropshire, Cheshire and Herefordshire, as well as Wales, for the past six months under which Post Office engineers provide their labour on a voluntary basis, outside normal working hours and without remuneration for the installation of telephones where these are being supplied to handicapped people by the local authority. The engineers use Post Office equipment and materials. The Post Office has abated its normal connection charge for the installation of telephones in these circumstances.
There has been no report of any telephone engineer having sustained an accident during the experiment in Wales and the surrounding district and we understand that the Post Office there gave a verbal assurance to the engineers involved that in the event of an accident which was not covered by the Industrial Injuries Act the Post Office would probably be prepared to make payment of equivalent benefits on an ex-gratia basis, but this has not yet been formally confirmed.
It is nevertheless understandable that the engineers should be concerned about their position—as was expressed by the hon. Gentleman—should they be unfortunate enough to be injured in the course of their voluntary work. The Department, however, has no power to pay benefit under the industrial injuries scheme unless the conditions laid down in that scheme are satisfied. The employments which are insurable under the Act are, so far as is relevant in the present context, those which are performed under 494 a contract of service or under conditions analogous to a contract of service. Legal advice is to the effect that voluntary work under the arrangements which operate in the experiment in Wales is not employment under a contract of service.
The ordinary employment of a Post Office engineer is under a contract of service and a person is considered to remain in the course of such insurable employment when carrying out acts reasonably incidental to the employment. That is the legal advice, but the interpretation of the legal advice is not for me or my Department but for the independent statutory authorities. Anyone who feels that the legal position, as I believe it to be, is incorrect is perfectly entitled, if he so wishes, to test that before the independent statutory authorities.
Post Office engineers are, of course, covered for the benefits of the national insurance scheme by virtue of their normal employment and if they were unfortunate enough to be injured in the course of their voluntary work they would qualify for sickness or invalidity benefit.
In relation to an employment which is not insurable under the Industrial Injuries Act, the Secretary of Sate has power to prescribe that it shall be included among the insurable employments only if the nature and other circumstances of the service rendered or the work performed in the employment and any insurable employment are so similar as to result in anomalies in the operation of the Act. The main philosophy underlying this Act and its predecessors is that, in particular, persons who are at law servants have to work under conditions other than of their own making and need special insurance cover. The same considerations cannot be said to apply to persons who undertake work voluntarily. To cover the kind of arrangement with which we are concerned it would therefore be necessary to amend the Act.
It would not, however, be possible to restrict such an Amendment to one particular type of voluntary work. There are many spheres of activity in the country in which very valuable service is given by public-spirited people without payment of any kind, particularly in the area of service to the sick, the aged, and the disabled, but it would be invidious to select and bring into insurance cover one particular category out of the vast 495 range of voluntary effort. To cover voluntary work generally would mean a substantial change in the industrial injuries scheme. So to amend the Act would raise very wide issues, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate.
However, we have made two practical suggestions to the Post Office which I understand are still being considered. The first is that it might be possible to devise terms for the performance of any work of this kind by Post Office engineers which would make it insurable employment for the purposes of the Industrial Injuries Act and so bring it within the scope of the industrial injuries benefit provisions. I understand from the Post Office that there are difficulties, but were it able to rearrange the contracts so that this work were brought within the contracts, insurance cover under the industrial injuries scheme would follow. This is one possible suggestion which we have put to the Post Office which is still being considered.
Another possibility which we have suggested is that the Post Office might consider introducing an arrangement to assure an injured person of financial benefits equivalent to those he would have received under the Act had the work been insurable. This is the ex gratia pay- 496 ment to which the hon. Gentleman referred. If the Post Office should decide to do that, we would be willing to offer help and advice and, indeed, medical boarding. We would offer the same sort of procedures and the experience we have as is available under the industrial injuries arrangements.
These are the two possibilities which we have suggested to the Post Office, but clearly the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it must be a matter for the Post Office to consider and to decide whether one or other is appropriate.
I am sorry that this matter has taken longer than was hoped. I know that I gave an answer to the hon. Gentleman some time ago now. I very much hoped that it would be possible before now to say what the conclusions are. I assure him that the Department is anxious to help in every way it can to overcome the difficulties involved. However, he will appreciate that the decision on these matters is for the Post Office ultimately, although we shall do all we can to help to resolve the difficulties which arise in this case.