§ Mr. NewtonI beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 6, line 4, at end insert—
'(5) The Social Security (Widow's Benefit and Retirement Pensions) Regulations 1974 139 shall be amended by adding the following proviso at the end of paragraph 7 ("Conditions for entitlement to a Category D retirement pension"):—Provided that a person of British nationality born in Great Britain, notwithstanding his failure to qualify for a Category D retirement pension on attaining the age of 80 by reason of the residence qualification in (a) above, shall be entitled to such a pension at such later time as he shall have been resident in Great Britain for 10 years in the previous 20 years."'.In adding my own words of congratulation to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), I have to acknowledge that the amendment to which we now come was the product of an occasion in Committee when we were not so lucky and tied eight votes to eight, with the result that the Chairman cast his vote against the amendment. We now find ourselves returning to it on the Floor of the House.The amendment on which we tied in Committee concerned the over-80s pension introduced during the course of the Conservative Government of 1970–74.
The present position, as the Minister is well aware, is that it is impossible for a person to qualify for what we often talk about, as a piece of shorthand, as the over-80s pension unless he has in broad terms—I accept that there are small qualifications—been in this country for 10 years before attaining the age of 80. If he does not qualify at the age of 80—that is, if he was not already in this country before the age of 70—he will never qualify, because he cannot qualify later having been in the country for 10 years. If he has not fulfilled the qualification at the age of 80, that is it.
The purpose of the amendment is to modify the position for those defined in the amendment as being
of British nationality born in Great Britain".The amendment would allow such people to receive the over-80s pension when they had been in this country for 10 years. In that sense the amendment modifies the rule for a category of people defined in a limited way.We tied in Committee. I was not entirely convinced by the Minister's arguments on that occasion. The hon. Gentleman has written to us since and I have again looked at the arguments in Committee. I should like to comment on 140 what the hon. Gentleman said in Committee and on what he has written to us since.
First, I should like to refer to the case that led to my interest. I shall not go over it as fully as I did in Committee; I shall merely outline the case, which caused my concern.
A constituent of mine, Mrs. Bajwa, who was born in my constituency quite a long time ago, went to work in Tanganyika in 1921. Her husband died in Tanganyika in 1941. Mrs. Bajwa was unable to leave Tanganyika at that time because we were in the middle of the Second World War and it was not easy for civilians to leave Africa. Therefore, she obtained employment and continued to work in Tanganyika until the mid-1950s when, for various reasons, into which I shall not go, her thoughts began to turn to returning to this country. For various reasons connected with the difficulties of transition from colonial days to the present Tanzanian days, that proved a long and difficult process. It was not until 1964 that she was able to leave Tanzania, as it had become, and return to this country. By that time she was 72.
In 1972 Mrs. Bajwa became 80 years of age, applied for the over-80s pension, ran into the rule that I have described, and found that she could not get it. I emphasise that Mrs. Bajwa was born in this country, that her children were educated here, that she spent a long time serving our interests abroad, that she returned here in her retirement, and that she now finds herself denied the over-80s pension because of the 10-year rule.
Mrs. Bajwa thinks that she should receive the pension. I certainly think that she should, and I suspect that, regardless of the arguments that we may have about the legal technicalities, almost anybody familiar with the circumstances of the case would feel that, as a matter of common justice and humanity, she should have the pension.
I turn from that piece of background to the arguments put forward by Ministers in Committee. They fell under two interlinked heads. The first was what I call arguments about countervailing laws or legal commitments. Reference was made to the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which, it was said, 141 might preclude us from making an amendment of the kind that I had put forward.
I touch on that matter in passing, because the Minister did not put too much weight on it in Committee. I do not think that anyone else took seriously the notion that that covenant would prevent our making a change of the kind that I had proposed if we wished to do so.
Secondly, there was mention of the Race Relations Act. Indeed, the Minister for Social Security virtually accused me of being a racialist—which I do not think he meant, and which I reject—for having sought to confine the amendment to people of British birth and nationality.
That was not my purpose. My purpose was to limit the cost, and I can only say, on the argument about the Race Relations Act—an argument that was not fully developed in Committee and was not the subject of the Minister's letter—that I find it difficult to believe that that Act would prevent us from paying a social security benefit of this kind to persons born in this country. There might be a more genuine argument about the point of British nationality and British citizenship, and I can see that there might be complications there, but I doubt very much whether they would preclude us from doing anything along the lines that I have suggested.
As an aside, I may say that I, personally, would prefer to see the net cast a little wider than I have done in my amendment. I cast it as narrowly as this to keep costs to a minimum, but I accept that there might be a problem, if only because most of us would like to see our social security legislation applied as even-handedly as possible to all in this country without too many of these distinctions.
I am not convinced that it would be impossible to do this, and I am not convinced, either, that it would be offensive to the majority of people here if we were to confine the benefit that I am suggesting to those who were born here and to seek some way of confining it to those who have a strong and continuous connection with this country over the period of their lifetime. At any rate, the Minister might want to come back to that aspect.
142 I want to come to the third point that the Minister made, of countervailing legal obligations, which undoubtedly has much more force. This is the question of our obligations to the EEC. There were two aspects to what the Minister said. First, he suggested that our commitment under the Treaty of Rome might make any attempt to do what I have suggested wholly out of order—it would be overridden by the Treaty of Rome. As I understand it from the letter that the Minister addressed to my right hon. Friend—he kindly sent me a copy—his legal consultations have shown that that is not the case, that the Treaty would not automatically override an amendment of our domestic legislation along the lines that I have suggested.
What is clear from what the Minister said in Committee and in his letter to my right hon. Friend is that the treaty undoubtedly would modify what I have proposed here, to the extent that, in certain circumstances at least, this could not be confined to British nationals but would have to be extended to EEC nationals. It might be helpful, from the Minister's point of view and that of the House, if I read what I take to be the relevant part of the Minister's letter dated 12th February 1977.
The Minister wrote:
… if a nationality condition were to be imposed for some over-80 pensions, the effect of the Regulations would be to place other EEC nationals who were covered by these Regulations in the same position as British nationals in relation to that condition. Article 7"—that is Article 7 of the Treaty—would not however nullify the effect of the nationality condition in relation to persons who, even though EEC nationals, were not covered by the EEC social security Regulations and were therefore outside the application of the Treaty in this respect, nor, of course, in relation to persons who were nationals of other countries.The same situation would also apply to nationals of a non-EEC country with which we have a bilateral social security reciprocal agreement containing a non-discrimination clause.I confess that if those in the House now have digested that, on my reading of it, they are a good deal cleverer than I am, because it took me several readings to digest. I think that it ought to be on the record, and I hope that the Minister will agree with my interpretation, which is that our obligation under EEC 143 regulations would extend my amendment beyond British nationals to EEC nationals in some circumstances, but would not automatically extend it to everybody who is not a British national; that is to say, the effect of the amendment, even modified by EEC regulations, would none the less be more limited than an amendment that had no qualifications at all in it. My amendment has the effect of preventing it from being universal.9.0 p.m.
In Committee the Minister also raised the question of the possible invalidity of the limitations of my amendment as it relates to those born in Great Britain. I shall not weary the House by repeating the comparable paragraph that the Minister wrote on this issue. I hope that he will agree with me when I say that the question whether or not EEC commitments override the qualification of being born in Britain is a good deal less clear. There is some uncertainty— neither the Minister nor his advisers are absolutely clear—about the effect of that commitment and how far it would be overridden.
To sum up this part of the Minister's objections to the qualifications contained in my amendment, it appears that there is a point, somewhere in the middle, at which we meet. My qualifications would not be entirely effective and not entirely limited to British nationals born in Great Britain. Equally, those limitations would apply to some extent and would prevent the amendment from being universal.
I emphasise that, because it leads me to the Minister's objections to the cost of the proposals. In Committee he said that there were two elements in the amendment. First of all, he recognised that there was a great deal of uncertainty, but said that at present there were about 1,000 people over 80 who would qualify for the over-80 pension, as a result of my amendment, but who already received supplementary benefit. Therefore, there would be no additional cost involved, because the cost of paying the pension would be offset by the reduced cost of supplementary benefit. We can write that out of the argument.
In that case we would simply be taking some people off supplementary benefit 144 and reducing the dependence of others upon it. That is an objective that I am sure all hon. Members would agree is desirable.
I turn now to the main arm of the Minister's argument about cost, in which he emphasised more strongly his uncertainty about what precisely was the situation. In Committee he said:
there might be a further 2,000 others who stand to gain in full when they have lived in this country for 10 years."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 21st December 1976; c. 141.]There was uncertainty both about the numbers and the ages of these people and therefore one was virtually making a guess or arbitrary assumption when estimating the cost. The Minister concluded by saying that about half the 3,000 people involved—the 1,000 on supplementary benefit and the 2,000 others—might qualify straight away. He said that about 500 of them would be on supplementary benefit, and that the gross cost, therefore, would be £750,000, offset by the £250,000 supplementary benefit, giving a final figure of £500,000.We are in a difficulty. The Minister acknowledges that his estimates are uncertain and virtually arbitrary. I cannot dispute them and say they are too high. But, on the basis that the Minister did not choose the lowest possible estimate, and on the basis that we have already agreed, that the limitations in my amendment would reduce the numbers somewhat—because those figures are based on the assumption that the limitation to people of British birth and nationality could not be applied—and given that my limitations have some effect, the figure is likely to be lower than the Minister suggested.
At that point, rather than quarrel further over the figures, I would say that it looks as if we are talking, at the most, of a figure somewhere between £250,000 and £500,000. That is the best "guesstimate" we can make. That is well within the margins of estimating error on almost any aspect of Government policy. It is well within the margins of error on the subjects that we were talking about earlier. It is a possible cost, but I do not believe that it is a cost of a size that could justify denying social justice to people such as my constituent and those who may be in the same category, 145 if we are convinced, as I am, that it is right to do something about such people.
In Committee the Under-Secretary and, even more so, the Minister of State, made a great deal in Committee of the so-called open-ended commitment which this proposal involved. I want to spend a moment or two examining precisely what this open-ended commitment is supposed to be. The phrase implies, and was intended to imply, some substantial, continuing risk to the public purse. Let us look at what the commitment may be and who may be enjoying the benefits of it.
We have to make three assumptions before we can assume that the commitment is of any size at all. First, we have to assume that a pension of £9.45 a week, the current level, is sufficient to attract a large number of people to come flocking into the country and I beg leave to doubt that. Secondly, we have to assume that, having been attracted here by the prospect of these riches, they live for 10 years when, by definition, they have come here after reaching the age of 70.
Thirdly, we have to assume that they would all be in the category in which they had incomes that would mean that they would not qualify for supplementary benefit anyway. What we have to assume before we take this open-ended commitment argument seriously is a substantial number of people with a measure of private income, a life expectancy above average, willing to incur the expense of moving to this country after the age of 70, and prepared to wait 10 years to get a pension of less than £10 a week at current prices.
It is absolutely ludicrous to suppose that Europe or any other part of the world is full of people waiting to come to this country under those circumstances. Whatever the Minister may argue about the current costs, which are almost too trivial to be taken into account when we are arguing about doing justice to a number of people, I do not think we can take seriously the implication of the open-ended commitment argument. It is little more than a phrase.
We have here an amendment that would cost a tiny amount but would be well within the margins of error of almost any significant Government pro- 146 gramme. In accepting it we would be doing justice not just to my constituent, about whom I am obviously concerned, but to other people—not a large number—in similar circumstances. We would be putting right something in our system which is unfair to people who were born in this country, who have a strong connection with this country, and to whom we have some obligation when they return here in their old age.
§ Mr. DeakinsThere are two main objections to this amendment. First, there is the restriction of the easing of the residence test to people of British nationality born in Great Britain and, secondly, there is the cost. The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) has spent some time going into detail on both counts. On the residence issue, which is important, we had some debate in Committee and there has been further correspondence since then. The hon. Member quoted a letter sent to his right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin).
The position is that the Treaty of Rome prohibits discrimination on the grounds of nationality within the field of application of the Treaty. If a nationality condition were to be imposed for category D pensions, as the amendment proposes, the effect of EEC social security regulations would be to place other EEC nationals covered by those regulations in the same position as British nationals in relation to that nationality provision.
The effect of the nationality provision would not, however, be nullified in relation to EEC nationals not covered by the EEC regulations nor in relation to people who were nationals of countries outside the EEC except where we have a bilateral social security reciprocal agreement with a country containing a nondiscrimination clause.
Although the Treaty of Rome and the EEC regulations do not specifically prohibit the amendment's other condition of being born in Great Britain the European Court might hold that it was not in the spirit of the treaty, and we would have to consider extending it to cover birth in other countries of the EEC. This condition might also be said to conflict with the non-discriminatory provisions of reciprocal agreements made with non-EEC countries. It goes a little wider 147 than the hon. Member for Braintree was seeking to suggest.
I do not wish to go into detail about the other two aspects which concern the Government, though not the Opposition. The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the United Kingdom ratified on 20th May 1976, forbids discrimination in the recognition of the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance. In regard to race relations legislation, although Parliament can make or unmake any law, the amendment would certainly be inconsistent with and repugnant to the spirit of that legislation, and therefore very much open to criticism.
It seems particularly objectionable that the Opposition, who, when in office, fulfilled our country's moral obligation to the Ugandan Asians who were being expelled from their homes, should be moving an amendment which would ensure that the senior members of that community were the main group excluded from a general extension of benefit.
Generally speaking, the Government are opposed to nationality conditions in social security legislation and are trying to remove any such conditions. For example, the family allowance system, which has nationality conditions, is being replaced by child benefit, which has not.
On the question of cost, I do not want to go into all the arguments that were given in Committee. The hon. Member for Braintree has been quite fair. The assumptions on which our estimate of £500,000 a year was made could be quite wide of the mark, either up or down, and I would not like to say which way. But the hon. Gentleman's cavalier attitude as a Back Bencher made me almost envious of him—saying, in effect, what was £250,000 or £500,000 within the margin of error of major items of public expenditure? I cannot imagine what his right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford, who was a Treasury Minister, would say to that. But I can imagine what my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Treasury would say. They would not accept that as an excuse either now or at any time for remedying what may seem to be an injustice, merely on 148 the ground that the cost was within the margin of error in estimating.
Therefore, while the Government would not on the grounds of principle resist a relaxation of the residence conditions for category D pensions without the restrictions on nationality and place of birth, which they find objectionable, I do not think that such relaxation can possibly be justified in present circumstances.
§ Mr. NewtonI am grateful to the Minister for having addressed himself to this matter. I accept that this is a difficult problem. At best, I must acknowledge the complications he mentioned, especially in the EEC situation. As I have said, I would prefer to see this not governed by a nationality condition. I should prefer to see it spread more widely. I do not think I can rightly press the matter this evening, but I hope that the Minister will give further thought to it at the earliest possible opportunity.
It would be much more satisfactory if we were to pay the over-80s pension to those who have been here for more than 10 years, whether or not they are British born or of British nationality. As I said, I attempted to limit it to a narrow range of cases where I thought that the injustice was particularly clear, but I do not think it right to restrict payment of these pensions to those who have been here for 10 years when they reach the age of 80. I cannot see any logic in that at all. The notion, for example, that someone should be able to come here at the age of 69 and qualify for the pension when he reaches the age of 80 but that those who come here at the age of 71 or 72 should never be able to qualify seems to be anomalous and unfair, leaving all nationality considerations aside.
9.15 p.m.
If there is to be a pension of this kind, we should try to extend it to as many people as we can. If there has to be a residence qualification, so be it, but a qualification that means that some elderly people can never qualify is not satisfactory. We already have an open-ended commitment, which is much more important than the Minister talked about in Committee, because there are far more likely to be numbers of EEC nationals and others arrriving here before the age of 70 than after that age. They will 149 qualify for this pension in due course anyway.
I understand the Treasury pressure that leads Ministers to reject even what I regard as a minuscule cost, but I must also recognise Ministers' problems, even if only because of those pressures. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.