PENSIONERS PAYMENTS [MONEY] (Hansard, 13 November 1978)

§ Dr. Edmund Marshall (Goole)
I wish to make a few comments in relation to the money resolution because this is the only opportunity that I have of commenting on the scope of the bonus for which provision is made in the Bill. As my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) and Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) have said, the form in which the money resolution is drafted and the difficulty of amending the Bill makes it impossible in Committee to increase the scope of the Christmas bonus to groups of people who last year did not qualify for the bonus. In some cases this was because of anomalous discrimination.
If Parliament is to play its proper role in relation to the legislation that Governments propose we should have an opportunity to improve that legislation. This is particularly so when the Bill is presented as an identical repeat of last year's legis 164 lation. The House should have an opportunity to improve what happened last year.
The improvement that I should have liked to see—and it makes me critical of the money resolution—is an opportunity to amend the Bill so that £20 rather than £10 is paid to those male retirement pensioners who have wives under the age of 60 years.
The situation came to light for me last year when I realised that married retirement pensioners in this category received only £10. At first I could not understand how this happened. It is because of the wording of last year's legislation. Such married couples receive only £10 even though during the year the level of their pension is in general exactly the same as if both man and wife were over retirement age. It is anomalous, when there is no difference in the general rate of pension payment, that there should be a 50 per cent. discrimination in the level of the bonus.
I use this opportunity to say that when my right hon. Friends are considering possible extensions of bonus payments in the future they should extend the scope of the payment in this case.
If we are to have a repetition of Bills each year, the House should have the opportunity to amend them. Some of my hon. Friends have said that there should be permanent legislation which could be invoked perhaps by statutory instrument or resolution in each successive year. In those circumstances it would make more sense to have the legislation in a rigid form, as in the money resolution. I regret that the form of the money resolution is such that the House has not the opportunity properly to consider the Bill.

§ The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Stanley Orme)
Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) in this matter. It is not a question of the Government's not wanting to help the wives of whom he is speaking. I do not think that a great deal of money would be involved in doing as he suggests. If it were a simple matter, therefore, we would do it. The main difficulty of including wives under 60 would be of identification. The Post Office has carried out the bulk of this 165 operation on behalf of the Department. It makes one £10 payment in respect of each appropriate order book. Most wives over 60 years of age have a separate order book and can therefore be readily identified by the post office. There is, however, no separate order book for a wife under 60 of a retirement pensioner who receives the dependency in-increase for her. In many cases, the man's book does not indicate that the payment includes such an increase.
If we were to extend the scheme, any extension of the payment to the wives of retirement pensioners would need to be accompanied, in fairness, by an extension to the wives of other beneficiaries such as invalidity pensioners, and the operational burden on the Department at this time of the year would be tremendous.
We examined this matter after last year's debate. I stress that our reason for not proceeding is not a question of our not wanting to assist. If my hon. Friend had been in a position to move an amendment, it would have been operationally impossible to pay the money before Christmas. The difficulties involved might have meant that payment would have been made well into the new year. The problem of extending the benefit therefore raises many operational difficulties.

§ Dr. Marshall
Why is it not possible, looking ahead over 12 months, to provide retirement pensioners and wives who are under the age of 60 with two pension books rather than one?

§ Mr. Orme
The expense of that would be considerable and there would still be the problem of identification. As we are now moving to the new pension scheme, involving women's rights and equality, with women getting benefits in their own right, the problem will not occur in the future, but it will take some time for it to disappear.
There is no question of my standing at this Box making an excuse for not doing something that we could have done. We have to carry our staff with us. To do as my hon. Friend suggests would mean a great deal of work. The staff is already under extreme pressure. It has just uprated 18 million benefits and it has the Christmas bonus to deal with. The phasing in of the new pension scheme 166 begins next April, and that involves a great deal of work.
I have taken note of my hon. Friend's comments and if in the longer term we were to change the basis of the scheme we might be able to accommodate him. However, we cannot do it at the moment.