Social Security Payments (Hansard, 2 March 1983)

§ Mr. Allen Adams (Paisley)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to set up a Committee of Inquiry into the use of discretion by the Department of Health and Social Security in regard to withholding social security payments in the light of income or capital possessed by applicants. The Bill is something like myself, modest and unpretentious. Although you will be well aware, Mr. Speaker, that the Government have not listened to the advice they have received from me in presenting my six previous ten-minute Bills, I am sure that on this occasion they will embrace this legislation with open arms and act upon it immediately.

The Bill seeks to establish an inquiry into the workings of the Department of Health and Social Security, especially at local level, with special attention to the discretion or the lack of discretion exercised by local managers of the Department of Health and Social Security.

The title of the Department of Health and Social Security shows most people that it is a Department that should be caring for the health and welfare of the people. However, no other Government Department in my experience invokes such hatred and bad feeling among the populace as a whole.

One group of people in particular feel greatly aggrieved by the attitude they meet at the local Department of Health and Social Security office. This is the group that the Prime Minister and the Government hold up as paragons of virtue, as people who should be emulated and copied. I refer to the self-reliant individual; the individual who has taken out a private insurance policy; the individual who has made sure that he receives a pension, and the individual who has tried his best to take care of himself and his family in the event of losing his job. Those are the people to whom I refer, and it is they whom the DHSS singles out.

A man aged 55 who loses his job may receive £10,000 redundancy money. However, his unemployment benefit will last for only a year and when it runs out he will be turned away from the door of the DHSS office. He will get nothing and he will be forced to use that £10,000 simply to maintain himself and his family. That is disgraceful and negates the principle of the Redundancy Payments Act, which was to give people a little additional money and a small reward for 40 or 50 years' work. That principle is being negated by the DHSS, and by the Government, who refuse to do anything about it.

The same thing applies to someone who has had the foresight to subscribe to a private pension scheme or to belong to a private insurance scheme. If a person receives 248 more than £4 a week, any supplementary benefit will be taken from him. That is quite appalling and disgraceful. If someone has more than £2,500 in the bank, the DHSS will not want to know him. However, £2,500 is not very much these days. Indeed, even £10,000 would hardly amount to two years' salary, and the man made redundant at 55 could have worked for another 10 years. It is time that the Department considered such issues.

Another problem causes a great deal of trouble. It arises when a middle-aged chap is made redundant when his wife has a part-time job. In my constituency, most wives in their forties and fifties have part-time jobs in shops, as home helps or as cleaners at the sheriff court or municipal buildings. The average take-home wage for such women is probably £45 to £50 per week. Once the husband has claimed his year's unemployment benefit, he is debarred from claiming any supplementary benefit. That has caused enormous domestic trouble and friction in homes that were happy and united for many years. It is high time the DHSS considered that problem seriously and divorced the man's position from that of the woman. The man is entitled to something after a year, and should not be told at the DHSS office, "Your wife is working and she's getting £45 a week, mate, so you'll get nothing."

The point is that the whole concept of social security payments is wrong. In 1983 the population should surely be insured against age and unemployment. In my area, men usually lose their jobs in middle age. Such men should not be flung on to social security after having received unemployment benefit for a year. They should be insured, as of right, and should receive unemployment benefit until they are 65 and eligible for retirement pension. Surely that is a sensible and practical proposition, and would only cost a little more. The present situation simply makes beggars of honest men who have worked for 30 or 40 years. It is time that the House stopped it.