§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
2.25 pm§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Nicholas Lyell)I was looking forward to listening, at least briefly, to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson), but perhaps the warm weather on this beautiful spring day has caused the cold climate allowance to be far from his mind.
There are a number of reasons why I believe that a cold climate allowance is inappropriate and unjustified. First, it would breach the fundamental principle that income support and family credit, like the existing supplementary benefit and family income supplement schemes, are national benefits, uniform throughout the country.
Expenditure patterns vary throughout the country according to many factors, of which climate is only one. For example, transport costs vary between areas, as do other costs. If we concede that a special allowance should be made for one factor, it will be difficult to resist pressure for other variables to be taken into account. Even if it were possible to devise a scheme which accurately reflected all the differences in individual expenditure, which I doubt, it would run counter to the thrust of social security reform which is to make the main income-related schemes easier to understand and to administer.
§ Mr. Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire)I agree that regionally to vary national benefits would be a retrograde step. The Minister deals with the matter in a genteel fashion, but I am astonished that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) is not in his place, because he has been running a campaign in Scotland on this issue. That he has not turned up for the Second Reading debate on his own Bill is a measure of his interest, which should be noted.
The Government have improved the severe weather supplement this year, but it is still not sensitive enough to meet the needs of people north of the border. I hope that, 960 although the Minister might reject the Bill's proposal, he will consider sympathetically proposals for a better scheme to be operated next year so that people north of the border and elsewhere do not suffer from hypothermia as they did this winter.
§ Mr. LyellI understand the first part of the hon. Gentleman's intervention. I take the view that the hon. Member for Dundee, East has decided that he is better employed elsewhere than at Westminster, notwithstanding the fact that his Bill is being debated. His absence will help to persuade many of his constituents that he is absolutely right. Before long, we shall learn that he is right.
I reject what the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) says about the Government's cold weather scheme, with which I shall deal if time permits. There is no doubt that the extra severe weather scheme is a good scheme.
§ Mr. KirkwoodI did not not say that the scheme was good, but that it was better.
§ Mr. LyellThe scheme certainly is better. It relates to 63 areas of the United Kingdom. I am sure that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire is a perfectionist. I look forward to his party's proposals for a scheme which relates to 163 areas—or even to 1,063. I should like the hon. Gentleman to have more opportunity for consideration and to intervene on matters of substance rather than humour. The hon. Gentleman might speak later, but first I give him the opportunity to think through his views, and then to develop them.
The hon. Member for Dundee, East still seems reluctant to accept that climate is only one of the factors that affect individual fuel expenditure. Other factors are the size and standard of dwellings, the type of heating system, and the fuel used. Above all, Scotland is not the coldest part of the United Kingdom. Although on average people in Scotland spend more on fuel, their expenditure is lower than that of people in Wales and in parts of England. The figures will be of interest to the House. They show, for example, that while average weekly expenditure on fuel in Great Britain as a whole is £9.27 and, in Scotland, £9.50——
§ It being hall-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.