HL Deb 04 May 1950 vol 167 cc133-6

4.7 p.m.

LORD KERSHAW

My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Order as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last be approved. I am sure your Lordships will welcome Regulation 2, but you may feel that I ought to explain in a few words what it purports to do. It will be remembered that by the National Assistance Act, 1948, the Poor Law was abolished. We have under that Act, and in the regulations then passed under that Act, what is known as the determination of need regulation, which in one way attempted to make uniform throughout the country the standard of assistance that should be given to people who otherwise were not entitled to benefits under the other Acts of social insurance. Your Lordships will remember that the scales as laid down in these regulations are not scales that must be taken as scales of benefit: they are merely a standard by which must be determined whether or not: a person needs further assistance from State funds. Many outside and other resources that a person might have are excluded from the tables which will be found in the regulations. For instance, the value of a person's residence is excluded completely from these tables—or, putting it another way, the amount of rent a person has to pay is usually added to the scale as laid down in the regulations. Certain war savings, trade union benefits and friendly society benefits, up to a limit which will be seen in the regulations, are also excluded from the calculations. In addition, the Minister has a discretionary power, which is unaffected by the regulations we are now discussing, to increase allowances for special reasons—extra food for sick people and, in many cases, domestic help have been given.

It will interest your Lordships to know that one-quarter of the whole of the applicants for assistance under this scheme have received or were receiving, this extra discretionary grant last year, at a cost to the Exchequer of some £3,000,000. As to the rates—and it is the rates only which are altered by the regulations before your Lordships—there are special rates which I should call to your attention for blind and tubercular people. Until your Lordships pass this regulation, the rates are that a man and wife both of whom are blind or suffering from tuberculosis receive 65s. a week, outside the rent or any of the other benefits I mentioned. In future, that rate will be 68s. 6d. There were 45,000 blind people and 25,000 suffering from tuberculosis who received those special rates last year.

I now want to call attention to the alterations in the ordinary rate proposed by these regulations. The ordinary rate for a married couple under the present regulations is 40s. a week. That is to be raised by 3s. 6d. to 43s. 6d. a week, and a single person's rate is to be raised from 24s. to 26s. Your Lordships will be interested to know that there were rather fewer than 1,200,000 people receiving assistance under these regulations in March of this year, of whom over 700,000 were old age pensioners, who, in total, amount to 4,500,000. It is a particular pleasure to me to have the duty of putting this Order before your Lordships. I am sure you will not wish me to debate at any length the need for an increase in these amounts. That need is due to the increase in the cost of living, which no doubt will in the near future be debated at length in your Lordships' House. For the moment, accepting the circumstances as they are, that the cost of living has gone up, it is a pleasure to me to be able to ask your Lordships to consent to these regulations which give a more generous allowance to the people who so greatly need it. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Special Order as reported from the Special Orders Committee on Thursday last, be approved.—(Lord Kershaw.)

4.10 p.m.

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kershaw, not only for the news which he has announced, but also for the clear exposition of the subject which he has given to us. That will relieve me of saying a great deal of what I wanted to say. It is perfectly true that this is a great advance, and I am glad that His Majesty's Government have chosen this time to make it. At the same time, from letters which have come flooding in upon me from all quarters, I think that old people living alone or living with their wives without children may still need some extra concessions. Case after case has been brought to my notice. There is one case of an old man living with his wife who receives the normal allowances and an extra supplementary allowance, which I think is about 14s.—my noble friend will correct me if I am wrong—bringing the total income of the pair up to, at the most, 58s., which has to cover rent and everything.

I do not think it is possible to live a life which can properly be called a life on that sum, and while I do not ask His Majesty's Government to increase those amounts, I should like to make the suggestion that in spite of what the noble Lord has said about the extra grants which are made at the discretion of the Minister over and above the statutory grants, the Assistance Board still do not exercise their discretion fully enough, especially in the cases of old persons. The noble Lord rightly said that the Poor Law has been done away with, but we should remember that the duty of the old relieving officer was to relieve the need as and where he found it, and to spend what was necessary to relieve that need. The matter has been transferred to the Assistance Board, and I cannot help feeling that the Treasury auditor stands rather too close behind them and they are frightened to exercise their discretion as freely as they might otherwise do. I ask the noble Lord to examine that side of the question and see whether a little further relaxation cannot be made in the case of old people living alone.

On Question, Motion agreed to.