HL Deb 24 February 1959 vol 214 cc443-51

2.43 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

VISCOUNT INGLEBY

My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Bill which stands in my name upon the Order Paper. It is a Bill which has already passed the House of Commons at the instance of a Private Member, Mr. Denzil Freeth, who was fortunate in the ballot for Private Members' Bills. It passed the other place with the warm approval of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance.

I think a short explanation is due to your Lordships of its origin, of what it does and why and how it does it. Its subject matter is the adjudication of claims made for family allowances or of benefit or pensions under the National Insurance Industrial Injuries schemes. These are subjects with which I have had some familiarity in the past. As Under-Secretary in the Home Office in the war years I was associated with the late Sir Robert Bannatyne in working out in detail a scheme to supersede the old Workmen's Compensation Acts. Sir Robert was one of the great civil servants of our day. He had given his life to the Industrial Division of the Home Office, and he had been with Workmen's Compensation since it started in 1898. He had already retired in 1939 but he rejoined us at the outbreak of war, and with infinite patience and skill devised the present scheme of National Insurance for industrial injuries. That scheme is his monument.

Later on, as Minister, I was for some years to administer all the schemes of social security. Your Lordships will recall that, following upon Crichel Down and all that, a strong Committee was appointed, under the Chairmanship of Sir Oliver Franks, to inquire into and report upon all forms of administrative tribunals and inquiries. That Committee included the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow, and my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, among other persons of distinction and experience. A large part—or a large part so far as members of the public were concerned—of the task of that Committee was to inquire regarding the adjudication on the literally hundreds of thousands of claims which arise every year under these social insurance schemes.

I must tell your Lordships, quite briefly, that there are two wholly different systems of adjudication relating to family allowances, on the one hand, and to insurance benefits and claims, upon the other. For insurance benefits and claims we were superseding the old Workmen's Compensation Acts, and we therefore had to give a lot of time and trouble to devising a good scheme of adjudication upon the claims. We devised a three-tier system, the claim in the first instance being settled by what is called an insurance officer—a civil servant of course, but acting as impartially as possible. From him there was a right of appeal to the local appeal tribunal, and from the local appeal tribunal there was by leave, and by leave only, an appeal to a Commissioner who enjoyed the status and position of a High Court Judge. This system was applied in the National Insurance Industrial Injuries Scheme, which was copied by the National Insurance Scheme, and it has earned the warmest approval from the Committee which sat under the chairmanship of Sir Oliver Franks, who state in paragraph 171 of their Report: The impression which we have gained of the working of the system of adjudication for National Insurance and Industrial Injuries claims is most favourable. The system is generally considered to have operated smoothly for many years, and we are satisfied that no structural changes are called for. For family allowances the scheme of adjudication was wholly different. Under it the Minister, and the Minister alone, decided the claim in the first instance, whether it was to be allowed or not. From him an aggrieved party could go to a referee, who himself was appointed by the Minister. Now this was a scheme much in vogue before the war for the contributory pensions schemes and matters of that kind. The reason why this, even then, out-of-date system of adjudication was adopted for the family allowances scheme was, of course, that as the war drew to an end, and as the Coalition Government became a little creaky, there was a certain amount of jockeying for position; and it was thought highly desirable that at least one of the great social security Acts should be placed upon the Statute Book before the General Election of 1945. Hence this outmoded scheme of adjudication was adopted for family allowances, and it has been in force ever since.

Now in relation to that matter the Franks Committee reported, at paragraph 184: We believe that family allowance cases could be satisfactorily decided in this way"— that is, as insurance claims— and we accordingly recommend that the functions of Family Allowance Referees be transferred to National Insurance Local Tribunals, with appeal to the National Insurance Commissioner. It is to effect this change that is the primary object of this Bill, and the change is incorporated in Clause 1. The fact that this change is being made involves, of course, no reflection at all upon the referees themselves, barristers of long standing, of whom the principal for many years has been Mr. A. C. Longland, Q.C. The other operative clauses of the Bill, Clauses 2 and 3, also carry out, in letter or in spirit, recommendations of the Franks Committee. Both clauses are to the benefit and advantage of injured workmen. Clause 2 provides an appeal on a point of law to the Commissioner from a decision of a medical appeal tribunal. Clause 3 gives art automatic, unrestricted, right of appeal from all local appeal tribunals to the Commissioner; hitherto appeal has always had to be by leave.

If I may just complete the picture, in case any of your Lordships thinks that some of the recommendations of the Franks Committee in this regard have been overlooked, perhaps I may say—and this was a matter which used to embarrass me considerably when I was the Minister—that I had to make the appointment to the chairmanship of these appeal tribunals. From January 1, under an Act we passed last year, the Tribunals and Inquiries Act, those appointments will be made by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, the Lord Chancellor. Another recommendation of the Franks Committee was that all hearings should be in public unless there was some special reason to the contrary, before tribunals dealing with insurance matters. That has always been the case—that hearings have been in public—so far as the Industrial Injuries scheme has been concerned. The Franks Committee recommended that that should be made general, and the Minister last July by regulations applied the provisions for public hearing to the National Insurance scheme also.

One other matter upon which the Franks Committee recommended was that legal or other representation should be allowed before all these adjudicating bodies. That also was part and parcel of the original Industrial Injuries scheme, and here again the Minister has applied this provision for representation, either by a lawyer or by a best friend, to persons making claims before National Insurance Tribunals. This Bill therefore does all that remains to be done, within its scope, to implement the recommendations of the Franks Committee on which, as I have said, several of your Lordships sat. It is not the good fortune of all of us who serve either as chairman or as members of Committees in this way to see our recommendations so speedily brought forward with a view to placing them upon the Statute Book. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Ingleby.)

2.55 p.m.

LORD LATHAM

My Lords, I am sure that the House is indebted to the noble Viscount who has just introduced this Bill for the attractive manner, seasoned with some personal history, in which he did so. We on this side should like to felicitate the honourable Member of another place on having used his good fortune in the ballot to introduce this Bill and get it passed through the other place. As the noble Viscount has clearly indicated, the Bill is concerned principally with procedural matters, though that fact does not make the Bill any less important or any less useful, because most of the regulations which permeate a modern society are procedural and have their repercussions and their effects upon us as citizens.

As the noble Viscount has stated, this Bill has a twofold purpose. It improves by transfer the adjudication of claims under the Family Allowances Act and also widens the right of appeal of claimants under the National Insurance Industrial Injuries Acts. In both respects these proposals reflect the recommendations of the Committee on Administrative Tribunals and Inquiries, now popularly, and one might almost say affectionately, referred to as the Franks Committee.

At the present time, as the noble Viscount has indicated, appeals in respect of family allowances are referred from the Minister to referees, of whom there are seven in England, two in Scotland and one in Wales. It is proposed to substitute for that adjudication machinery the machinery which operates as regards claims in respect of National Insurance, which means that in the place of the ten referees covering the whole of the United Kingdom there will be available and accessible, as I understand it, some 161 Appeal Tribunals for England, thirty for Scotland and twenty-two for Wales, which should permit—indeed, it is expected it will be the case—that all the claims in future will be heard orally, as against the present practice where, I understand, no more than about 7 per cent. are so heard. The Tribunals, being fairly well and properly distributed over the country, ought in most cases to be approachably near the homes of the claimants, and it is felt from the experience which has been had of the adjudication system operating for the claims of various characters arising from National Insurance that the proposal to transfer the machinery will be of appreciable benefit to the claimants.

In addition, the proposal has this further advantage: that there will be, as there is not at the present time, an automatic right of appeal from the Department to the local Tribunal and from the local Tribunal to the Commissioner. That is a substantial extension of the rights of appeal on the part of the claimant, and apart from one question which I shall later raise I am sure that every one of your Lordships will agree that the proposal as provided in the Bill is one that should receive the support of this House.

At the same time, as the noble Viscount has indicated, the Bill widens the scope of appeal as regards awards or claims under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts. Hitherto, there has been, as I understand it, no right of appeal on a point of law from the Medical Appeal Tribunal to the Commissioner. It is now provided that there should be a right of appeal from the local Appeal Tribunal and also that there should be a right of appeal from the local Appeal Tribunal without, as is presently the case, the leave of the Tribunal or the Commissioner being obtained.

I am sure that your Lordships will agree that these proposed amendments of the existing law are worth while and are wholly desirable from the point of view of the claimants. There is one point, however, in regard to which we on this side think that the Bill is defective: it relates to the future hearing of claims under the Family Allowances Act before the local tribunals. The present practice as regards claims under the National Insurance Acts is that the appeals should be heard in public, unless the chairman of the Tribunal decides otherwise. It will be quite understood, I am sure, by Members of your Lordships' House that in many cases the proper hearing and understanding of the claims involve the disclosure of much personal, intimate detail and information both of a domestic and of a medical character in which, on many occasions, the interests of a child may be concerned.

Accordingly, it was sought in another place to amend the Bill by providing that the claimant should himself have the right to say whether his case should be heard in private or in public. That proposal was opposed by the representative of Her Majesty's Government, probably, as I understand it from reading the proceedings in Committee in another place, because it would result in there being a different procedure for claims under the National Insurance Acts from claims under the Family Allowances Act. That seemed to me to be rather a tenuous objection, having regard to the desirability, as I think most of your Lordships will agree, of providing that personal details should not become the subject of public knowledge and information. In point of fact, I understand that the Amendment in another place was defeated in Committee only by the casting vote of the Chairman of the Committee.

It was stated, and no doubt is the case, that some 10,000 claims have been considered by the local tribunals dealing with National Insurance; that out of that number in only 259 cases has the claimant asked that the matter should be considered in private, and of that 259 in only 24 was the application refused. I think that those figures, especially the figure of 259 requests, show that there is a case for giving to the claimant the right to say whether his case, with all the personal and intimate details which may be involved in its proper consideration, should be heard in public or in private, and that he should have the right to elect that the hearing should be in private. It may well be that my noble friends on this side of the House will at the appropriate subsequent stage introduce an Amendment to give effect to that suggestion and to provide for that right. Meantime, we take the view that this is a most useful and valuable Bill, arid we hope that your Lordships will give it a speedy passage through its Second Reading.

3.7 p.m.

EARL BATHURST

My Lords, at first sight this Bill might seem to be a modest Bill consisting of but five clauses, but Her Majesty's Government consider it a most important and valuable measure. Your Lordships will remember the skill that my noble and learned friend who sits upon the Woolsack used when he explained to your Lordships the proposals of the Franks Committee Report. Your Lordships will remember how the proposals were welcomed in your Lordships' House and indeed throughout all the country, as the noble Viscount has already said. The noble Lord, Lord Latham has said that the Franks Committee was considered with affection throughout the country. I fancy that that is a very true statement indeed. This Bill is just another step towards providing that those proposals should be put into practice.

Your Lordships would wish to compliment the promoters of this Bill on the promptness with which they have been able to bring it forward. I wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Ingleby on bringing this Bill before your Lordships for a Second Reading, and also to congratulate the honourable gentleman the Member for Basingstoke for sponsoring the measure as a Private Member's Bill in another place, and in steering it through its various stages there. There could be no one more qualified than the noble Viscount to bring the Bill to your Lordships for a Second Reading. Your Lordships would wish me to pay tribute to all the service and the hard work that the noble Viscount performed in his high office for the implementation and even the design of the National Insurance schemes and the social services, too, and I hope that we shall hear further from him in the near future on this vital and important national subject.

My noble friend has already explained the provisions of this Bill and the advantages that it will give to all those who need to make use of National Insurance and local Tribunals. He also explained the rights of appeal to the appropriate National Insurance Commissioner over problems of family allowances and industrial injuries. My right honourable friend has specifically asked me to tell your Lordships how much he and his predecessors appreciated the services of the Family Allowance Referees. As has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Ingleby, they carried out their tasks in a completely new field of law with wisdom and humanity and with great patience. I should like to add my congratulations to Mr. A. C. Longland, Q.C., who was the Senior Referee, on being honoured by Her Majesty The Queen in the New Year's Honours List with the C.B.E. as a tribute to his services and to the services of his colleagues. I commend this Bill to your Lordships' House, and on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I wish it a speedy passage through its various stages on to the Statute Book. I beg to support its Second Reading.

3.10 p.m.

VISCOUNT INGLEBY

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the friendly reception which has been given to this Bill. I should like in particular to thank the noble Lord, Lord Latham, for the good things that he said about it. He did not really differ from the Bill at all but would like one point added to it. That is, of course, a Committee point which no doubt we can discuss on another occasion. I would only say at this stage that, for myself, I should hesitate before giving to any one party an absolute right to demand that his claim should be heard behind closed doors, with the exclusion of the Press and the public. The existing system, under which the chairman decides whether or not the court should be closed, has worked well under the Industrial Injuries scheme for a period of ten years, and I know of no difficulties which have arisen there; and in that scheme some pretty distressing circumstances have to be disclosed from time to time. I am not, therefore, altogether favourably disposed to the point made by Lord Latham. I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, for his friendly reception of the Bill on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.