WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION AND BENEFIT (AMENDMENT) BILL (Hansard, 20 December 1965)

§ LORD DRUMALBYN

I should like to say a word on this clause because, although the noble Lord, Lord Bowles, was extremely good in answering a great many questions I put to him on Second Reading, there was one, in which I was particularly interested, which he deferred answering. That is on the question of the principles on which the reassessment of what are called the new partials—that is those who are partially disabled and who at the present time are receiving less than the maximum—will be made.

915 The noble Lord has been kind enough to write me a letter on this subject (and I would express my appreciation of that) in which he says that it is the intention that the compensation will be based on a comparison over a period of the standards of remuneration in the pre-accident and post-accident jobs. And he goes on to say that it is proposed to read into the scheme a provision for taking account of loss of prospects of advancement. I am sure that this was absolutely right and proper. The difficulty the Committee are in here is that the way in which this particular provision is to be carried out is to be laid down subsequently in regulations. But, as we all know, when the regulations come along, we can either accept the lot or throw them out: we cannot amend them. Therefore, I felt it was important that the House should have this information before it passed this stage of the Bill. I understand, as the noble Lord said on the Second Reading, that it is proposed that the administration of this particular supplementation should be brought into line with the administration of the special hardship allowance, which of course is not at present open to those on workmen's compensation; nor will it be, without further legislation in future. The system, I understand, is to be similar to that.

There is one point that I would make, arising out of the noble Lord's letter to me. He says in the letter that one of the difficulties in the past has been that there has been too great flexibility about workmen's compensation payments; they have been liable to fluctuate too much, and therefore the Government have decided that rates will be fixed and that they shall remain unchanged. The actual letter says: The allowance once awarded will remain unchanged other than to meet exceptional circumstances. My point is simply that, in my own experience, wherever there arises any question of defining "exceptional circumstances", "exceptional change in circumstances", or "unforeseen change in circumstances", the tendency is that they have to be frightfully exceptional and frightfully unforeseen before anything is done at all.

916 All I would suggest to the Government is that, in drawing up these regulations, they should not jump out of the frying pan into the fire; they should not go from supplementation which was too flexible to something which cannot be changed at all except in the most remote and unheard of circumstances. I hope that they will retain some flexibility in this scheme, even although I entirely approve of the general plan that they are introducing of getting much more regularity, much more certainty, about these allowances, and indeed keeping them at a fairly steady rate which can be raised automatically at the time when changes are made in industrial injuries benefits.

§ LORD BOWLES

My Lords, may I just thank the noble Lord for what he has said? I think the answer to this question is this. He having been a Minister of Pensions and National Insurance himself will quite well know that the Ministry really takes great notice of what is said in either House of Parliament. I think that might be of some comfort to him. At least so far as I have got any possible chance of influencing anybody, I will do what I possibly can. But as I understood the position when I was studying it last week, I rather got the impression that the Board has wide powers, which is one of the joys of this scheme, and it takes away harsh interpretation of the Workmen's Compensation Acts by the courts. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Lord.