§ 3.25 p.m.
EARL ST. ALDWYNMy Lords, I have in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Social Security Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest as far as they are affected by the Bill at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE)My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
§ Clause 49 [The basic scheme in Northern Ireland]:
§
LORD ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 63, line 11, after ("8") insert ("36").
§ The noble Lord said: This Amendment adds Clause 36 to the list of clauses in Part I of the Bill which do not extend to Northern Ireland. Clause 36 deals with the requirement for the Secretary of State to present a report to Parliament on the needs of chronically sick and disabled persons and is a new clause moved into the Bill by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. The review referred to in Clause 36 is for the Secretary of State and must therefore relate to Great Britain, since his powers in relation to the operation of the basic scheme are except where constitutional requirements of taxation or foreign policy prevent it, confined to Great Britain and do not extend to Northern Ireland. The basic scheme in Northern Ireland is for the responsible authorities there and they make parallel 831 provisions to those in Great Britain and operate those provisions. The Northern Ireland authorities have power to match there whatever the Secretary of State decides, in the light of his review, to do for Great Britain. I beg to move.
§ On Question. Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD ABERDARE moved Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4:
§
Page 63, line 37, leave out from beginning to ("power") in line 40 and insert—
(4) The Joint Authority constituted under section 104 of the former principal Act (arrangements with Northern Ireland for unified system), consisting of the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland Minister, shall continue in being for the purposes also of this Part of this Act and is referred to in this Act as "the Joint Authority"; and Shedule 14 of this Act reproducing Schedule 10 to the former principal Act) shall have effect with respect to the Authority.
(4A)The responsibility of the Joint Authority shall include that of giving effect to the joint arrangements, with").
§
Page 64, leave out lines 3 and 4.
Clause 99, page 133, line 2, at end insert—(""the Joint Authority" means the Authority continued in being by section 49(4) of this Act").
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, with your permission, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 together and to speak also to Amendment 12. These Amendments secure that the joint authority, which consists of the Secretary of State and the Northern Ireland Minister, continues in effect on the transition of present arrangements to the new arrangements in 1975. I beg to move.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Schedule 21 [Part IV of National Insurance Act 1965]:
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 together. These Amendments insert the full title of the National Insurance Act 1946, because "the Act of 1946" is not defined.
§
Amendments moved—
Page 194, line 42, leave out ("Act of") and insert ("National Insurance Act").
Page 199, line 38, leave out ("Act of") and insert ("National Insurance Act").—(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
832§ Schedule 27 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 together. These Amendments substitute new paragraphs amending the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Children's Act 1948 because the paragraphs inserted at Report stage have been found not to permit, for purely technical reasons, the repeal of the National Insurance Act 1957, which appears in Schedule 28.
§
Amendments moved—
Page 249, leave out line 12 and insert ("the words from "of this section" onwards substitute "of this section, less any amount received by the authority by way of death grant in respect of that death under").
Page 250, line 2, leave out from ("for") to ("section") in line 3 and insert ("the words from" the said subsection (1)" onwards substitute "the said subsection (1), less any amount received by the authority by way of death grant in respect of that death under").(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Amendments agreed to.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, this Amendment substitutes a corrected reference to the Northern Ireland legislation in the House of Commons Disqualification Act. I beg to move.
§ Amendment moved—
§
Page 251, leave out lines 11 to 13 and insert ("Ireland, for the corresponding entry substitute—
Chairman of a Local Tribunal constituted under section 76 of the National Insurance Act (Northern Ireland) 1966"").—(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, Amendment No. 10 inserts additional words which are needed to remove an ambiguity. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 263, line 4, after ("pension") insert ("payable to the wife").—(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, Amendment 11 also inserts additional words to correct an error. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 264, line 9, after ("wife") insert ("otherwise than").—(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
833§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 12.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 266, leave out lines 35 to 39.—(Lord Aberdare.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Schedule 28 [Repeals]:
§
LORD ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 282. line 30, in column 3, leave out ("Section 51(2)").
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment omits a repeal to the Post Office Act inserted at Report stage which has been found to be unnecessary in view of the repeal of the whole of Section 51 of that Act by the National Insurance and Supplementary Benefits Bill 1973. I beg to move.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ 3.30 p.m.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. May I, very briefly, express my gratitude to those Members of your Lordships' House who have taken an interest in this Bill. It is a major Bill; it recasts the whole of our pension arrangements. It is, necessarily, very technical and complicated and therefore there has been only a fairly small, but loyal, band of your Lordships who have taken an interest in it. I know that it has been an exceedingly difficult Bill to follow, and I should like to express my gratitude to them. In this House we have been especially interested in the needs of the disabled and I hope that we have gone some way to meet what has been asked of us by accepting the Amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. It was forced upon us in the first instance but the noble Baroness kindly changed the Amendment slightly, to put a time limit on the very thorough Government review of social security benefits for the disabled which we now have in hand. May I, in particular, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and, in his absence, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. They have been most helpful to me.
§ Mover, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord A herdare.)
§ BARONESS PHILLIPSMy Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for his kind words and also to compliment him on his patience and the skill with which 834 he piloted this Bill through your Lordships' House. Only those who have had to suffer—if I may use that word—the piloting of a Bill of this size through the House can appreciate what is involved. As we all recognise, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is not only one of the most active Members of the Government Front Bench, but also one of the best attenders on the Government side. He is always present on the Front Bench, listening and watching. Certainly he has had a busy time during this Session; and I do not think that busy time is yet over as there appear to be one or two more small Bills with which he will deal.
Having said that, my Lords, I should like also to say that I cannot allow this Bill to pass without expressing my profound disappointment with it. In 1971 the Government presented the White Paper Strategy for Pensions, and in the Introduction we read these words, referring to the aims of the Government:
…there must be time for people to consider and discuss the proposed ways of achieving them. In the months ahead the Government will welcome constructive criticism from any source and they will be consulting a wide range of organisations representing employers and employees and the occupational pensions movement on the details of the proposals.I do not speak in any Party sense on this matter. I am the secretary of a women's organisation and we took those words literally. We arranged groups in which we discussed every section of this very complicated White Paper. We prepared papers which were submitted to the Women's National Commission, and they have been brought forward, first in the debate on the White Paper and subsequently in the debate on the Bill. So far as I can see, the Government have not accepted one recommendation or made one concession in relation to the situation of women. So now we shall have an Act which will incorporate all the old inequalities. There will still be different retirement ages for men and women. The iniquitous cohabitation rule will still be included in a widow's pension book. I have evidence to show that in one year it cost £400,000 to make investigations, so there seems to be no reason why we should still retain the old type of legislation. This Bill is for the future, but not one small point has been altered as a result of the study given to the matter by citizens.835 We have the strange question of the tax in the State Reserve Scheme and the occupational pension scheme. We have the iniquitous earnings rule for retirement pensioners and for the disabled. I cannot do other than express my profound disappointment that the Government have not seen fit to introduce some new and exciting legislation which would take account of the future. There is no provision in this Bill for the man or woman now retired. When we see the plight of those who are working for higher wages we may ask how much further behind are retirement pensioners to fall in this terrible struggle. We have seen this Bill corrected at every stage. Even at this late stage, after a period of about nine months, it has been found that there were what were described as "errors" in the Bill. I am sorry to say this to the Minister, after having praised him personally, but I hope that perhaps in the future we shall have the opportunity to elect a Government which will introduce a much more exciting and rewarding piece of legislation.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for the kind remarks in the first part of her speech. I know that she will not expect me to agree with anything that she said in the second part. This is a framework Bill, my Lords. It sets up the framework for new pensions in 1975. That is why the noble Baroness may say that it does not do anything for the pensioner at the present time. That will be done by the uprating Bill to which we shall come later this evening. My Lords, we believe this to be useful Bill. We have looked with sympathy on many of the Amendments which were moved, but there is the matter of finding the money. I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips has ever worked out the full cost of the proposals which she put before us.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, a question before he sits down? How can be reconcile what was said by my noble friend Lady Phillips, about the failure of the Government to recognise the grievances which women have put forward, with the fact that the Government 836 told us that they are going to remove the discrimination against women?
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, if I may speak for a third time, I would say that we have looked with great sympathy on the position of women—
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLBut that is all!
§ LORD ABERDARE—and we are giving women the freedom in the future as they have at present, either to subscribe as individuals to the pension scheme or to depend on their husbands.
§ BARONESS SEEARMy Lords, I agree with much of the criticism of the Bill voiced by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. I should also like to thank the Minister for his approach to the Amendment relating to disabled persons. I look forward to a really constructive piece of legislation following the Reports next year.
§ On Question, Bill passed and returned to the Commons.