Sitting of 13 December 1961

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  ARGYLL COUNTY COUNCIL (SCALASAIG PIER, ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Considered: to be read the Third time Tomorrow.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Singapore (Bases)
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Defence what plans he has for the future of the Singapore base on the establishment of the Malaysian Federation; and whether he will give an assurance that there will be no reduction in either the extent of the base, nor in the number of locally entered employees.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Julian Amery): The recent joint statement provided for the United Kingdom to continue to maintain bases at Singapore for the purpose of assisting in the defence of Malaysia, and for Commonwealth defence and for the preservation of peace in South-East Asia.
    Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. On whose behalf is the Secretary of State for Air speaking?
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    The future extent of the bases themselves, and the number of locally entered staff, will of course depend on our detailed military requirement from time to time.
    Mr. Digby: Will my right hon. Friend ask the Minister of Defence to give very careful thought to this problem before he decides on reductions, because of the
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    difficulty of providing these facilities elsewhere and also because of the aspect of local employment?
    Mr. Amery: I assure my hon. Friend that there is no immediate proposal for reduction, but obviously I cannot guarantee what will happen in the future. From time to time there may be changes up or down.
    Mr. Mayhew: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Agreement, in so far as it dealt with the use of Singapore for S.E.A.T.O. purposes, was entirely vague and extremely unsatisfactory? Is he aware that no one knows whether it will be possible to use this base for S.E.A.T.O. purposes without the permission of the Government of the Malaysian Federation? Is it wise in these circumstances to tie up troops for that purpose in Singapore?
    Mr. Amery: I do not think there is anything vague about the Agreement. I refer the hon. Gentleman to it.
    Mr. Paget: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure his hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) that there will be continued employment of the estimated 5,000 dedicated Chinese Communists whose services are so essential to this most invaluable cold war base?
    Mr. Amery: I cannot help thinking that the hon. and learned Gentleman's supplementary question was asked more with a view to making a point than eliciting information.

    Intelligence Departments
    Commander Keransasked the Minister of Defence (1) if he is satisfied that enough officers, ratings and civilians are employed in the intelligence sections of the Service Departments; and if he will make a statement;
    (2) if he is satisfied that enough officers, ratings and civilians are employed in the intelligence departments under his direction; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    My right hon. Friend is satisfied that the intelligence departments are adequately staffed.
    Commander Kerans: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a great tendency for the intelligence departments to be increased rather than decreased? Is it not time that there was a measure of integration betwen the three Services and J.I.B. in order to try to reduce a considerable overhead in our Defence Estimates for the future?
    Mr. Amery: The information the Government get is pretty good and the co-ordination is pretty good. I would hesitate to tamper with the, present situation.

    Armed Forces (Citizenship)
    Mr. Ginsburgasked the Minister of Defence how many members of the Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, respectively, were born in Southern Ireland, are citizens of other Commonwealth countries or are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, other than United Kingdom citizens.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    I regret that the records of the Service Departments are not maintained in such a way as to enable the information asked for to be provided without a disproportionate expenditure of time and effort to produce it.
    I can tell the hon. Member, however, that on 1st September last there were 4,534 members of the Army who had been born in the Irish Republic, and 6,570 who had been born in Commonwealth or Colonial countries.
    Mr. Ginsburg: Would not the information, if available, show a very impressive picture indeed? Has the Minister taken into account the psychological effects of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill on recruitment?
    Mr. Amery: I should be the last to to underrate the importance of recruitment from the Commonwealth or Eire into the Armed Forces, but it would be very difficult to get the detailed information because, of course, all those who are born in Eire or in the Commonwealth countries are not necessarily citizens of those countries.
    Mr. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large sums are being spent by the Ministry of Defence on
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    advertising for recruits in the United Kingdom? Is anything being spent on advertising for recruits throughout the Commonwealth, where they are very much available?
    Mr. Amery: There are certain agreements with Commonwealth countries whereby we do not, as it were, poach on their ground. I cannot give the hon. and learned Gentleman the details at the moment, but if he will put down a Question I will look into the matter.

    Second World War (Decorations)
    Mr. Ginsburgasked the Minister of Defence how many decorations, excluding campaign stars, were awarded to persons born in Southern Ireland, to citizens of other Commonwealth countries and to citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies other than United Kingdom citizens, respectively, who served in the Armed Forces of the Crown during the 1939–45 war.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    I am sorry, but the records as maintained do not provide the information from which I can answer the hon. Member's Question.
    Mr. Ginsburg: Would not the picture of the Commonwealth contribution be outstanding? Did the Minister of Defence make representations along these lines to the Home Secretary at the time when the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill was drafted?
    Mr. Amery: More than 100,000 persons were recipients of honours and decorations, and I have no doubt that a high proportion of them came from Commonwealth countries. Of course, this is a factor which the Government have very much in mind in all these matters. I cannot say more than that.

    Woomera Rocket Range
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Defence what new arrangements are being made to use Woomera rocket range for testing atomic devices.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    None, Sir.
    Mrs. Butler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been some public concern, both here and in

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    Australia, at the visit paid some weeks ago by General Staff Colonel Hancock from the War Office and Major Stoner of the Joint Services Liaison Staff to the Woomera rocket range, to Maralinga and also to the Weapons Research Establishment at Salisbury, near Adelaide? In order to allay the fears that have been expressed in the Press about these visits, can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there is no intention of preparing for fresh atomic tests to take place at the Woomera rocket range?
    Mr. Amery: I think that the answer I gave just now should be quite sufficient assurance It could hardly have been more categorical than "None, Sir".

    Training Facilities, United Kingdom
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence what new proposals he has for providing the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the United States and German Governments with facilities for military, naval and air training in Great Britain.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Profumo): I have been asked to reply.
    My right hon. Friend has no new proposals to announce at present.
    Mr. Hughes: Can the Minister assure us that if there are any new proposals local authorities will be consulted before anything like this is established in their areas and, if there are no new proposals, will he take some of the old bases away?
    Mr. Profumo: There is always adequate consultation. The answer to the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is "No, Sir".

    Singapore (V-Bombers)
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Minister of Defence why Royal Air Force V-bombers based on Singapore are being exercised for the contingency of a war with China.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    No Royal Air Force V-bombers are permanently based in Singapore. It is
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    our policy to exercise the mobility of aircraft of Bomber Command by flights to many distant places overseas, including Singapore, where they stay for short periods.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Would the right hon. Gentleman reply to the Question, which was why they are being trained for the contingency of a war with China? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that a war with China would in all probability be started under S.E.A.T.O. by United States policy, such as intervening in the internal affairs of Vietnam with which this country does not agree, and will he give an assurance that we will not be involved in war for such policies?
    Mr. Amery: Visits of V-bombers to Singapore are purely meant to give the maximum training in the greatest variety of climatic and geographical conditions.
    Sir C. Osborne: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that this unfortunately worded Question—
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot ask the Minister to express an opinion on an hon. Member's Question.
    Sir C. Osborne: In view of the feeling in China that there may be trouble caused from the West, and since this country has no intention of conducting a war with China, is not this a most unfortunately worded Question?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member does not follow. The feeling in China does not alter the rules of the House. One of the first rules about Questions is that hon. Members cannot ask a Minister for an expression of opinion.

    N.A.T.O. (Nuclear Authority)
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Defence what decision has been made by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation about the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Nuclear Authority.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    None, Sir.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware of the pressure exerted by Herr Strauss, the Federal German Minister of Defence, on General Norstad and N.A.T.O. for the purpose

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    of creating this authority so that the West German Government can gain control of nuclear weapons? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware of that? Does he not read the newspapers? Is he not aware of what goes on in N.A.T.O.?
    Mr. Amery: Under Protocol 3 of the Brussels Treaty of 1954 the Federal Republic undertook not to manufacture nuclear weapons in their territory. I know of no proposals to vary this undertaking. As to control, no proposals have been made for the distribution of nuclear weapons systems to the Federal Army except under conditions where SACEUR would obtain control and where the United States personnel would have the final custodianship of the weapons.
    Mr. Shinwell: Herr Strauss has explicitly stated that he wants not only the provision of nuclear weapons made by N.A.T.O., perhaps from American sources, but that he also wants complete control of the warheads. Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries to ascertain what our representative at N.A.T.O. is doing about it?
    Mr. Amery: When we received the right hon. Gentleman's Question we of course made inquiries, but we are not aware of the facts that he has stated.
    Mr. Shinwell: Complete evasion.

    N.A.T.O. (German Officers)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Defence if he will list the six highest positions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation held by German officers; if he will state the number and percentage of German generals in the senior North Atlantic Treaty Organisation staffs; and if he will oppose further appointments of this kind.
    Mr. Profumo: I have been asked to reply.
    With permission I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the list of the seven highest positions in N.A.T.O. held by German officers. These officers are the only seven West German officers of major-general or equivalent rank serving on N.A.T.O. staffs and form 6·38 per cent. of the total of such ranks on such
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    staffs. The answer to the last part of the Question is "No, Sir".
    Mr. Allaun: At the top level is it not more than 6·3 per cent.? Did not these men—Heusinger, von Speidel and Wagner—play leading parts in planning Hitler's aggression, and even worse? Far from integrating these men in N.A.T.O., are they not being given control of it through these commanding positions?
    Mr. Profumo: When the hon. Gentleman reads my Answer he will see that it fits exactly his Question. The Federal Republic is making an increasingly large contribution to N.A.T.O. forces, and it is only reasonable that a share of N.A.T.O. command and staff appointments should be filled by German officers. Regarding the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, the hon. Gentleman may have noticed that after the plot against Hitler's life both Heusinger and von Speidel spent the rest of the war in the hands of the Gestapo.
    Mr. Bellenger: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if N.A.T.O. is to accept twelve divisions of German troops then obviously that includes general officers as well as privates?
    Mr. Profumo
    Mr. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman include in the list a note of the high-ranking German officers in charge of the East German Army?
    Mr. Profumo: I think that the hon. Gentleman will have to put a Question to the Foreign Secretary about that.
    Following is the list:
    General Heusinger, Chairman, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Military Committee in Permanent Session.
    General Speidel, Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Central Europe.
    Major-General von der Groeben, Deputy-Commander, Baltic Approaches.
    Rear-Admiral Wagner, Commander, Naval Baltic Approaches.
    1 Lieutenant-General, Supreme Head-quarters Allied Powers Europe Staff.
    1 Major-General, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Staff.
    1 Major-General, Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Central Europe Staff.

    N.A.T.O. (Nuclear Weapons)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Defence what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation regarding control by the Organisation of nuclear weapons and warheads.
    Mr. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    Her Majesty's Government support the present N.A.T.O. arrangements for the control of nuclear weapons. These are that the initial use of nuclear weapons by N.A.T.O. forces would require a specific order from the Supreme Commander, and that this would be subject to his obtaining political authorisation.
    Mr. Allaun: But if atomic weapons are given, directly or indirectly, to N.A.T.O., is not that a concealed way of giving them to the German generals, since they are now more and more becoming a dominant force?
    Mr. Amery: There are no plans or proposals for handing over any nuclear warheads or bombs to the German forces. Where they would be equipped under N.A.T.O. arrangements with a nuclear delivery system, the weapons would remain under the direct control of General Norstad and the warheads would be in United States custody.
    Mr. Shinwell: If it comes to the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman and of his colleague the Minister of Defence that Herr Strauss has made a proposal for the control not only of the weapons but of the warheads, will it be resisted by our representative at N.A.T.O.?
    Mr. Amery: That is a different question. If the information had been different, I would, of course, have told the House. What the right hon. Gentleman is asking is a hypothetical question.
    Mr. Mayhew: In the case of British troops, for example, nuclear warheads, although not under British control, are allocated to British formations. Can the Minister say whether the position is the same with the German formations?
    Mr. Amery: Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a Question about that.
    Mr. M. Foot: Why does the Ministry of Defence appear to be unaware of
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    fresh proposals which are being strongly pressed by the German Government and which are known to everybody who reads the newspapers but which, apparently, the Ministry of Defence has not heard about?
    Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman is, no doubt, a close student of the newspapers, but there are other channels of information as well.

    National Service Men
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Minister of Defence whether he will give an assurance that compulsory military service will not be restored, nor will National Service men be used, to help the Governments of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Central Treaty Organisation and South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, to put down internal subversion in their territories.
    Mr. Profumo: I have been asked to reply.
    The rôle of Her Majesty's Forces, whether National Service or Regular, remains to fulfil the United Kingdom's treaty commitments and to protect British rights and interest throughout the world. Her Majesty's Government have no intention in present circumstances of re-introducing National Service.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on 18th October, the Lord Privy Seal told the House that
    "the presence of Western troops in Western Germany is … a very important guarantee against internal subversion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th October, 1961; Vol. 646, c. 227.]
    Is he further aware that under C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O., we are pledged to go to the assistance of Governments when they declare that a popular rising in their territory constitutes internal subversion against which they need help to defend themselves? Finally, is the Minister not aware that these policies of armed intervention in the internal affairs—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—of other countries constitute a violation of the United Nations Charter by aggression and could provoke a world war? Will the right hon. Gentleman explain—[Interruption.]—why the taxpayer should spend £1,700 million a year for this kind of thing—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Profumo: It seems to me that that has nothing to do with the Question on the Order Paper, but I am glad that the hon. Member has got it off his chest.

    Civil Defence and Service Departments
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Minister of Defence what steps he is taking to secure better integration between Civil Defence forces and the Armed Services, with a view to achieving greater efficiency; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Profumo: I have been asked to reply.
    Co-operation between the Services and the civil defence authorities at all levels is already close and is being still further developed.
    Mr. Dempsey: Is the Minister aware that there is little evidence of such cooperation in actual practice? Does he not agree that in view of the comprehensive nature of civil defence duties and obligations, there is a strong and striking case, not merely for co-operation and understanding, but for a greater degree of integration between the Services, on the one hand, and the admirable civil defence workers, on the other hand?
    Mr. Profumo: If the hon. Member has any specific points in mind, he should write to my right hon. Friend. I should like to reassure him, however, on the points he raised originally. We are doing everything possible and we are working further for the aim of closer co-operation between the military and the civil authorities in this direction.
    Mr. Paget: Has the Secretary of State considered bringing all civil defence under the command of the Territorial Army? This proposal has been put forward and it seems to make sense.
    Mr. Profumo: What would happen on the outbreak of hostilities would be that the military commander-in-chief of United Kingdom land forces would take charge of the whole operation.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does my right hon. Friend consider that the efficiency of the civil defence organisation is adequate to deal with an emergency which might arise? Would it not be better to
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    bring in as many properly-trained personnel as possible?
    Mr. Profumo: That is more a question for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary than for me. I have dealt with the military co-operation side of the Question.

    Mr. Macnamara (Conversations)
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement on his official conversation last week with Mr. Macnamara, the American Secretary for Defence.
    Mr. J. Amery: I have been asked to reply.
    There were no conversations last week. My right hon. Friend is having conversations this week with Mr. Macnamara as with other N.A.T.O. Defence Ministers. Their conversations are confidential.
    Mr. Hughes: Can the Minister assure us that the Government will resist any proposals by Mr. Macnamara for increased expenditure by this country?
    Mr. Amery: That raises another issue. Perhaps the hon. Member would like to put down another Question about it.

  ROYAL NAVY

    Chatham Dockyard
    Mr. Burdenasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what effect the reorganisation of Chatham Dockyard has had upon efficiency and the costs of production.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian On-Ewing): It is too early yet to judge how great the improvement will be. The process of reorganisation is not yet complete and in any case it is bound initially to cause some disturbance to production. Within the compass of the Question and Answer I cannot deal adequately with all the factors involved; and I am writing more fully to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Burden: In thanking my hon. Friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he can estimate when the reorganisation is likely to be completed?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is too early yet to say.

    Admiralty Employees (Wage Award)
    Mr. Pagetasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty why he has refused to make an increase of £1 per week awarded by the Industrial Court to 2,364 Admiralty employees.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The increase of £1 a week which the Industrial Court published on 15th September has been accepted.
    In accordance with the declared Government policy the payment of this award must be deferred during the period of the wage pause. During the wage pause an increase of 8s. a week, which had previously been offered, has been paid. This wage increase is back-dated to 1st October, 1960—a date five months earlier than the date proposed by the Industrial Court.
    Mr. Paget: That is a very disappointing Answer. Can the Minister tell us how these men differ from those in the fire services and why what is good enough for the fire services does not apply to them? Is he aware that in terms of common honesty and dealing with one's obligation to employees, we had expected rather better of the Admiralty?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I cannot answer for the fire services, but I should like to direct the hon. and learned Member's attention to the statement made on 23rd October by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the said:
    "What the Government have done is to reserve to themselves the decision as to the date when any increases agreed or awarded should be put into effect."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 23rd October, 1961; Vol. 646, c. 623.]
    That is what we have done
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: Can my hon. Friend say whether there have been any other recent increases for this group of employees?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: In October, 1960, there was an increase of 5s. a week; in April, 1961, an increase of 3s. a week; and then there is this last increase of 8s. a week back-dated to October, 1960.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that on Monday this week, I was told from the Government Front Bench that
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    the responsibility for wage negotiations was between the employers and the workers' representatives? How is it that Government Departments now interfere with the decisions of workmen and employers when they come to a decision, as they have done in the Industrial Court?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: That is why, in my first supplementary answer, I quoted the fact that we have accepted the award and have only taken powers to delay its implementation.[Interruption.] It is not a laughing matter. The economic and future trading position of the nation depends upon these issues. Therefore, they are extremely important. We have only taken power to delay the implementation of the award until the wage pause ceases, when the employees will get these increases.
    Mr. Callaghan: Is the Minister saying that at the end of the pay pause, he will be willing to pay this increase from the date of the arbitration award, which has been the normal practice for 40 years? If he is not saying that, are we to take it that after a decade of Conservative government our economy is is such a state that we cannot afford to pay an increase like this and that we are ready to wreck arbitration agreements of 40 years' standing and a procedure that has stood the test of time? Is that what the hon. Gentleman is telling us?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: No, Sir.
    Mr. Callaghan: I asked a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker—
    Mr. Speaker: I do not know quite what is happening. Is the hon. Gentleman raising a point of order?
    Mr. Callaghan: No, Mr. Speaker, I am not raising a point of order.
    Mr. Speaker: I think there will be an opportunity to discuss these things on Monday as far as I can judge the business.
    Mr. Callaghan: Very well, Mr. Speaker, may I raise a point of order? I was not intending to do so, but I should now like to raise one. I put—[Interruption.]—and I appeal to you for your protection, Mr. Speaker—a perfectly fair question to the Minister about whether he proposed to pay the increase to the

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    men from the date on which the arbitration award was given. The reply which I got from the Minister was put into his mouth by a former Civil Lord of thirty years ago. There is more feeling in the Civil Service and among industrial employees about these matters than I have ever known. We are entitled to have fair replies from the Minister on these important questions.
    Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I do not discover the point of order.

    Submarines (Polaris Missile)
    Commander Courtneyasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will now publish the result of the investigation recently put in hand concerning the application of Polaris to Her Majesty's submarines; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) on 6th December.
    Commander Courtney: Is my hon. Friend aware that that reply and his previous reply will give no satisfaction to those of us who are interested in this important matter? Does he appreciate that the Soviet Navy, as well as the United States Navy, has more than one type of missile-firing submarine at sea already? Does he not think it disgraceful that in this matter the Royal Navy has made no progress that is evident to the House?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is not true that we have made no progress. We are building two nuclear submarines and we are also studying carefully whether it would be possible at some time in the future, if Government policy so desires, to carry Polaris missiles in nuclear submarines.

    Barrack Blocks (Air Conditioning)
    Mr. Clive Bossomasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that air-conditioning has not been incorporated in the barrack blocks in Hong Kong now under construction; and if he will ensure that in any future design for barrack blocks, in tropical countries, such air-conditioning will be incorporated.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: Air conditioning is provided in new construction at
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    Aden and Bahrein. The need for air conditioning in other areas is being reviewed by all three Services. The barrack blocks in Honk Kong to which my hon. Friend refers are being built to tropical scales which gives each man 35 per cent. more space than he would have in an air conditioned building.
    Mr. Bossom: Is my hon. Friend aware that I appreciate that this must be agreed first between the three Services and that later, no doubt, the Treasury must be persuaded? Surely, however, the financial saving resulting from reducing living space by 35 per cent. would more than offset the cost of air conditioning. Would not the efficiency and the contentment of Service men be greatly increased if they were able to eat, and especially sleep, in air-conditioned quarters?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Those are exactly the considerations which we are taking into account in the review.

    Nuclear Propulsion
    Mr. Smallasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty how many nuclear physicists are employed at the Yarrow Research Establishment on marine nuclear propulsion.
    Mr. Benceasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what research work is being carried out by his research agencies on marine nuclear propulsion; and how many nuclear physicists are employed by his research agencies.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The figures requested would provide a useful guide to the amount of research and development effort we are devoting to this aspect of naval research. I cannot therefore believe it is in the public interest to give them.
    Mr. Small: Has the Minister any intention of adding to the number? Does he propose to make a bigger contribution to ensure the maximum progress in this sphere of development, which is badly needed in Britain?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: The number of nuclear physicists at Y.A.R.D. about which the hon. Member asks is not really a matter which we dictate. As long as Y.A.R.D. undertakes the programme which we ask it to undertake, it is for

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    Y.A.R.D. itself to distribute its personnel between the specialist and scientific branches. Our needs in this direction are being fully met.
    Mr. Bence: Would not the Minister agree that, with shipbuilding capacity now in excess of demand and with the steel industry working below full demand, it would be advisable to concentrate more scientists and nuclear physicists on the development of the propulsion of hulls by nuclear power, because the physical resources are now available which we have not had for 15 years? Will the hon. Gentleman do all he can to impress upon the shipbuilding industry and on his right hon. Friends the need to devote more of our physical resources to the evolution and development of nuclear propulsion, so that Britain may regain its position in the mercantile world?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: We recognise the importance of all forms of research and development in the Navy. We are allocating a large slice of the Navy Vote to research and development. I will certainly bear in mind the points that hon. Member has made.
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what plans he has for the development of nuclear-powered warships, and, in particular, aircraft carriers; and what information he has sought, when studying this matter, regarding United States experience with the aircraft carrier "Enterprise".
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The Admiralty has no plans for the development of nuclear-powered warships, other than submarines, although research into nuclear propulsion for surface ships is continuing. The second part of the Question does not therefore arise.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is my hon. Friend aware that it would give satisfaction to Great Britain, and, indeed, to many of our allies, if some of our ships with nuclear reactors could be sailing the world? Can he tell me why it should rest in the hands of the United States of America to demonstrate the results of their reactors? Have we not got better reactors and better ships? How long is it going to take us before we can do something? Is my hon. Friend aware
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    that at one time we were told that it would not be safe to have a ship with a nuclear reactor sailing the world? Yet it seems to be safe for Americans, and so it could be safe for us. Let us get on with it.
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is not a question of safety but a question of getting value for money and the most ships for the Fleet at sea. We can get better value because the capital costs and fuel costs and refitting costs of these surface ships are many times more than the costs for conventional ships.
    Commander Courtney: Does my hon. Friend foresee the embarrassment which is going to be caused to him and his Department by the fact that by the time these two nuclear submarines get to sea all the ratings in the submarines will be chief petty officers?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I think that that is a very good advertisement for the rate of promotion in the Navy.

    Party, Chatham (Board of Inquiry)
    Mr. Burdenasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what was the result of the Board of Inquiry set up by the Admiralty to look into the use of naval signal rockets at a Guy Fawkes party at Chatham on 4th November.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The Board of Inquiry has reported that this was a private party organised by a number of officers of H.M.S. "Pembroke". It has been established that a number of Service signal rockets and other fireworks were improperly used they have since been fully paid for.
    The Admiralty is much concerned and greatly regrets that this incident was a cause of apprehension by any of the neighbours of H.M.S. "Pembroke". Disciplinary action has been taken in the case of two naval officers.
    Mr. Burden: Is my hon. Friend aware that the biggest and possibly the most painful rocket from this incident is the reprimand which has been levelled at the officer concerned who, no doubt, will have to pay from his own pocket, and so would he give an undertaking that the result of this exuberance will not be shown on his records?
    Hon. Members: Why not?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: No. I am afraid I cannot give that undertaking. What I can say is that if the officer is good enough he can live this reprimand down, believe that a number of Sea Lords have eventually got to the Board of Admiralty after receiving reprimands of this sort. So the reprimand can be lived down if one is good enough.

    Cigarettes Advertisement (Films)
    Mr. Pagetasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what assistance was rendered by Her Majesty's Navy in the making of a colour film to advertise a brand of cigarettes.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: As I told the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) on 13th November, these advertising films depict routine naval activities. No special facilities are provided so that there is no cost to Navy Votes.
    Mr. Paget: But is it not really undesirable that this should happen? This particular film, a coloured film, appeared to be authentic Navy until we got the pay-off line at the end and found that the Navy was selling cigarettes. At least, that was the appearance. Surely it is undesirable and quite contrary to the dignity of a great Service?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: The hon. Gentleman refers to a film made, I think, prior to the end of 1959. Since that time we have changed the procedure, and now the company which makes these films does not show officers or ratings smoking cigarettes. If the hon. and learned Gentleman would like to see these films—I saw them myself last week—I should be very glad to display them in the Grand Committee Room.

    Contractors' Bills (Payment)
    Mr. Peytonasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will give general instructions to his Department to settle debts as promptly as possible, and, in particular, to pay forthwith the balance owed to Messrs. F. R. Bartlett, of Yeovil, which has been outstanding for an excessive length of time.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: I can assure my hon. Friend that we always do our best to pay contractors' bills promptly.
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    I assume that the second part of the Question refers to Messrs. Bartlett's contract for twelve flats at Ilchester. Apart from the sum of £3 there is no balance owed under this contract itself. Messrs. Bartlett have claimed for extra expenses but these are not considered to be an Admiralty liability and their claims have been rejected.
    Mr. Peyton: Is my hon. Friend aware that in some respects his information conflicts with information which I have? Will he appoint an official of his Department, with adequate authority to make a decision, to see this firm and to get the thing settled? For far too long letters have gone unanswered. They have been written to Yeovil and then been referred to Devonport, and from Devonport have been referred to Portland, and from Portland to Plymouth. This sort of thing is really very bad, and it is not the first time that this firm has had this unhappy experience.
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: My noble Friend and I are just as anxious as the hon. Gentleman to get the matter settled. Perhaps he could come to see us and meet our experts and try to get it settled once for all.

    Aircraft Carriers
    Mr. McMasterasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what is the aircraft carrier building programme for the Royal Navy.
    Mr. Willisasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether a decision has yet been made concerning the replacement of the existing fleet of aircraft carriers.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: I have nothing to add to my Answer of 12th July to the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall). No decision has yet been taken about aircraft carrier replacements.
    Mr. McMaster: In thanking my hon. Friend for that Answer, I should like to ask him if, in view of the severe recession at the moment in the shipbuilding industry and also in view of the falling number of British bases overseas, he will expedite the consideration of the replacement of our aircraft carriers.
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: We are certainly considering replacement, but there is no need to make a decision just yet awhile.
    Mr. Willis: Will the hon. Gentleman inform the House when this decision is made, in view of the very enormous cost involved in this?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I note that.
    Mr. Bence: When he takes the decision to start replacing the aircraft carriers in the Fleet, will the hon. Gentleman keep in mind that in Scotland we have some of the largest berths in Europe for building and launching very large ships?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Yes, and we shall also bear in mind that there are £24 million worth of naval ships being built on Clydeside just now; that there have been £27 million worth built in the last ten years in Ulster, and that there are rival claims from my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) as well.
    Dame Irene Ward: Hear, hear.

    H.M.S. "Caledonia" (Apprentices' Accommodation)
    Mr. Willisasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what further steps have been taken in the provision of new living accommodation for the artificer apprentices at H.M.S. "Caledonia".
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The designing of this accommodation has been proceeding as planned, and is making good progress.
    Mr. Willis: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether he intends now to keep his promise to proceed to rebuild all this accommodation next year?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I see no reason to change the forecast which I gave earlier this year.

    Anglo-Spanish Naval Exercises
    Sir L. Plummerasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will make a statement on the Anglo-Spanish naval exercise in the Mediterranean from 11th December to 19th December.
    Mr. R. Edwardsasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he will make a statement on the proposed joint naval manoeuvres to be held between 11th and 19th December involving British and Spanish naval forces.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: This exercise which started in Malta on Monday is the third in a series of Anglo-Spanish exercises held annually since 1959. It is similar in character to last year's exercise which was mentioned in this year's Explanatory Statement.
    Sir L. Plummer: May I ask the Civil Lord this? Is it not true that normally this country carries on exercises with allies and not with people who are enemies of this country—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—who are pro-Nazi, pro-Fascist, like the Franco Government? Is it not an astonishing thing that his own office, when the first announcement of this exercise appeared in the Press, knew nothing at all about it? Is it not astonishing that the information was given by the Commander in Chief in the Mediterranean? Is this a back-door way the Government are using to get Franco Spain into N.A.T.O.? Is that the purpose of this exercise?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: There are a lot of supplementary questions there. On the first point, my office knew it as one of a series of three exercises. The previous announcements came from the Commander in Chief at Malta. There is nothing unusual about that. The exercise is a bilateral one. Certainly it is in no way concerned with N.A.T.O. These exercises should be of benefit to the Royal Navy, and follow the Government's policy of maintaining contact with the navies of countries with which we have normal diplomatic relations. For example, there was an exercise with the Yugoslav navy a few years ago. We may well do so again.
    Mr. R. Edwards: Is the Civil Lord aware that the Spanish Captain Pollanco has publicly declared his support for Franco's claims to Gibraltar? Is it not a very dangerous exercise to train potential aggressors against British territory? Is the Civil Lord further aware that the same Spanish captain justified the use of German U-boats in Spanish, waters during the last war and justified the use of U-boats against British troopships in Freetown Harbour which resulted in the loss of thousands of British soldiers and sailors? Is not this enough for those dead people to turn over in their graves in disgust?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I am sorry, but I cannot be responsible for certain statements made by Spanish personnel. I should have thought it extremely unlikely that Spanish ships would be likely to make an assault on the Rock of Gibraltar. I think that we are enlarging the area of international understanding by exercises of this sort.
    Mr. Burden: Is it not clear that if the British and Spanish navies exercise together the Spanish captain to whom the hon. Member opposite referred will be left in no doubt as to the folly of any attempt to acquire Gibraltar?
    Mr. Dugdale: Will the hon. Gentleman see that there is as much fraternising as possible between the British and Spanish forces in order to ensure that British officers and ratings learn all they can about the principles of their Fascist allies and why they decided to support Hitler and Mussolini?
    Mr. Burden: But they did not.
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I think that it is a mistake to try to drag the Royal Navy into the political arena. As I made clear, we exercise with the navies of countries with which we have normal diplomatic relations. There was no row over the exercise with the Yugoslav navy, and we also announced that.
    Mr. Callaghan: Will the hon. Gentleman reconsider his twice given answer about Yugoslavia? Does he think it right to put on terms of parity Marshal Tito, who fought on our side in the last war very courageously against the Germans, and General Franco who harboured spies at La Linea to the extent that we had to go into Gibraltar after dark and get out before daylight in order that reports should not get back to the Germans? Will he please not put these two countries on a par in this way?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is not for me "to try to draw distinctions between two such great men".
    Sir L. Plummer: On a point of order. May I give you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I shall apply to you at the end of Questions for permission to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to discuss this?

    Dockyard, Antigua (Opening)
    Commander Courtneyasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what warships were present at the opening of Lord Nelson's Dockyard at Antigua; and by whom the Royal Navy was represented.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The Senior Naval Officer, West Indies, was to have been present with the ships H.M.S. "Troubridge" and H.M.S. "Vidal" at the reopening of the Dockyard at Antigua on 14th November. They were, however, diverted to emergency hurricane relief work at British Honduras and were thus unable to attend. The Board of Admiralty sent a message of best wishes on the day, regretting that circumstances prevented the presence of Her Majesty's ships.
    Commander Courtney: While appreciating the reason for the absence of Her Majesty's ships, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he is aware that American and Canadian ships were present and that British onlookers regretted the fact that there was no senior Naval officer there? Would it not have been right in the circumstances to have flown out there, perhaps, a Sea Lord from England?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I think that in the circumstances we were obliged to give absolute priority to the relief of Belize and the hardship which was being suffered there, and to let that override one's natural desire to attend such an important function.
    Mr. Kimball: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the immense dollar-earning capacity of this particular tourist attraction, and its tremendous importance to the West Indies, and see if the Navy can give it a fillip?

  BRITISH ARMY

    Foreign Personnel (Pensions)
    Sir Richard Pilkingtonasked the Secretary of State for War what steps he is taking in connection with pensions for Polish and other foreign personnel, who fought from this country during the war, for whom he has retained responsibility.
    Mr. Profumo: Since the war, successive administrations have felt unable to agree that these officers and men should be awarded pensions for which they did not qualify under British Service rules. I regret I can see no grounds for changing that policy now.
    Sir Richard Pilkington: Has my right hon. Friend had any further representations on this matter recently? Does he really think that these men who gave so much in the cause of freedom have had a fair deal?
    Mr. Profumo: I have had approaches, particularly an approach to support a charity to this end, in the recent past, and we gave it some consideration. As to whether these gallant men have been treated fairly, that is a matter on which I should not like to pronounce. I do not know that one can treat people who have behaved in this way in the war—indeed, as gallantly as our own Service people—in the way one would like to do. I do not think that we could give to these people preferential treatment beyond what British ex-Service men have by way of pension for war services.
    Mr. Paget: But nobody is asking for preferential treatment. What was said at the time was that the breach with their own country was probably temporary and, therefore, we would not bring them in and make them eligible for our war pensions. Now that it has become plain that that breach is permanent, would it not be reasonable and generous, and fair recognition of the very gallant services rendered, to treat them as our own people?
    Mr. Profumo: I have paid what I thought was an adequate tribute to the way in which these gallant people served the cause of freedom. I am second to none in the tribute which I pay to them. This matter has been examined by successive Governments since the end of the war and I do not think the circumstances have changed in such a way as to make it possible to review the policy, as my hon. Friend has asked in this specific Question. If it is wished to bring forward further information I shall be only too glad to look at it, but it would be wrong for me to mislead my hon. Friend
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    and the House into thinking that the inquiries which we have carried out so far would lead me to make any change.

    Barracks and Married Quarters, Gibraltar
    Mr. Scott-Hopkinsasked the Secretary of State for War what modernisation has taken place since 1945 in the barracks and married quarters at Gibraltar.
    Mr. Profumo: About £700,000 has been spent since 1945 on new constructions, improvements and modernisation.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the conditions in barracks at Gibraltar are on all-fours with those in Germany and in this country?
    Mr. Profumo: No, I am not. The only really satisfactory solution in Gibraltar is new building, since most of the property housing the troops is too old for modernisation. This rebuilding must be linked with the new town plan for the garrison and for this the plan is well advanced.
    Mr. Scott-Hopkins: How soon will the plan come into operation?
    Mr. Profumo: I am afraid that I cannot give any estimate of that. It depends on the Gibraltar authorities. It might be that my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary can give a more adequate answer. We are anxious to press ahead, but we must do so in combination with the Gibraltar authorities.
    Mr. M. Foot: Is the right hon. Gentleman inviting a Spanish general or admiral or even General Franco to open the new barracks?

    Spanish Military Mission
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for War (1) what facilities have been given to the military mission from Spain, headed by Colonel Joaquin Lopez, to visit the fighting vehicles development establishment at Chobham, Surrey;
    (2) what assistance has been given by Her Majesty's Government to the military mission from Spain, headed by Colonel Joaquin Lopez, to enable them to visit the Rolls-Royce, Daimler and Alvis works; what is the purpose of

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    these visits; and what undertakings have been given that licences for the export of military vehicles to Spain will be issued.
    Mr. Profumo: A party of Spanish officers was invited by the firms concerned to visit their works. My Department co-operated with the firms in arranging the visit, which was timed to coincide with the demonstration of weapons and equipment held in October at the Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment at Chobham. No special facilities were given to the party. 'The question of export licences has not arisen.
    Mr. Brockway: Did the right hon. Gentleman hear the previous Questions and Answers about the joint naval manoeuvres? Is this another indication that Her Majesty's Government will now pursue a policy of military and naval alliance with a country which is Fascist, which represses liberties, and denies all the democratic ideas for which this country stands?
    Mr. Profumo: I do not think that even the hon. Member has any justification for drawing that conclusion from the Answer to his specific Questions. Even the hon. Member himself would have been welcome at this demonstration.
    Mr. Awbery: In view of the fact that there are several Questions on the Order Paper dealing with a naval and military agreement between Spain and this country, may I ask whether any pact or agreement has been made between us, openly or covertly, that will lead us to some such agreement?
    Mr. Profumo: That is a wider question and the hon. Member should put it on the Order Paper.

    Fusilier Marsh
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Secretary of State for War what action he intends to take to clear the name of Fusilier Marsh, who was wrongfully arrested by civilian police at the request of his Department, and on his behalf, at his home in St. Helens, Lancashire; and whether he will consider making suitable arrangements to compensate Fusilier Marsh for the distress caused to him and his wife.
    Mr. Profumo: My hon. Friend has already written to the hon. Member, giving him a full account of the circumstances, but I am glad to take this opportunity of stating that no blame whatever attaches to Fusilier Marsh, and to express my own regret at this unhappy error. I must, however, make it quite clear that Fusilier Marsh was not arrested, and I do not consider that there are grounds in this case for financial compensation.
    Mr. Spriggs: Is the Minister aware that apologies are not enough in a case like this? Is he aware that this young man was wrongfully detained? Is it his impression that it is a good advertisement to encourage young men to join Her Majesty's Forces when men like this young fellow are treated in such a bad way? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider compensating this young man for the damage for which his Department was responsible by this wrongful arrest?
    Mr. Profumo: The hon. Member has had a full letter from my hon. Friend on this matter. I feel that to make an apology was the right action to take in this case. This was a complete mistake by a member of the clerical staff. When the fusilier was thought to be a deserter, the clerk informed the police. The police did not arrest Fusilier Marsh or detain him but they asked him to go to the police station to establish the facts. I very much regret this error. It was a simple human error for which I felt I should apologise, and I have done so.
    Mr. Burden: What action has been taken about the clerk who was responsible for this, and what action has been taken to ensure that in future before an allegation of this sort is made it is checked to establish its accuracy?
    Mr. Profumo: I understand my hon. Friends interest in this matter. If he would like to consult me I will go into all the facts with him without detaining the House. It was an error which I do not believe will happen again. The civilian clerk concerned has left the Service.
    Mr. Spriggs: On a point of order. I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Officers (Retired Pay and Pensions)
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Secretary of State for War what representations he has received from the Officers' Pension Society asking that all retired pay and widows' pensions should be reviewed immediately, and also biennially, with a view to awarding compensation for rises in the cost of living; and what action he intends to take on those proposals.
    Mr. Profumo: The chairman of the Society has recently written to the Adjutant General raising a number of points about retired pay and pensions. His letter is being studied and will be answered when it has been given due consideration. However, I think that it is only fair to make one general point. Successive Governments have taken the view that it would be wrong to treat existing Armed Forces' pensioners differently from the general body of public service pensioners. I cannot hold out any hope that a different view will be taken now.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are considerable disparities between the pensions now available to retired officers after a certain date and after a certain age and the pensions for those retired officers who had to retire compulsorily before a certain date? Is he also aware of the considerable hardship caused by these disparities and will he in his reconsideration of the representations made to him take all these factors into account?
    Mr. Profumo: I will certainly take all factors into account when a reply is sent to this very voluminous document. It would be wrong for me to make any pronouncement before I thoroughly examine it, but on the facts we have at the moment I do not think that we can change the policy.
    Sir G. Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend quite sure that he is justified in making this comparison with other public service pensions? Is he not taking advantage of the fact that these are among the most loyal and long suffering of the civilian members of the population? Is he aware that at any rate they seem to think that they are being exploited?
    Mr. Profumo: I think that we are taking the right attitude. My admiration for these people is not in any way diminishing, but the Grigg Report took this view and this has been the view taken by successive Governments. I can do no more than say that I will look at the representations on the basis of which this Question has been put on the Order Paper.
    Mr. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that whilst he continues paying pensions in bad money, which is what this amounts to, to the people who receive these pensions, these people act as anti-recruiting officers and do so in the very families from which we draw our best recruits? Is he aware that it is no use offering most attractive pensions now when we provide this example that the pension will not be worth much when the person receives it?
    Mr. Profumo: Although that may be relevant, it goes wider than the Question on the Order Paper.
    Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend forget for a moment about successive Governments, in view of the fact that the present Prime Minister promised that everybody should share in the country's prosperity? Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a pledge on the part of this Government and has nothing to do with successive Governments? When shall we have an implementation of this pledge? When we have it, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he can leave it to the House of Commons to see that other people get their fair share?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Dame Irene Ward: May I have an answer?
    Mr. Profumo: I am sorry. I did not mean to leave my hon. Friend without a reply. I was considering her long question. I cannot go further than the Answer I have given to the Question on the Order Paper, but I will bear in mind the points that have been made when I come to consider this document.
    Mr. Tapsell: Will my right hon. Friend look again at the possibility of putting all retired officers on current rates of retirement pay? Can he explain

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    why an officer who retired in 1946, for instance, should be on a lower pension than an officer of the same rank who retires today after similar service?
    Mr. Profumo: I do not think I should answer any of these questions in isolation. I will bear them in mind when I look at this document.

ANGLO-SPANISH NAVAL EXERCISES
Sir L. Plummer: I beg to ask leave to move the adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the decision of Her Majesty's Government to conduct joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean with the Spanish Navy, without prior information being given to Parliament and contrary to the hitherto clearly expressed policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the Spanish Government, with its implicit acceptance of Spain as an ally of the free world.
On the basis or urgency, Mr. Speaker, I point out that the naval exercises are taking place at this moment, and that it is the desire of a great number of my right hon. and hon. Friends that those exercises should be broken off forthwith. This matter, therefore, is one of urgency.
A few minutes ago, the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, in reply to me, said that the Royal Navy was conducting an exercise with naval forces of a country with whom this country had diplomatic
450
relations and that these exercises were, therefore, normal and proper. I want to debate whether, in these circumstances, we will have naval exercises with the Soviet Union, Poland and other countries.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have speeches on these applications. The hon. Gentleman will understand that I will hear submissions about his application being in order but not about these other matters.
Sir L. Plummer: I was giving you the reasons, Mr. Speaker, why I was pressing this point of view. I am prepared to give them more fully if you will allow my plea.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) asks leave to move the adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
The decision of Her Majesty's Government to conduct joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean with the Spanish Navy, without prior information being given to Parliament and contrary to the hitherto clearly expressed policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the Spanish Government, with its implicit acceptance of Spain as an ally of the free world.
I regret that I cannot accede to the hon. Gentleman's application. I understand that these manoeuvres began on Monday and are actually in progress. A decision, I am told, was announced by a naval officer at Gibraltar—I forget who it was—on Monday.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND INCITEMENT
3.33 p.m.
Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make it an offence to discriminate to the detriment of any person on the grounds of colour, race or religion in the United Kingdom and to incite publicly contempt or hatred of any person or persons because of their colour, race or religion.
This is the seventh time I have sought leave to introduce this Bill in respect to racial discrimination. On this occasion, I have added Clauses which would make public incitement of hatred or contempt also an offence.
I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer), Clauses from whose Bill I have incorporated in mine. If I have the opportunity later of reading the names of the sponsors of my proposed Bill, I think that the House will find that it now has influential support among all three parties in the House.
On previous occasions when I have introduced this Bill against racial discrimination, the First Reading has been allowed, but it has been obstructed at later stages. I want to ask hon. Members opposite who are opposed to the Bill to come into the open and challenge it now, on this Motion.
All through these last eight years, since I first introduced the Bill, it has been necessary. It has never been more necessary than now. Rightly or wrongly, the impression has been spread in the Commonwealth, in many parts of the world, and amongst sections of our own people, that the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill which is now before the House will exclude persons on the ground of their colour from coming into this country. It is, therefore, imperative that, at this moment, the House should pass a Measure which makes it clear that discrimination on the grounds of race or colour shall no longer be practised within our own territory.
The Bill is moderate and reasonable. I recognise that one cannot end racial discrimination by legislation. It is largely due to ignorance, to prejudice and to a sense of racial superiority. This will be ended only by education, by experi-
452
ence and by the acceptance of a broader social ethic. The Bill recognises that we have no right to lay down a code of personal conduct unless it invades a public right. Therefore, the Bill would be limited to public institutions and to a relevant social contract which has the authority of the law.
It would make racial discrimination illegal in hotels, restaurants, common lodging houses, places of entertainment and dance halls. I will give two illustrations from that series. First, I have the names of eight hotels in one area of London which will not allow any coloured persons to have accommodation. Ironically, those hotels are members of British Travel and Holidays Association, to which the Government give a subsidy to attract visitors from abroad.
When I raised this matter in the House, the Government replied that the victims should prosecute the hotel owners, but it is a mistaken view that all visitors to hotels are protected under the present law. That is, indeed, true in the case of travellers, but if a coloured family, evicted and homeless, sought accommodation in one of those hotels it would be refused by the owners.
It is now quite frequent that coloured persons are excluded from dance halls, particularly so if they do not have partners with them. The argument is that it causes trouble among white men, who do not like to see coloured men dancing with white girls. I suggest, however, that the responsibility should be placed on the owners to deal with these troublemakers rather than to exclude coloured persons from dance halls.
The social contract with which my Bill deals is in the refusal of leases for houses or flats, or the inclusion in a lease of any clause which prohibits a coloured person from occupying the premises. This very frequently occurs. Again and again, I am receiving letters from Africans and others who, when they have telephoned for accommodation have been told, "Yes, come along. You may have it," but when they have reached the estate agents they have been denied the accommodation because of their colour.
Recently, we have had a very striking instance of this discrimination. It was the case of a counsellor of an African

453
Embassy in London. For four months he sought accommodation. Again and again the negotiations were near completion and then, when it was discovered that he was an African, they were ended. He used these words:
"My Ambassador has had the same difficulty. I know several diplomats from other newly independent African States who have had the same trouble with the colour bar."
It will be a disgrace if this country allows diplomats from other countries to continue to be treated with that discrimination in our midst.
The Bill would also make it an offence publicly to incite contempt or hatred on the grounds of race, religion or colour. I submit that spiritual incitement in this way could be as disastrous to the well-being of the community as direct physical incitement. Indeed, those who know the circumstances in Notting Hill, and other areas where disturbances have occurred, know that it is the incitement to contempt and hatred on grounds of race or colour which has frequently led to the disturbances.
I submit that a nation which permits discrimination in public relations has no right to call itself civilised, or to belong to the human family. When a child is born it is not its physical form or the pigment of its skin which makes it sacred—it is the spiritual life, the personality, within. If we are to reflect the Christian ethic, we should embody that principle in the law of our land.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Brockway, Mr. J. Griffiths, Mr. Creech Jones, Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas, Mr. Grimond, Mr. Wall, Mr. Fisher, Sir G. Nicholson, Mr. Critchley, Mr. Greenwood, Mrs. Castle and Sir L. Plummer.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND INCITEMENT
Bill to make it an offence to discriminate to the detriment of any person on the grounds of colour, race or religion in the United Kingdom and to incite publicly contempt or hatred of any person or persons because of their colour, race or religion, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday and to be printed.[Bill 48.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  FAMILY ALLOWANCES AND NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  FAMILY ALLOWANCES AND NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL

    New Clause.—(INCREASE OF WIDOW'S BASIC PENSION.)
    A widow's basic pension payable by virtue of the National Insurance (Pensions. Existing Beneficiaries and Other Persons) (Transitional) Regulations, 1948, shall be increased to twenty shillings weekly.—[Mr. Houghton]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    3.45 p.m.
    Mr. Douglas Houghton: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    This Clause deals with the somewhat familiar case of the 10s. widow. In the speech I made on Second Reading of the Bill, on 9th November, as reported in column 1202 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of that day. I said that we on these benches would be returning to this matter if opportunity arose during the course of consideration of the Bill. It was referred to last year on the Second Reading of the Bill of 1960, and in a speech I made on Second Reading of that Bill on 15th November, as reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT for that day. On 24th November, 1960, as reported in col. 1411, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, lichen (Dr. King) moved an Amendment to the Schedule to increase the 10s. pension of the so-called 10s. widow to 20s. weekly.
    The debate then was somewhat abbreviated, because time was pressing on that day. What I am about to do now can be said to be a continuation of the debate which took place on 24th November, 1960. I need scarcely recall that the 10s. widow is a woman who was married before 5th July, 1948, and has since been widowed, but who, under the new scheme, is not entitled either to a widow's pension or a widowed mother's allowance. Under the 1948 scheme, she had reserved to her in those circumstances the benefit which she would have drawn had the old scheme continued. That is how she comes to draw the 10s. a week pension—the same amount as the widow's pension before the new scheme came into operation in 1948.

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    When he speaks to the House or to the Committee on this matter, the Minister reminds us that these are the widows who get 10s. a week in circumstances in which other widows governed entirely by the new scheme get nothing. That is true. There was, however, in the 1948 scheme a specific reservation to this type of widow of the old benefit of 10s. a week. That is in contrast with the removal of the 10s. a week old-age pension to persons insured under the old scheme because in their case the new benefit, the new retirement pension, replaced the old-age pension.
    Nevertheless, after the new scheme came into operation there were some persons who would have been entitled to the old-age pension under the old scheme who were not entitled to a retirement pension under the new scheme. Therefore, it could be said in their case that they were deprived by the change to the new scheme of a benefit which they would have had under the old scheme.
    No one complained about that, at least not very much, because the new benefit, in most cases, would supersede the original 10s. a week old-age pension. But, for reasons which seemed good and sufficient to Parliament at the time, this type of widow on whose behalf we propose this new Clause was specifically given as a reserved right the 10s. a week which she would have drawn under the old scheme notwithstanding the fact that she was not entitled either to a widow's pension or a widowed mother's allowance under the new scheme.
    All that is common ground. The issue before the House today, as on previous occasions is: what do we do about a reserved benefit which has been reduced in value by the fall in the value of money? Do we leave it as it was, or do we restore something of the real value of the benefit concerned?
    There will be no dispute that 10s. a week in 1948 was worth a great deal more than 10s. a week is today. In fact, last year the Minister said that to restore the real value of the 10s. a week pension it would have to be increased to about 16s. a week. Possibly it would be a little higher than that today because of the change in the value of money in the intervening period.
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    I think that it is common ground that the 10s. a week at the 1948 level would have to be increased by some shillings a week to restore its real value in 1948 terms.
    The question is: do we do that? Is there any need to do it? Is there any case for doing it? The Minister says, "No". We say, "Yes". What the Minister has said is "This is a reserved benefit, a legacy from a scheme which is now obsolete. While Parliament thought it just that this benefit should be reserved there was no obligation upon Parliament to maintain its real value; 10s. it was and 10s. it should remain until the end of time".
    We do not look at it in that light. If it was thought proper that these widows should have 10s. a week under the provisions of the 1948 scheme, we believe that it is the duty of Parliament to maintain the real value of the reserved benefit, or, at any rate, to keep the value of that benefit in harmony with the increase in other benefits under the National Insurance Scheme.
    Those who were drawing their retirement pensions immediately the 1948 scheme came into operation have paid no contributions since then. They have had their benefits improved on several occasions in order, as the Prime Minister once put it, to give the National Insurance beneficiaries a share in the rising prosperity of the country. We have fully supported that view. Our only criticism is that the Government have not yet gone far enough. They have not given the National Insurance beneficiaries a big enough share in the country's rising prosperity.
    The 10s. widow has not yet received any improvement in the money value of her pension since it was first granted. We hold the view, therefore, that we cannot dismiss this case on the ground that the 10s. benefit to this type of widow is not an integral part of the 1948 scheme. It was part of the bargain of the 1948 scheme. It was part of the conditions in which the 1948 scheme came into operation. We believe that an obligation rests on Parliament and on the Government to deal fairly with this position.
    Another thing the Minister said is that if the value or if the amount of the 10s.

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    pension is increased that will widen the gap between the widow with reserved rights and the widow without reserved rights who, under the new scheme, would get no widow's benefit at all. In a sentence, the Minister says that it would be unfair to widen the gap between the 10s. widow and the "no-shilling" widow. We take the view that we should not be widening the disparity between the 10s. widow and the no-shilling widow if what we did was to restore the real value of the 10s. That does not widen a gap. It seems that it cannot widen the gap to restore the gap to what it was in real terms, and that is the issue.
    The Minister also said, on 24th November, 1960:
    "It seems unfair when there are two women living alongside each other, both widowed and childless at the age of 30 or 35, that one should have to pay to improve the position of a lady who is already receiving 10s. more than she is. As Minister of Pensions and National Insurance I should find it very difficult to impose National Insurance contributions for that purpose. I would not have the feeling that I was doing the fair thing."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 24th November, 1960; Vol. 630, c. 1418–9.]
    But Parliament decided, under the 1948 scheme, to give 10s. a week to certain widows living alongside other widows who were getting nothing at all. This was the basis of the reserved right and, if anomaly there is today, anomaly there was to begin with. Parliament decided that it was not an anomaly to preserve the right to the 10s. a week widow's pension in cases where a widow would have been able to claim that under the old scheme but was denied any benefit at all under the new scheme. I cannot see that we are imposing any injustice on the National Insurance contributor by preserving the real value of the 10s. than we were originally imposing to provide the 10s. in the first place.
    The Minister referred to two other matters which weighed against making the concession which we seek. First, he said that 20s. is too much if it is the restoration of the value of the 10s. of 1948 in terms of current value. If that is the Minister's difficulty, we can meet him. If he is willing to restore the value of the 10s. a week to the real value of 1948, that is our case. Twenty shillings seemed to us to be a nice round figure. What is more, it would probably save
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    further adjustments in this respect for several years to come. It has been a long time since 1948, and, if experience is anything to go by, it will take a long time to get any further adjustment.
    4.0 p.m.
    Finally, the Minister said that the total cost would be about £4 million, which was a lot of money, and that if he had £4 million to give away he could think of other and better ways in which to spend it. There is nearly always a better way of spending money than that sought. It is merely an evasion of the issue to say, "If I had the money, I would spend it elsewhere". In this very Bill the Minister is recouping some of the expenditure by taking from 50,000 or 60,000 parents of apprentices the family allowances which they now draw. I am sure that the House will be interested to examine afresh the significance of Clause 8 when we discuss it later on Third Reading.
    That is the case for doing something for the 10s. widow. I understand that there are about 100,000 of them. This is not an increasing group of beneficiaries. Some are passing into the qualification for the retirement pension on reaching the age of 60, and there is normal wastage. We make no apology for returning to this subject. Hon. Members opposite have sometimes supported the plea for the 10s. widow and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) is not in his place, because he has been a staunch supporter of this case. Some of my hon. Friends have been pressing the Minister at Question Time for some time.
    When, on 24th November last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Itchen moved his Amendment, the Committee was moved as well as impressed by the case he put forward. He has deep feelings of compassion for the neglected or ill-treated members of the community who do not always enjoy the full fruits even of the National Insurance or Industrial Injuries Scheme. We have no doubt that this is a deserving case and we hope that the Minister will try to meet it frankly and honestly. Last time we discussed the matter he seemed to be burking the real issue of making an advance.
    The simple issue is whether the House is prepared to restore the current value

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    of a benefit which it decided in 1948 should be part of the conditions of the introduction of the new scheme. Surely the Minister will not ride off, as he did a year ago, by saying that we do not restore the real value of interest payable on investments, we do not restore the real value of savings.
    There are some things which people cannot have restored to them in a complex economy such as ours. These are not savings and they are not investments. We are here dealing with National Insurance benefits and we should bring them into harmony not only with the higher cost of living, but with the higher living standards as well. We regard this benefit as something quite distinguishable from annuities or savings or other forms of investment, which are admittedly suffering in present circumstances.
    However, we must not get the grievances of the small investors in gilt-edged securities mixed up with the problems of the 10s. widow. That is a separate issue on which Parliament may do something at some time. This issue stands alone in the general fall in the value of money in other directions, and it must be linked in our consideration with the new and higher level of National Insurance benefits generally.
    Mr. Harold Finch: I support the new Clause which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). He has already reminded us that we are dealing with a class of widows who came within the provisions of the pre-war legislation. Their husbands contributed to the old scheme and they were, therefore, entitled to the pension of 10s. a week, which was the pension paid to the vast majority of widows at that time.
    When the 1946 scheme came into operation in 1948, the conditions applying to widows' benefit were different from the earlier provisions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) therefore had to consider the position, and it is clearly established that he felt that these widows should not have their circumstances worsened by the new legislation. It was provided that 10s. a week should be paid to them. However, since then there has been no kind of increase in their benefit.
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    There have been increases in almost every other respect—National Insurance, industrial injuries, and so on. Widows who come within the provisions of the new National Insurance Scheme have had four increases since 1948. The disregards for National Assistance have been increased and there have been increases for the disabled and for the pensioners and for other widows. What justification can there be for excluding these widows? It is said that their husbands did not contribute to the new scheme. That argument could be applied to pensioners but the pre-war pensioner enjoys the same rights as the post-war pensioner. There have been increases in National Insurance in the same way. So that is not a sufficient argument. It is said that many of these widows are in employment, but I remind the House that many are not and that many are now 50 or 55 or getting on for 60 years of age, and many of them became widows many years ago.
    Is it a matter of cost? My hon. Friend said that at one time it was estimated that the cost would be £4 million, but I understand that it would now be about £2 million. What is that compared with the happiness and security which would be given to many widows, many of whom have to seek National Assistance? Why should they be treated differently from other widows? I hope that the Minister will seriously consider this case, for it might appear that he had a grudge against these widows and was excluding them deliberately. What is the trouble?
    I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to this Clause, which seeks to increase the pension to only 20s. a week. We are asking for a reasonable sum. The figure should, in fact, be more like 30s., but it shows what a reasonable lot we on this side of the House are to put forward a figure of 20s. If the Minister does not accept the Clause there will be a great feeling of dissatisfaction at the non-inclusion of these widows in this legislation. I am glad to support the Clause which, I think, will receive the support of the House generally.
    Commander C. E. M. Donaldson: It is nice to hear the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) acknowledging that

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    there have been four increases in pensions to other categories of pensioners since 1948. I do not wish to make a political point of this, but it is frequently not in the minds of the public that these increases have been made.
    The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter): The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) under-stated the matter. There have been four increases since 1951.
    Commander Donaldson: I did not wish to go into the dates, nor to raise this as a political issue. I want merely to emphasise that these increases have been made. That therefore puts me in sympathy with the new Clause now before the House. The 10s. widow ought not to be considered by my right hon. Friend as a matter of a statistical unit, or something associated with the National Insurance Fund on an actuarial basis.
    We all realise that the 10s. widow is in a peculiar position, separate from all other types of pensioners, and that these 100,000 people—if that be the number as put by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton)—feel that they have been very hardly done by. My right hon. Friend is well aware that of the 100,000 there must be a high proportion in my three counties on the borders of Scotland, because I have many occasions to write to him, or to officials in his Department, pleading that something should be done for these people.
    I rise merely to make it clear that the House is viewing this new Clause not as a party matter, but as one of human considerations in respect of people who feel a sense of injustice. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to accept this proposition today. If he does not accept it, I hope that he will make it abundantly clear why, so that those who are faced with the difficulty of meeting these people who feel that they have a sense of injustice can make it clear to them why there should not be an increase in their pensions. It is in this spirit that I have intervened in the debate.
    Mr. R. E. Prentice: We on this side of the House are grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for
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    Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson) for his intervention in support of the Clause. I hope that he will carry his support to the logical conclusion, if necessary. I think that it is fair enough today to say that we are not likely to have any interventions from the other side of the House, except from the Front Bench, in opposition to the Clause. It would be difficult for any hon. Member on either side to speak against the simple point of justice contained in the Amendment, and we are all aware, or we should be, that public opinion would overwhelmingly support this modest reform.
    We have all had experience, at public and other meetings, of hearing this point raised, and being convinced, as I have been, first, that there is a real sense of injustice on the part of these widows that they have been left behind for so long, and, secondly, a sense of shock amongst other people when they discover that in 1961 we are, still paying by way of National Insurance benefit a miserable rate of 10s. a week. It is an unworthy payment for a great nation at this point of time.
    We are entitled to say to the Minister, or to the Parliamentary Secretary, that the stock excuses which have been used from that Box in the past, which have never been very good, are becoming less and less reasonable as time goes by, and that we hope that the Government will do better this afternoon. After all, what is the theory behind these excuses? It is that the 1948 Act did not provide pensions for all widows. It provided pensions for widowed mothers, for widows over 50, and for widows incapable of self-support, and otherwise it said that widows should not qualify for a pension. Therefore, these widows whom we are discussing are, in a sense, in a privileged position compared with others who are not getting any pension at all.
    That might have been an argument for excluding them all in 1948. It might have been, and it would have been the logical thing to do in a way, although, on balance, I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) did not exclude them. In the special circumstances I think that he was right to include them.

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    The decision having been made in 1948 that it was right to include them. surely it is insupportable that we should allow years to go by, in which the real value of their pension has been steadily eroded by rising prices, and not do anything to increase the purchasing power of that pension. Surely, once a decision has been made that a certain group of people are entitled to a certain level of pension in our National Insurance Scheme, there is a duty to see that the purchasing power of that pension is maintained over the years?
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) said, other groups have had increases since 1948. The Minister proudly asserts that they have had a number of increases since 1951. The hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles said that he did not wish to make a political point of this. I do not think that he could. I think that the increases have been far too few and far too late. Most other civilised countries pay higher benefits by way of social insurance. There have been increases to other groups, but there have not been increases to this group, and there is no logical excuse for making this distinction.
    4.15 p.m.
    If the Minister says, "After all, this is not a group for which the main National Insurance Scheme is intended", I think that we should remind him that in Clause 1 of the Bill we propose to make increased supplementary allowances to old cases under the Workmen's Compensation Act which are not within the main scope of the National Insurance or Industrial Injuries Schemes. In other words, we are recognising their claim to some increase in their allowances, and it seems to me that if we do that we should equally recognise the claim of the 10s. widow. I put it as strongly as I can to the Minister that 10s. a week in 1961, after the continual increases in the cost of living. is a silly amount, and an unworthy one, and that he ought to think in more generous terms than he has been prepared to do up to now.
    Mr. J. A. Stodart: I add weight to the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson). I confess that from a logi-
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    cal point of view the position seems absurd. It may be a fact that it can be said that the 10s. widow might well have had no pension at all, and that she is therefore to some extent in a privileged position. All the same, it appears to me that if in 1948 it was decided to bring these widows into a scheme and give them a pension, it is utterly illogical that after all these years, when the cost of living has gone up, they should still receive the same amount of pension.
    It would be very much better either to give them an increase to keep them in line with the rise in the cost of living, or—and I think that this would be more honest and even more respectable—to drop them altogether. Instead of attempting to apologise for the 10s. pension, which, frankly, I feel obliged to do when I meet these widows, I would feel very much happier if there was no pension for them at all. That is how I regard what I consider to be a considerable anomaly in this whole situation.
    Mr. John McKay: I cannot understand the point of view expressed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart). He said that he would be happier if the 10s. pension was dropped. Yet he previously stated that he would be quite pleased if the Clause were accepted. In that event, I should have thought that he would have been very unhappy if the Government ceased paying the pension. The whole position is very peculiar. This is a very small item in the affairs of the nation.
    The fact that the Clause has been allowed to appear on the Notice Paper, and can be thoroughly discussed today, indicates that it is in order, and that we are not asking the Government to do anything illegal. The matter is one for free discussion and free judgment. My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) really covered the whole point, and there is little any one can add to what he said. But if the Minister does not make a move in the direction of the Clause he will make us feel that he is not adopting a fair attitude in this matter. His arguments have been based on the gap that was created in 1948 between the 10s. widow and the widow who received nothing. He has said that he does not wish to see that gap increased. But what about the gap between the 10s. widow and the widow

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    who receives the ordinary widow's pension?
    Today, the pension of 10s. buys about the same amount of goods as could have been bought for 6s. in 1948. If we increased the 10s. pension to 20s. the gap between the pension of the 10s. widow and that of the ordinary widow would still be greater than it was in 1948. It would be 37s. 6d., whereas in 1948 it was 16s.—the difference between 10s. and 26s.
    I am sure that the Minister is not under any pressure from the Government to resist the Clause. Nobody can imagine any pressure being brought to bear in respect of a small matter like this. We must, therefore, come to the conclusion that our inability to influence him is due to his individual outlook. He must take the whole responsibility. He cannot hide behind the Government, or any influence within the Government. Perhaps it is his conscience which will not allow him to take this step. If so, his conscience is quite different from the consciences of his two hon. Friends who have spoken today, and the consciences of hon. Members on this side of the House. We must, therefore, come to the conclusion that the Minister is a very peculiar character.
    He is a free agent in the matter. There would be no criticism from the Government or from any of his colleagues if he accepted the Clause. Surely, after thirteen years, there is some case for an increase in this pension. Every other beneficiary under the National Insurance Act has had his or her allowance increased. The pension of the ordinary widow has been increased by 118 per cent., as has that of the dependent wife. But we are doing nothing for the 10s. widow. The Minister must try to make a judgment without prejudice. He must not think that we are bringing any pressure to bear upon him in the matter. He is fairly well liked as an individual, and he comes to fairly reasonable conclusions on most occasions. He should try to do so on this.
    Mrs. Harriet Slater: The Minister ought to relent on this occasion. I know the attitude that he has adopted in the past. He thinks that this class of widow is particularly lucky to have received 10s.
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    under the 1948 Act, and that no pension should have been awarded at that time. Therefore, he says that we must not make any change now. But two of his hon. Friends have explained how difficult they find it to make the 10s. widow understand why she should not have an increase when everybody else is having one. It is not only difficult but embar-rasing to try to explain this matter to these widows.
    The Minister should try to consider the question from the point of view of the widows themselves. They feel very aggrieved every time anybody else receives an increase. They feel that they have been unjustly treated. They have to buy their food in exactly the same markets. Their 10s goes no further than that of anybody else. They cannot understand why they have been left out of all the arguments which the Minister puts forward when he explains how generous the Government are being to all the other people under the National Insurance Scheme.
    These widows are left out of all the calculations, and are told "A mistake was made once, and we must not make another". At one time we regarded these widows as eligible to benefit under the National Insurance Scheme, but we are now telling them that they cannot benefit any further. Even the Government agree that since the 10s. pension was granted prices have risen considerably. Any woman who goes out shopping today knows how prices rise. They will certainly rise during the next two weeks. They have been rising continually, especially for basic necessities. The 10s. was a pittance when it was given and it is even more a pittance now.
    Another factor which the Government should take into consideration is that this is a gradually diminishing group of people. Some of them have died, and the others are growing older and going on to old-age pension. In a year when the Government have given Surtax payers a substantial relief, could not the Minister make a special plea to the Treasury for these widows? The Treasury is the nigger in the woodpile, deciding the pauses which are to be imposed both on benefits and on wages. Cannot the Minister show more initiative in relation to this group and a greater willingness to remove the feeling which they have that they have been

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    dealt with unjustly? It is irritating to them that they never share in the increased benefits which are given.
    Let the Minister ask the Treasury to face up to this issue and this year to grant increases to the group of 10s. widows, too.
    4.30 p.m.
    Mr. James Dempsey: I should like to join the chorus of support for the new Clause, which seeks to increase widows' pensions from 10s. to 20s. weekly. Much has been said about the conditions under which these pensions were introduced, and I have often heard the Minister hang his case on the fact that these widows cannot expect to be better off than those receiving benefits under the Act of 1948 and that the 10s. pension was offered as a form of pre-1948 compensation. That argument has been adduced so often that one might think that the widow's 10s. pension was a charitable gift from the Minister and his Administration. In fact, the 10s. widow's pension, as it is popularly called, is not charity. It is a benefit which widows receive on the death of their insured husbands. It is well known that the deceased husband must have fulfilled the necessary contribution conditions before his widow became eligible to receive a pension of 10s. per week.
    This means that we must look at the problem in a different light—not in the light of charity, but in the light of the fact that this pension was awarded having regard not only to the cost of living and the value of the £ at that time, but also to the fact that it was an insurance benefit which the widow receives in respect of the contributions of her deceased husband. In any event, it is very poor compensation for the loss of a husband.
    The Minister and his Department, who are so much concerned with pounds, shillings and pence and legal enactments, are inclined to overlook this important human aspect. If the Minister examined the reason for the introduction of this pension and the background to its introduction he might find that there are persons today receiving a much bigger pension under the
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    present Act for less insurance contributions than those paid by the deceased husbands of widows who only receive 10s. weekly.
    Let the Minister examine two points—first, the position of the insured person who died and who left a widow prior to 1948, his widow qualifying for the 10s. pension; and, secondly, the element of the contribution which that deceased person paid so that his widow could enjoy that pension, compared with the element paid for a much higher pension today. He would discover that the proportion paid, in many instances, by the deceased husband of the 10s. widow was much more than the proportion paid during the post-1948 period by a man whose widow is today receiving a much higher pension, due to the fact that the former paid insurance contributions years for the latter's months.
    After hearing the compliments paid to the Minister, and the remarks about his being so courteous a person, it is difficult to understand his obdurate attitude. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) said that he liked the Minister. I do not think that many 10s. widows like him. Here is an opportunity for him to capture their felicitations, too, by accepting the Clause. If he is so prejudiced against the 10s. widows that he is unwilling to give them the modest increase suggested, at the very least he is duty bound to take some account of the fact that 10s. given in 1948 has not the same value in 1961.
    This week I asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT figures showing the internal purchasing power of the £, taking it as 20s. in 1951 and showing the value for each subsequent year. The answer was that, accepting the £ as worth 20s. in 1951, its purchasing power in 1960 had been reduced to 15s. 10d. If we add the reduction in its purchasing power in 1949 and 1950 and take into consideration the loss in purchasing power during the past year, we see that the reduction is much mere than 4s. 2d. in the £. It is reasonable to say that since 1948 the purchasing power of the £ has fallen by much more than 4s. 2d.
    The very least that the Minister could do would be to restore the purchasing value of the 10s. pension, which the

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    widow receives to its purchasing value of 10s. in 1948. That is a reasonable request to make to the Minister. It is difficult to understand why it has taken so long to prevail on his sense of justice, and I beg of him that he will at least promise from the Dispatch Box this afternoon that he is willing to review the attitude which he has adopted towards this widows' pension.
    There is no need for any right hon. or hon. Gentleman to explain that a person cannot be expected to survive on 10s. a week. The hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson) made that abundantly clear to the Minister. We have only to look at the family allowances; some members of the family are receiving 10s. a week. Yet we expect a grown-up woman who has lost her husband to be content with a pension of 10s. a week.
    I believe that the Minister's unwillingness to face up to the problem is due to political cowardice. I am sure that he agrees with each and every one of us that 10s. a week is a disgracefully miserable pittance to offer to any adult in the United Kingdom, having regard to the fall in the purchasing power of the £ and the rise in the cost of living since the 10s. pension was introduced. The festive season is near, and I hope that the Minister will accept the new Clause and ensure that all the 10s. widows in the country can look forward to an increase of 10s. weekly and a brighter Christmas than they have had for many years.
    Mr. Raymond Gower: I apologise to the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) that I was not present to hear him move the new Clause, but I have listened carefully to subsequent speeches. The hon. Members for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) and Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) supported the new Clause in most persuasive terms. It is difficult to oppose a new Clause which is set out and supported in such terms. On the face of it this is a very reasonable case, but, in effect, the hon. Member for Sowerby is asking us to move these widows into the other group of widows.
    Mrs. Slater: No.
    Mr. Gower: I will justify what I am about to say, and I will give way in a moment to any hon. Member who wishes to contradict me.
    The intention is to move them into that group which enjoys the full widows' pension. After all, if the new Clause were accepted, we could not hold the position there. The widow who received 20s. would ask, "Why should we receive only 20s. while others who are over 50 receive so much more?" That would be a logical and reasonable thing for them to say.
    Mr. Houghton: The hon. Member said that he did not hear my speech and it is, therefore, a little difficult for him to know what I am asking. Had he been here he would have heard me say that all we were seeking was the restoration of the value of 10s. in 1948 terms, and that we were not asking for these 10s. widows to be brought into the new benefits. As he knows, these widows are not entitled to the new benefits, either the widow's pension or the widowed mother's allowance, and it would be unreasonable to ask for them to be included. It is simply a question of the restoration of the value of the pension.
    Mr. Gower: I accept that. I was informed that that point had been made by the hon. Gentleman. But one of his supporters asked, "How can a woman live on 10s. a week?" He would be just as entitled to ask, "How can a woman live on 20s. a week?"
    Ministers from both parties have refused to increase this award. The value of 10s. has been progressively reduced ever since the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), for reasons which were probably entirely valid, decided against including this group of widows in the new scheme. Not only the supporters of this new Clause, but also the widows, would be entitled to say that it is iniquitous—I forget the word which was used by hon. Members—that a widow should receive only 20s. a week—just as entitled to say that as they are to say that it is iniquitous that a widow should receive only 10s. a week. I agree with hon. Members who have asked, "How can anybody live on 10s. a week?" It is impossible. How could anybody live on 20s. a week? That would be equally impossible.
    Mr. Dempsey: They would be able to live better on 20s.
    Mr. Gower: Not in the sense of living, because no one is able to live on such a sum.
    There is another group of widows. If their husbands die when they are under 50 years of age, they receive the full widow's pension under the current scheme. Another group of widows under that age who have certain dependants receive an additional pension. But there is a third group of widows under that age who do not receive the 10s. pension. Hon. Members will be aware that there is a large group of widows under 50 years of age who do not receive a widow's pension, not even the 10s. Their sense of grievance would be increased if the 10s. widows' pension were increased to 20s. a week. I accept that the present widows' pension may be given at slightly too high an age, but that is a different point.
    4.45 p.m.
    I should like my right hon. Friend to tackle this problem in a different way, namely, to refer the question of widowhood once again to his National Insurance Advisory Committee. I realise that that has been done several times, but hon. Members on both sides must have discovered that a woman whose husband dies when she is just under the qualifying age, for instance, a woman of 49 years and 9 months, is often in the same position as a woman of 53 or 54.
    The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman is going outside the new Clause.
    Mr. Gower: I shall not enlarge on that point, Sir Gordon.
    If we wanted to give a benefit to widows covered by this Clause, it would be more reasonable and logical to do it in some other way. I cannot see that it could be held at this figure, or that the acceptance of this Clause would establish a position in which people would say, "This is reasonable and satisfactory". We must take a much larger decision. We must say that it is reasonable that all the widows who receive this pension should receive the full pension. That is a much bigger step than the Opposition are asking us to contemplate. It would be a big departure, and I should like to hear what my right hon. Friend has to say about it.
    472
    Although I find it difficult to say anything against the objectives of the hon. Member for Sowerby and his hon. Friends, I hope that they will reflect that we are here considering a difficult matter which has baffled, not only my right hon. Friend and his predecessors on this side, but also Ministers of their own party. It has been a baffling problem. There is something so helpless about the expression "10s. widow". It is a phrase which has an appeal. As has been said, it is terribly difficult to explain to these people why they are in this group.
    Mr. G. Elfed Davies: They are worse off under this Government.
    Mr. Gower: I do not think that that is a fair comment.
    The hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie said that my right hon. Friend would not accept the Clause because of political cowardice. It would result in political popularity, not political cowardice, if the new Clause were accepted.
    Mr. Dempsey: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the widow in receipt of the 10s. pension at least should receive the value of that pension, as she did in 1948? Is there anything unreasonable about that?
    Mr. Gower: No, if it comes out of some other fund. But it is not easily reconciled with the National Insurance Act, or with our system of contributory pensions. If my right hon. Friend could pay this proposed increase out of some other fund on the lines of the National Assistance principle, I would agree with hon. Members opposite.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said, this is a matter which the House as a House and as a Committee has discussed an very many occasions. However, it remains true, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson) said, that there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) said, there is something evocative about the phrase "10s. widow".
    The picture is conjured up as the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie tried to conjure it up, of someone trying to

    473
    subsist in 1961 on 10s. a week. I think that the hon. Gentleman realises that that is not an argument which has any relevance to this matter. It would be relevant if we were talking about a pension on which anyone is expected to live. It might be relevant to a proposal to put the women about whom we are speaking on the modern National Insurance level. But it cannot be relevant to a proposal which would move them from one level on which no one is expected to live to another level on which no one is expected to live.
    I had much sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) when he referred to the illogicality of the situation. There was much force in what he said. It may be that the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has reflected over the years on whether he was wise to make this provision. But there is certainly no logicality in fixing this figure at 20s. or at any figure which does not begin to be a subsistence figure unless one accepts the quite extraordinary argument of the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice).
    It is wrong to describe this as a National Insurance provision, as the hon. Member for Sowerby did. It is simply an old provision preserved by the National Insurance Acts. It is not part of the National Insurance Scheme. The hon. Member for East Ham, North said that, when something has been fixed by one Government years ago, there is an automatic duty on successive Governments at least to maintain its value. I cannot accept that argument as sound either constitutionally or, still more, from the point of view of social policy.
    Many of my hon. Friends will remember—we discussed this in the sunshine of Bournemouth earlier this year—that it was said that our social services ought to move on to a more selective basis and should deal more with cases of need and that there should be less spreading of benefits regardless of the need for them. We should not get anywhere with that if we accepted the thesis of the hon. Member for East Ham, North, that once a benefit has been fixed, then, however circumstances change, however obsolescent, out of date or out of tune with modern social thinking it may appear, it must be preserved. He is almost going as far as the Marquess
    474
    of Salisbury, the grandfather of my noble Friend Lord Salisbury, who once said, in another place, "Heaven forbid that I should ever touch a vested interest".
    That is the situation into which the hon. Member for East Ham, North is getting. I cannot accept his argument. If we are to apply the very large sums of money which all Governments provide for the social services so as to make them of most use, we must be free, as money becomes available, to apply it in places where it will, in fact, be of most use. We should not find ourselves automatically bound by the wisdom or un-wisdom of our predecessors.
    The hon. Member for East Ham, North supported the thesis of the automatic revaluation of all benefits by referring to Clause 1 in which, as he pointed out, we are making an additional provision for those whose benefits came under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts, but, as the hon. Gentleman will recall, on the ground, which he himself urged, of the hardship of the people concerned. I suggest that that is the right approach. We should look at the facts of the case and decide whether on grounds of hardship, need and humanity it is the right way to apply such money as becomes available. It is wrong to say that we must automatically preserve benefits which were laid down years ago.
    Mr. Prentice: The right hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair to my argument. First, he says that he does not follow me, because I am not in sympathy with what was said by some of the most reactionary elements in his own party at Bournemouth. Of course I do not accept their point of view. Secondly, he refers to Clause 1. Neither my hon. Friends nor I have argued that the benefits should be increased on the ground of hardship. We say that they should be increased on the ground of justice. We claim that if Parliament laid down that there should be a modest pension for these widows, it seems logical that that pension should maintain its purchasing power unless there are special reasons against it. Those reasons against it have not been forthcoming.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On the first point, the hon. Gentleman confirms my

    475
    analysis of his argument, the automatic maintenance, regardless of circumstances, of the value of a pension fixed years ago by another Government. On his second point, he underrates the speeches that his hon. Friends made, giving the most moving accounts of the hardship of those affected. The hon. Gentleman must not overrate the moving and, as the event proved, effective speeches made from both sides of the House on that issue which caused this Government to feel that hardship must be remedied. He cannot throw that overboard and adopt this argument now.
    If we are to consider this matter sensibly, it is essential that we should be clear in our minds about who are the ladies in question. All of them, without exception, are widows receiving a widows' pension at the 10s. rate whose circumstances, apart from their reserved right under the old Act, are indistinguishable from those of widows who today receive no pension at all.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby indulged in some neat dialectic in which he said that we would not widen the gap between those two women by taking a step to restore the value of the 10s. pension. He would widen the gap if he paid them 20s. instead of 10s. The argument that by increasing the pension from 10s. to 20s.—in fact, 20s. represents in value substantially more than the original 10s., but that is by the way—we should not widen the gap is not one that the House can be asked to accept. It would be widened in current terms by precisely 10s.
    In a social system, which has been very carefully worked out and accepted by both parties, to pay widows' pensions on a selective basis broadly concentrating by way of a much higher widows' pension resources on the widows who need them and leaving other widows without pensions, how can we justify taking out of the contributions of those people something to up-rate the benefit of widows whose circumstances, apart from this reserved right, are identical with those whom society has said should have no pension at all?
    Mr. Finch: The 10s. widows are those whose husbands contributed to the National Insurance Scheme. The husbands of the other women who are not
    476
    in receipt of a pension did not contribute to any scheme. We are here considering contributions under the old Act and under the present Act.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. The husband of the widow under the new scheme, who, because she was under 50 when widowed or has no young children, receives no pension, has been contributing very much more than the husband of the widow under the old scheme who gets 10s. contributed for on the much lower levels of that time.
    5.0 p.m.
    As I was saying, the difference is that under the new scheme all widows do not receive permanent pensions, although all widows do receive the widow's allowance for 13 weeks at the high rate of 80s. Widows are not given permanent pension under the new scheme unless they have young children, are over 50 or—and this has now been translated into sickness benefit—they are sick and unable to work. Under the old scheme widowhood as such was pensionable.
    That is the reason for the difference between the two schemes. I know that I carry the right hon. Member for Llanelly with me here, because he was responsible for carrying through the change. I am certain that that change was absolutely right, because it enables a concentration of benefit to be made on those who need it, and gives a much more satisfactory pension than otherwise would be possible.
    Secondly, I do not believe that, socially, it is a good thing that a young, fit childless widow should regard herself as being in a permanently pensionable position. I think that the right hon. Gentleman was right in making that change, and it is simply because of the preservation by him of the old pension for widowhood as such at the 10s. rate that we have the 10s. widow surviving alongside and in comparison with—and only in comparison with—the no-shilling widow of today. With the working through of the transitional provisions, we now have the position that any woman with a 10s. right, whose circumstances would approximate to those which would give a pension under the new scheme, has, in fact, been brought on to the new scheme rates. We

    477
    are dealing, in effect, with the younger childless widow.
    The argument is adduced that because the value of the 10s. pension has been eroded we ought to increase the amount. If the provision that one was concerned with was part of the current social provision of the day I would broadly, subject to finance and the rest, agree. But it is not. It is quite inconsistent with current thinking. Therefore, it is much more a reserved right, like many other rights, to money payments which have unhappily diminished with the years.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby took me to task for having on a previous occasion made a comparison with those people who have invested in National Savings certificates, or even perhaps in Daltons, who have bought an annuity, who have cashed savings of one kind or another, all of whom, of course, have suffered from the change in the value of money. I think that the hon. Gentleman can only distinguish this case from those if he can show us that this is a real, live, valuable social provision. If it is not, I suggest that the case is analogous to other rights for payment of money, honourably and properly acquired rights, in respect of which people have undoubtedly suffered loss of income by reason of the change in the value of money, but which do not come within the category of the social provisions which the State feels it is its duty to provide and to increase with the changes in the value of money.
    It is interesting that that is a point which hon. Members opposite have intermittently taken. The hon. Member for Sowerby became quite moving when he referred to this as a binding obligation, and said that this is part of the deal. His colleagues did not take that view in 1951 when they increased the retirement pension by a certain amount. This 10s. had already fallen in real value to 8s. 5d. but there was no belief then in the obligation; there was no reference to this being part of the deal. The right hon. Member for Llanelly who made the deal, if there was a deal, did not apparently take that view at that time. It is a little late for the hon. Member for Sowerby to come back with it now.
    Mr. Houghton: After ten years?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Let us come to more recent times. Let me refer to the National Insurance Act, 1959, and to what was said by Mr. Hilary Marquand. Incidentally, I am sure that we are all sorry to realise that we must now refer to him as the former right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East. When winding up for the Opposition on the Third Reading of that Measure, he said, of the 10s. widow:
    "… I do not think that they have a fully justified grievance, although they think that they have."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th June, 1959; Vol. 606, c. 836.]
    At this time it does not lie in the mouth of the hon. Member for Sowerby to take the high line that this is an absolute obligation, that this is part of the deal and that we are in honour bound to implement it. The matter is much more difficult. It is a matter which we have to consider on its merits.
    As I have said, this Clause—I make no great point about it—goes substantially beyond what would be needed even to restore the value; 6s. 5d. would be enough, but it proposes an increase of 10s. It is a substantial sum. It is not one which this House will wish to dispose of lightly, particularly at this moment. Although I put no great weight on this fact, the Clause is framed with exactly the same defects as the hon. Gentleman's proposal was in 1960. It does not do anything like what it sets out to do. It bites only on those who were already entitled to pension on 5th July, 1948. It does not touch the others. As I pointed out that fact to the hon. Gentleman, and as he has tabled the Clause again in the old form, one is left in some doubt as to what his intentions are.
    Mr. Houghton: The right hon. Gentleman must stop making that point against us. He knows full well what we want to do. I beg him to stop picking holes in the Clause merely because it does not satisfy all the technical requirements. If he will give us on this side of the House the benefit of the services of the civil servants which he enjoys, we will get it right. But until then we shall have to do our best. I therefore beg of him to drop this approach and to deal with the merits and substance of the matter, instead of worrying the guts out of our

    479
    proposals merely because they are not 100 per cent. accurate.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman must not get so excited. If we had not had this before, I would not have reminded him of it. But we had this proposal before, and, therefore, he does not suffer from the advantage which he previously did. When he again puts down a much more limited new Clause he must take some responsibility, and not refer to me as picking out, as I think he so eloquently put it, the guts—if there are any—of the Clause.
    Coming to the merits, I must not leave the hon. Gentleman with the impression, which he appears to have and which appears to be shared by his hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch), that we have not given careful consideration to the position of these widows. On the contrary, I referred the whole position of widows to the National Insurance Advisory Committee. That Committee reported in 1956, after full consideration, that any real grievance that these women had could be met if we were prepared to provide them with what colloquially I may call the flying start—in other words, that they should be treated as fully paid up for sickness and unemployment benefit. If, when their widow's pensions ended after 13 weeks, they were unfit to work on grounds of health or unable to find suitable employment, they would be provided with benefit at the same rate as the widow's pension. I accepted that recommendation on behalf of the Government, and in that same year, in the Family Allowances and National Insurance Act, I made that provision. I have no reason at all to doubt from experience that that advice was wise and right, and dealt with the substance of the matter.
    Hon. Gentlemen have mentioned the question of hardship. One hon. Gentleman referred to supplementation from National Assistance. In fact, the proportion of 10s. widows in receipt of supplementation from the National Assistance Board is not much more than half the proportion of other National Insurance widow beneficiaries who receive that supplementation; and that, indeed, is what one would expect. These are the women without the commitment of
    480
    young children, who, if ill, are now provided with sickness benefits for themselves up to the full rate, and who, if unemployed, can draw unemployment benefit and in whose case one would not expect, particularly at a time like this of high employment and good earnings, that there would be hardship in their case. There is the fact that the supplementation figures are only half of what they are for the National Insurance widow beneficiaries generally.
    Mr. William Ross: Is it half the figure, or the proportion?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Half the percentage. The percentage in the case of National Insurance beneficiaries is about 15 per cent., and in the case of the 10s. widows it is about 8 per cent.
    Therefore, we are not dealing with a class that is in difficulties. I must risk incurring the hon. Gentleman's disapproval, but the cost of his Clause as it stands, confined, as it would be, to those drawing pensions in 1948, would be, very roughly, £1 million a year. The cost of what he says he intends to do would be not much short of £3 million a year.
    I rest my main objection to this proposal on the objections of principle that I have put, and on the basis which I hope the House will accept, that we have honestly tried, with the advice of the Advisory Committee, to do what was right in respect of these widows, and that we have, in fact, done so. Even if hon. Members do not accept that view—it is my own view, to which I have given considerable thought—I hope that they will equally accept the view that, particularly at this moment, an expenditure of this order, additional to any existing social provisions is not one which it would he responsible to contemplate. Nor, would I say, is it one to which I should give priority.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby made some play with the argument of priority, but he knows, as everybody who has been in office knows, that the nub of a ministerial job is very often deciding just that—which provision should take the money that is available; and we all know, though I should be out of order to go into them, that there are many directions in which we should like to see improvement and expansion.

    481
    I honestly could not suggest to the House that, if one accepts to the full the arguments that have been put, and accepts them at their full face value, a case has been made out, in 1961, at a time of stringent economy in public expenditure, requiring that we should give a preference to a section of society that has not been demonstrated to be suffering hardship over all other claimants in our social services system. Therefore, I must, on that ground as well as on the others, ask the House to reject the new Clause.
    Mr. Ross: I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) who said that the Minister had a reputation for being very courteous and very nice, and that he wondered at it. I do not wonder at it at all. I do not think there is anyone who can say "No" more courteously, with more conviction or with more irrelevance to the argument. The right hon. Gentleman has answered arguments that just have not been put up.
    My hon. Friend did not speak about hardship; he spoke about injustice. He spoke about a right that was there, and which ought to be maintained. I thought it a little unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to quote a former colleague of ours, Mr. Hilary Marquand, when he implied that, when dealing with this kind of new Clause that we are putting forward, he said that he thought that the 10s. widows had not fully justified their grievance. The grievance of these 10s. widows is that they want to be raised to the full modern rates, so there is nothing inconsistent with what he said there and what my hon. Friend said today.
    Let us look at the facts. There is one that people seem to forget in this matter, and the right hon. Gentleman certainly did, and it concerns the changing value of money. He seemed to think that my hon. Friend had put forward a new principle which we were demanding that the Government should accept. He knows quite well that in giving these pensions on retirement, they are pensions that were earned pre-1946, as well as others. He proclaimed that we were raising the pensions not only as much as the change in the value of money merited, but beyond it.
    482
    I remember the right hon. Gentleman when he was a Minister at the Treasury, and dealing with pensions paid to old public servants and the rest under the Pensions (Increase) Act, declaring, for the same reason, that the change in the value of money justified those pensions, to which there was no statutory right. It was just a little unfair of him, when we apply to widows the same principle which he has accepted for other, and in many cases better off, sections of the community, to say "No". Even with all the courtesy and conviction which he produced, he did not convince me.
    The right hon. Gentleman talked about the sunny skies of Bournemouth and changes in considering hardships. When we consider the interpretation of hardship and the priorities placed by the Government side of the House—the hardship of the £5,000 a year man struggling to raise and educate a family, the prior needs of the Surtax payer to the tune of £80 million or so next year, can he wonder that we rather resent the argument which he has put forward here? It will cost only between £1 million and £3 million to give this measure of legal justice to the 10s. widow. The right hon. Gentleman is not likely to be the "pin up boy" of the 10s. widows tonight.
    5.15 p.m.
    The right hon. Gentleman almost painted a picture of affluence among; he 10s. widows. He suggested that there is nothing to worry about here, and that he is placing no hardship upon them. But these 10s. widows, to earn retirement pensions at 60, have to pay the full insurance, and the amount of insurance they have to pay is 8s. 8d. per week, which itself practically erodes the whole of the 10s. When the right hon. Gentleman talks rather learnedly about 'he value of money, I think that it would be only fair to say that with some people the burden of the National Insurance and National Health Service contributions, which he has placed upon them by his own actions, certainly brings it near to the figure which we suggest here as meeting the case.
    I am very glad that two Scottish Unionists—I must not call them Conservatives—not only had the courage to speak, but had the courage to oppose the Minister. I hope that they will show

    483
    an even greater measure of courage than some hon. Members have done in the past. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) said that he was tired of apologising for the Government in the case of the 10s. widow. I agree with him, and I hope that he will have no cause to apologise for what he does when the vote is taken, because a Tory in the Labour Lobby is worth far more than Tory speeches from back benchers. It carries far more conviction in relation to what they are doing.
    I think that the hon. Members' speeches were well worth while. I believe that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) who, before he noticed that the two hon. Members opposite were present, said that he did not think that anyone on the benches opposite would rise and support the Minister. He must have forgotten the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower).
    Mr. Dempsey: He was not here at the time.
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Member for Barry is Wales's gift to the Tory Front Bench. One day he will make a mistake and will oppose his Front Bench. On this occasion I did not think that he did even himself justice.
    The fact is that this is not a gift which we are seeking to give these people. This is an entitlement which was earned for them by their late husbands, by the contributions which they paid during their lifetime. There is always the dilemma of new legislation in relation to the transition from the old to the new. I do not think that it was a dilemma that faced my hon. Friend. I think that the dilemma was probably whether the amount should be 10s. or whether we should bring these people up to the new rate. Let us remember that most of those who already had the 10s. were, for one reason or another, brought up to the rate of 26s.
    Mr. James Griffiths: If I may take the House back to those days, the position was that we introduced a new kind of widow's benefit under our scheme. I found that by introducing a widow's benefit of a new kind, the 13 weeks' allowance, the children's allow-
    484
    ance and the disability benefit some widows would be left without the pension—the widows whose husbands had contributed under the old scheme for a widow's pension of 10s.—at the age of 60, without any qualification whatsoever. I did not fix the 10s., nor did my party. The party opposite fixed it years ago. I undertook, under the new scheme, that if these people would not enjoy the new benefit, I would reserve and pay to them the benefits for which their husbands had paid under the old scheme.
    Mr. Ross: We are grateful to my right hon. Friend for taking us back as he has done. It gives me an additional argument to put to the Minister. I wonder that the Minister himself did not seek to remove the 10s., because, while it remains, it must be a constant reminder to the nation of the standard of benefits which the Labour Government inherited in 1945. It was then 10s. for the widow and 10s. for the pensioner. It was from that low standard that we made our improvements in 1946.
    I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has once again adopted the attitude which he has shown today. I think that he has tried as hard as he could to cover the shame of his party in relation to the 10s. widow with as many words as possible, though quite unsuccessfully. The 10s. widows will retain their grievance. I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) who said that every time a change is made in the rate of widow's pensions that grievance is renewed and that bitterness is again expressed.
    These widows represent a diminishing number of people. They tend to be between the age of 50 and 60 and most of them are forced out to work because they have to pay their contributions in order to earn their retirement pension. It would have been only fair had we faced up to the fact that a decision was taken in 1946—a decision which came into force in 1948—that the 10s. should be kept up to date. Simple justice is enshrined in the purpose, if not in the words, of our new Clause, and I sincerely hope that we shall be joined by those two Unionists from Scotland who expressed themselves in favour of the Clause as well as by

    485
    every other hon. Gentleman and hon. Lady on the benches opposite who feels a that this is the least that we can do for these widows.
    Question put, That the Clause be read Second time:—
    The House divided: Ayes 174, Noes 246.

    Division No. 34.]

    AYES

    [5.25 p.m.

    Ainsley, William

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Hilton, A. V.

    Prentice, R. E.

    Bence, Cyril

    Holman, Percy

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Holt, Arthur

    Probert, Arthur

    Benson, Sir George

    Houghton, Douglas

    Randall, Harry

    Blackburn, F.

    Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

    Rankin, John

    Blyton, William

    Hoy, James H.

    Rhodes, H.

    Boardman, H.

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Bowles, Frank

    Hunter, A. E.

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Boyden, James

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Ross, William

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Janner, Sir Barrett

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Short, Edward

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Jeger, George

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Callaghan, James

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Skeffington, Arthur

    Cliffe, Michael

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Collick, Percy

    Jones, T. W, (Merioneth)

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Kelley, Richard

    Small, William

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Darting, George

    Lawson, George

    Steele, Thomas

    Davies, G. Elfred (Rhondda, E.)

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Logan, David

    Stones, William

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

    Deer, George

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

    Dempsey, James

    McCann, John

    Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

    Diamond, John

    MacColl, James

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Dodds, Norman

    McInnes, James

    Driberg, Tom

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Dugdale, Rt Hon. John

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    McLeavy, Frank

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    MacPerson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Thornton, Ernest

    Fernyhough, E,

    Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.)

    Timmons, John

    Finch, Harold

    Manuel, A. C.

    Wade, Donald

    Fitch, Alan

    Mapp, Charles

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Fletcher, Eric

    Marsh, Richard

    Warbey, William

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Mason, Roy

    Watkins, Tudor

    Forman, J. C.

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Weitzman, David

    Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

    Milne, Edward J.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Mitchison, G. R.

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Crmrthn)

    Monslow, Walter

    Wilkins, W. A,

    Ginsburg, David

    Moody, A. S.

    Willey, Frederick

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Morris, John

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Moyle, Arthur

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Grey, Charles

    Mulley, Frederick

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S)

    Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

    Oram, A. E.

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Gunter, Ray

    Owen, Will

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, w.)

    Paget, R. T.

    Woof, Robert

    Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Hannan, William

    Pavitt, Laurence

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Mr. Charles A. Howell and

    Hayman, F. H.

    Peart, Frederick

    Dr. Broughton.

    Healey, Denis

    Pentland, Norman

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

    Aitken, W. T.

    Bidgood, John C.

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Arbuthnot, John

    Biffen, John

    Brooman-White, R.

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Bishop, F. P.

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Barber, Anthony

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Bryan, Paul

    Barlow, Sir John

    Bossom, Clive

    Buck, Antony

    Barter, John

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Bullard, Denys

    Batsford, Brian

    Box, Donald

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J.

    Burden, F. A.

    Bell, Ronald

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Butler, Rt. Hn. H. A. (Saffron Walden)

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Brewis, John

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Hollingworth, John

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Hopkins, Alan

    Pitman, Sir James

    Chataway, Christopher

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

    Pott, Percivall

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Pym, Francis

    Cooke, Robert

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    Ramsden, James

    Cooper, A. E.

    Hurd, Sir Anthony

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Corfield, F. V.

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Rees, Hugh

    Costain, A. P.

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Renton, David

    Coulson, J. M.

    James, David

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Jennings, J. C.

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Critchley, Julian

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Robertson, Sir D.(C'thn's & S'th'ld)

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Roots, William

    Cunningham, Knox

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Russell, Ronald

    Curran, Charles

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Seymour, Leslie

    Dance, James

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Sharples, Richard

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Kimball, Marcus

    Shaw, M.

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Kitson, Timothy

    Shepherd, William

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Doughty, Charles

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Smithers, Peter

    Duncan, Sir James

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David

    Lindsay, Martin

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Speir, Rupert

    Elliott, R. W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Emery, Peter

    Longbottom, Charles

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Longden, Gilbert

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Farr, John

    MacArthur, Ian

    Tapsell, Peter

    Fell, Anthony

    McLaren, Martin

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Finlay, Graeme

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Taylor, F. (M'ch'ter & Moss Side)

    Fisher, Nigel

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

    Forrest, George

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Teeling, William

    Foster, John

    MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

    Temple, John M.

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

    Freeth, Denzil

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Gammans, Lady

    Maddan, Martin

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Gardner, Edward

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Marshall, Douglas

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Marten, Neil

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Turner, Colin

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Goodhart, Philip

    Mawby, Ray

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Gough, Frederick

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Gower, Raymond

    Maydon, Lt. Cmdr. S. L. C.

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Mills, Stratton

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Green, Alan

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)

    Walder, David

    Grimston, Sir Robert

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Walker, Peter

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Morrison, John

    Ward, Dame Irene

    Gurden, Harold

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Webster, David

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Nicholls, Sir Harmar

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Whitelaw, William

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Nugent, Sir Richard

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Harvie Anderson, Miss

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Wise, A. R.

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Hiley, Joseph

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Partridge, E.

    Woollam, John

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Worsley, Marcus

    Hobson, John

    Percival, Ian

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Peyton, John

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Holland, Philip

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Mr. J. E. B. Hill and Mr. Noble.

    New Clause.—(EARNINGS RULE NOT TO APPLY TO WIDOWED MOTHERS.)
    (1) No deductions shall be made from a widowed mother's allowance in respect of her earnings; and accordingly section seventeen of the National Insurance Act, 1946 (which provides, inter alia, for such deduction), and certain enactments and regulations, which amend that section and are mentioned in the Schedule
    488
    (Repeals in connection with widowed mother's allowances) to this Act, are hereby repealed to the extent mentioned in the third column of that Schedule.
    (2) This section shall come into force on a day to be appointed by the Minister by an order made in the form of a statutory instrumen and laid before Parliament.—[Mr. Ross]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. Ross: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    The purpose of the Clause is simple and I hope that it commends itself to most, if not all, hon. Members. This is, again, a matter which we shall have to take to a Division if we do not receive a satisfactory answer from the Minister. However, I am more hopeful this time. The Clause seeks to remove altogether the earnings limit in respect of the personal part of the widowed mother's allowance.
    In Committee, I suggested that a notice should be put up behind the Minister's table in his office saying, "Beware of widows, especially young ones". It is only fair to say, however, that in respect of widowed mothers the Minister, over the past few years, has shown a very warm and human attitude, both in respect of benefits and in respect of the subject we are discussing.
    The amount which widowed mothers can earn has risen. it is now £5. The rise itself has placed the National Insurance Advisory Committee in a dilemma. It wants to know exactly where we are going with the earnings rule. The personal allowance was supposed to take account of the fact that a mother with children could not go out and earn her living. I do not think that there is any dispute that, improved as the benefits are, a widowed mother cannot be expected to keep her family in the comfort and standards she has every right to expect on the allowance given to her and her children under National Insurance and by family allowances without some augmentation of that income.
    The total allowances received by a widowed mother with three children are £6 14s. 6d. a week. The widowed mother's allowance for herself and the first child is £4 2s. 6d.; the allowance for the second child is 17s.; the allowance for the third child is 17s.; and she receives 18s. by way of family allowances.
    Everyone who has studied the earnings rule has said that, if ever there was a case in which it could be altered without great complications and consequential anomalies, this is the case. That is why we have limited the Clause to widowed mothers. It does not affect retirement pensions or widows. The retirement pension is paid because the
    490
    person is presumed or proved to have retired. If we attempted to abolish the earnings rule in relation to the retirement pension, we should come right up against the first requirement of paying the retirement pension, namely, retirement.
    When one realises that a woman in receipt of widow's pension automatically, when she reaches the age of 60, has that translated into retirement pension, one realises that there is a relationship between the ordinary widow's pension and the retirement pension. But the widowed mother's allowance is a transitional benefit. When her children grow up she gets a widow's pension and my hon. Friend's and I are pressing that while she is in receipt of a widowed mother's allowance—for she must maintain her family single handed and may consider that to do this best she should go to work—there should be no earnings limit at all.
    The arguments against doing this in the past appear to have been that if one made this alteration one would be helping the widows who go to work and earn more than £5 but, at the same time, one would be doing little or nothing more for widows doing perhaps part-time work or no work at all. This seems a very unfair argument. It was used, I think, on the last occasion we debated this subject. It seems peculiar to argue that one should do nothing for anyone unless one does something for everyone.
    A study of this subject will soon reveal that if something can be done to improve the circumstances of the widows under discussion, it should be done. When the National Insurance Advisory Committee last considered the Minister's increase to £5 the Committee was faced with a measure of dilemma because its members, too, would rather that something was done for everyone. The Committee pointed out, however, that the amount of money available would have been insufficient to do anything either for widows in relation to their allowances or for their children.
    Thus, the Committee agreed because, at that time, the Minister was not merely increasing the earnings limit in relation to wages. He was actually making a change. It was because the right hon. Gentleman made that change and widened the gap—by 30s. compared with

    491
    the earnings rule for ordinary widows, of £3 10s.—that we have every justification now to seek to persuade the right hon. Gentleman to remove it altogether. We want him to appreciate that, in this field, this change can be made without any complications concerning the retirement pension.
    I do not wish to traverse the entire subject, but I sincerely hope that the Minister will not seek to divide the widows in the way I have described, just to make a debating conquest. The majority of widows who go to work do so because they must. It is a question of striving to bring up their families and to give their children a chance. When one appreciates that, single-handed, they are making this struggle, one must surely realise that they are entitled to our help. After all, we are talking about widows with children. These children have exactly the same appetities as those whose fathers are alive. They are just as hard on clothes, especially school clothes—and practically every school has its own uniform.
    5.45 p.m.
    I urge hon. Members to realise the household and other expenses these widows have. They are just the same as in a family where the husband is able to help his wife to cope with all the problems of family life. We are, therefore, entitled to make the change proposed by my hon. Friends and I sincerely hope—and I appreciate that the Minister is as sympathetic towards this as anyone—that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to make the change and will not allow this fear of anomaly or comparison—that we are unable to do something for everyone—prevent him from making this reasonable and justifiable alteration.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I fully support the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), who put forward, in a reasonable fashion, powerful arguments for making the change that we propose. There are other reasons which strongly appeal to me. For a woman bereft of her husband and claiming benefit under the terms of the Act, while her children are still young and going to school she is, in most cases, bereft not only of the consortium of her husband—I think that is the legal term—but she is also outside
    492
    certain provisions of the financial system of taxation.
    As soon as she enters widowhood and begins to cope with the problems of bringing up her family—and she may be living in a house which has been obtained by mortgage—she has all these additional liabilities with which to cope. At that stage she not only loses the financial support of the breadwinner, but she receives, if she is subject to taxation by way of Income Tax, only one allowance for herself and not the joint allowance—I think it is £280—which would normally be payable to a husband and wife.
    I have never understood this arrangement, although I am familiar with it and I have tried to go into these problems. Why, because a widow chooses to assist her family income by going to work—to earn an extra £5, £6, or £8 a week—should the Ministry be relieved of part of the liability of paying her the full widowed mother's allowance? While we cannot completely avoid an anomaly in this respect, many hon. Members cannot understand—and I shall welcome anything the Minister may say to enlighten me—why it should be argued for the Government that because a woman chooses during widowhood to earn herself such additional income as she may she should receive this lesser benefit and the Ministry should be relieved of its full liability under the Act.
    Many hon. Members—and I may be as guilty as any of them—fall into the error of supposing that many of these benefits are in some way tinged with relief, that because of the introduction of an earnings rule, which is another form of means test, there should be diminution of benefit. I do not consider that this is justified under an insurance scheme. The Government Actuary, who advised originally on the foundation of the scheme from an actuarial viewpoint, surely did not put any loading factor into his calculations that a certain proportion of widows would not qualify for the full benefit because they chose to earn money in suitable employment.
    Therefore, with those two additional arguments—first, that there is not available to a widowed mother the full allowances of taxation under our tax system that would fall to the household if the

    493
    husband were living, and, secondly, that this is an insurance scheme paying a specified rate of benefit in respect of a substantial rate of contribution, which, under our system, is constantly rising—I suggest that the time has come to look more compassionately and more favourably upon doing something to remove what, we believe, is a relatively unfair position for the widowed mother.
    I know that the widowed mother will get the allowances provided by Statute for the children, but if a woman in this position, in addition to the domestic hardship of having to battle with life without a husband and bringing up children, shows herself so adaptable to her new circumstances as to go out and earn a reasonably good living that will maintain the family in the status to which they have been accustomed, she should not be penalised by a diminution of benefit under the existing regulations.
    Therefore, without wishing to exaggerate or to elaborate further, I sincerely hope that on this occasion the Minister will respond in the way in which my hon. Friends have asked him to do.
    Mr. Percy Browne: I rise again, as the hon. Member for West Houghton (Mr. J. T. Price) has done, briefly to support the Clause. I associate myself with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) when he said that the Minister and the party to which I belong have lifted the widow, from the point of view of benefit and the earnings rule, above the average level which is given to many other people. That is quite right.
    The new Clause opens up generally the operation of the earnings rule, with which I disagree. If I were to go into the pros and cons of the earnings rule now, I should be out of order, so I shall, therefore, keep to the new Clause.
    We are all agreed that the widowed mother who is, as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock pointed out, under pensionable age is in a special position. The chances are that when she loses her breadwinner, especially if she has young children to look after, she has to go out to work. This being the case, it seems to me entirely wrong that we should by law take away some of her benefit if she is prepared to go out and earn
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    money above a certain limit. That can be said generally about the earnings rule.
    At present, the position is that we do not want to "shell out" too much public money. Why I like the Clause particularly is because subsection (2) states that
    "This section shall come into force on a day to be appointed by the Minister by an order made in the form of a statutory instrument and laid before Parliament."
    I congratulate hon. Members opposite on the Clause. I rather wish that I had put down a proposal about credits for seasonal workers on the same lines. It never occurred to me and it was too late when I saw the new Clause, or I should have done so.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept the Clause. He cannot advance the argument that he is unable at this moment to provide funds to operate the Clause, because he does not need to implement it when the Bill comes into force. If he agrees, as I am sure he will, in principle that it is right that the earnings rule should be extinguished for widowed mothers who are drawing their allowance rather than their pension, he should accept the Clause and put it into the Bill rather than bring forward new legislation on another occasion.
    Mr. W. Griffiths: I support the new Clause. I am delighted that my hon. Friends have put it down, because in Session 1959–60, having been successful in the Ballot, I promoted, together with some of my hon. Friends, a Private Member's Bill to do precisely what my hon. Friends now seek to do. Again this Session, having been successful in the Ballot—although, unfortunately, I am so far down the list that my hon. Friends are quite right to seek to remedy the anomaly in this way—I have done the same thing again, largely with the same supporters as I had two Sessions ago.
    The hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne), whose support on this occasion we are delighted to have, will, I hope, follow us into the Division Lobby if we have to divide the House. One of the things which attracted the hon. Member about the Clause was that the Minister was not called upon immediately to find the money.
    The position under the existing law is that if any widowed mother wishes, or

    495
    has, to cease working, the Government have to meet her pension in full. In the original Act, the Government took power to meet that situation. The operation of the earnings rule prevents a widow in that category from receiving the pension in full. If, however, for any reason she decided to finish working, her pension rights would have to be met in full by the Government.
    I agree entirely with the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) about the special responsibilities of widowed mothers to their families. One thing which I should like to add about the position of the widow—it applies not only to widowed mothers, but to widows in general—is the great loss which industry, commerce and the professions suffer when women have to leave their employment. There are a vast number of people in jobs such as nursing, physiotherapy, radiography and in hospitals. These people are trained to do a skilled and necessary job for the community, but, upon marriage, they have to leave their work. I should have thought that to encourage widows with those qualifications and who desire to do so to go back to their employment would be highly desirable.
    I have never accepted the theory which is advanced in some quarters that when a woman marries, whether she becomes a widow or not, she should cease to have any interest in her profession or job. She is perfectly entitled to go out to work and should be encouraged to do so if she wishes.
    The main argument against the retention of the earnings rule for widowed mothers under the National Insurance Act is the gross inequality which is applied to widows who become widowed as a result of the normal hazards of life and the different treatment accorded to widowed mothers under the Industrial Injuries Act and to other widowed mothers.
    6.0 p.m.
    Even today, there are large numbers of people who do not realise that if a husband loses his life at work, the widowed mother is not subjected to any earnings rule. She can earn as much as she likes. To repeat an example which
    496
    I have given before, if a man is driving a bus and the bus crashes and he is killed, his widow is able to go out to work and earn as much as she can get. If the bus driver had ceased his employment half an hour beforehand and was a passenger in the bus when it crashed and he was killed, his widow would be subjected to the earnings rule. This distinction is completely indefensible. Whenever one puts it to people outside, they at once describe it as an outrageous distinction. It has gone on for a long time and Parliament should put an end to it.
    When I introduced my Bill in 1959–60, I was struck by the enormous volume of correspondence which I received from all over the country and from all kinds of organisations, particularly women's organisations. I have been a Member of the House for 16 years, but never before had I had such a volume of correspondence.
    The Minister is well aware of these arguments, because I had the honour to lead a deputation from the National Council of Women to meet him some time ago. He was sympathetic and listened to us courteously, but the right hon. Gentleman raised again the difficulty of creating fresh anomalies. What the Minister did not say to us on that occasion—and I have not heard him or any other Minister from his Department say anything about it in the House—was whether he could justify the continuation of this anomaly between different types of widowed mother. Can he possibly justify the widow of the man killed at work not being subject to the earnings rule and the widow of the man who dies, as it were, a natural death at home being subject to it? These are some of the matters about which we should hear from the Minister. It is for this reason and the reasons which we have heard from both sides of the House that I hope the Minister will agree to the Clause and bring it into operation when he and his colleagues in the Government consider the time convenient.
    Mr. Julian Ridsdale: When we discuss pension cases or the earnings rule, I often find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) because, like him, I have a constituency with many

    497
    seaside towns and with many retired people and with a certain number of widowed mothers with children. I have had arguments with the Minister when I have found myself in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington concerning the earnings rule, although quite often we have been torpedoed by the superior science and knowledge of the Minister in some of the cases which we have put forward.
    I have, however, been very much impressed by the arguments put forward by the Opposition in support of the new Clause, and particularly by the hon. Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. W. Griffiths) when he pointed out that when a person is killed in action or dies of industrial injury the earnings rule does not apply, although it operates when a person dies naturally, despite the fact that the circumstances of the widow are exactly the same in all cases.
    I hesitate to speak about increases of any kind when we are in the period of the pay pause as part of our economic policy. I have supported it because I do not wish to see an increase in the cost of living in the country as a whole. The cost of the new Clause cannot be very much. I know of only two cases in my constituency of widowed mothers with children who are affected by the earnings rule. Obviously, in the country as a whole the number is higher. I hope that when the Minister replies he will say what the cost would be if the new Clause were accepted, but, in general, I must say that I find myself very much in sympathy with the new Clause and I hope that the Minister will find it possible if not to accept the new Clause during the period of the pay pause at least as soon as possible afterwards.
    Mr. Eric Fletcher: May I just add two or three words in support of the new Clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and supported by speeches made on both sides of the House? I very much hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us a sympathetic response to the representations which have been made to him on this subject and that we shall not be met with some stony, obstinate refusal that to make this concession would produce administrative anomalies, for it seems to me that here is real hardship where we can take a well-defined though probably not very
    498
    numerous category of widows and can make a relaxation of the earnings rule, a relaxation which is required on all considerations of humanity and justice.
    Personally, I am against the earnings rule altogether, but on this new Clause that wider question of principle does not arise. Here we are dealing with a small, limited number of cases in which, I submit, special considerations arise. Widowed mothers are in a class by themselves. They are not pensioners.
    I speak about this matter because only in the last few months I have had two specific cases come to my notice, and they illustrate the difficulty which faces a married woman, perhaps around 50, with two or three children who suddenly loses her husband, not as a result of an industrial accident, in which case she is fully protected, but as a result of some other misfortune—ill-health, as it happened to be in both these cases—causing the sudden, unexpected death of the husband and father.
    One case concerns a woman in her forties with young children who is faced with this sudden, unexpected emergency. What is she to do? While her husband was alive she was bringing us those children in reasonable comfort, two of them at grammar schools and the other being educated with natural prospects of a reasonable education; living in the sort of comfort which a woman can enjoy if her husband is enjoying a reasonable income. It is bad enough in all conscience for a woman to find herself suddenly placed in that emergency, but apart from the bereavement and misery and tragedy due to the loss of her husband there is financial loss. In the two cases I have in mind each is a brave, courageous woman deciding that she must continue to try to earn as much as she can in order that while the young children are still at school they may be able to qualify to go out into the world for themselves, and she must try to give them what they would have had if her husband had lived. She can do that only by going out to work.
    As one knows, a great many married women in the circumstances of today can earn a reasonable income. It so happens that these two women, before they were married, had secretarial qualifications which enabled them to obtain a reasonable salary. To do that would, of course,

    499
    mean obtaining assistance in the house. It is only by such a method that these brave women, anxious, quite naturally, to do the best for their children, can try to maintain them in the same kind of state which they would have enjoyed had their husbands lived.
    On what grounds of principle should they be deprived by this earnings rule? Why should they not be entitled to the allowances which the State gives them under what is, after all, an insurance scheme, and why should they not also be enabled to earn—and retain—as much as they reasonably can without having to sacrifice their contributions from the Exchequer? On what ground of common sense and equity in this society in which we live can that be justified?
    As the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, there is ancient and honourable authority and injunction specially to help widows and orphans in their affliction, and it seems to me that this is one way in which we can do it and in which we ought to do it. I hope that no question of administrative difficulties or anomalies will be used, in answer to this new Clause, in order to frustrate what I am sure is not only the wish of both sides of the House but would accord with what it seems to me to be the ordinary common sense of humanity and decency.
    Reference has been made to subsection (2) of the new Clause. It is perfectly true that in some ways it should be a comfort to the Minister. It would enable him, in accepting the new Clause, to say, if he wanted to say it—I hope he would not—that no immediate charge would fall upon the Exchequer. It would enable him to say that because of the present parlous state of the economy this ought to be deferred for a time. Personally, I hope that the Minister will have the courage not merely to accept the Clause but to announce that it is his wish to bring it into force at the earliest possible date. But, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, the second part of the Clause would enable the House—I hope we shall agree upon this—to write into the Bill what we all think is fit and required by justice and equity to be enacted, leaving the time for its introduction to be decided as and when the Statutory Instrument is brought forward.
    Mr. Charles Curran: I support the new Clause, and I do so with my eyes open, recognising that if it is carried we shall be creating a new anomaly in place of an old one. I hope that the Minister will accept the fact that we are hoping for a new anomaly.
    We recognise that many objections have always been raised to this change, this scrapping of the earnings rule whether for a widowed mother or a widow or any other people subject to it. We are always told that if we do that we start a chain reaction, that if we do it for one group we shall have to do it for all other groups throughout the social services. I recognise that in the long run we should have to do this. It is because I recognise that this chain reaction will flow ultimately from this new Clause that I support it.
    The earnings rule is something which should never have been imported into our social arrangements. Although previous speakers have avoided any reference to the circumstances in which the earning rule was invented, and also to the arguments which have been used for it, I think it is just as well, before the Minister replies, to look back at them, because he has, of course, got a formidable debating case for it against the background of the earnings rule as applied to widows and to others.
    On what basis does the State decide that a benefit should be paid to someone with the limitation that if that person earns a further sum of money the benefit paid by the State shall be reduced or abolished? Why does the State ever say that?
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): The hon. Member realises that the new Clause applies to widowed mothers?
    Mr. Curran: I do. I am saying that the arguments which will be used in defence of the existing state of the law relating to widowed mothers are arguments which have very much wider implications. I want to guard myself against the reply from the Minister that, "It is all right to say you are voting for this in vacuo, but in fact you cannot vote for it in vacuo; you have to accept the implications of voting for it, and they will spread right through the social services."

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    We invented this earnings rule after the war for widowed mothers and retirement pensioners as well. We did so because after the war it appeared that the big post-war risk would be unemployment and that we should, therefore, try to keep people off the labour market rather than encourage them to stay in the labour market. We did it for a further reason, which was the fear that if we provided people with money and allowed them to work that might act as a subsidy to wages and might therefore tend to reduce wage rates.
    6.15 p.m.
    Hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree that trade unions have always had this almost pathological fear that if we put into the labour market a lot of people getting benefits from the State those people will tend to work for less than trade union rates. The unions have always wanted an earnings rule of some kind because of that fear. I was glad to hear a speaker on the opposite side of the House ignoring that completely unreasonable fear and speaking up plainly in favour of getting rid of the earnings rule. After all, if a trade union cannot maintain wage rates without penalising widows or without penalising pensioners then the sooner that union goes out of business the better.
    These two fears led to the invention of the earnings rule. The difficulty now is that if we try to abolish it in respect of one class of sufferers, we run the risk—and it is a real risk, it must be admitted at once—that by abolishing it for one group we shall be forced to abolish it for other groups.
    At this point we are always told that to do this would cost a very large and indeed unpredictable sum of money. I hope that when the Minister replies he will grasp this nettle as well.
    Mr. W. Griffiths: We are not seeking to create fresh anomalies. What we are seeking to do is to bring the widowed mothers into the same position as the war-widowed mothers and the widows to whom the provisions of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act apply and so to bring them into the same relationship with those two other classes.
    Mr. Curran: I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman.
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    This is, as the servant girl said, only a little one. I know; but, nevertheless, it is the inevitable if unfortunate fact about little ones that they presently grow up to be big ones. I recognise all that. I imagine that the cost of the new Clause would be very small indeed. But when we are arguing in favour of this, we must face the fact that it is perfectly true that, although this is a financial trifle, once we start tampering with the earnings rule in one respect we shall be forced to go on and tamper with it in many other respects. I think that consequence will follow. It is because I accept and want that consequence that I support the new Clause.
    This earnings rule both as it is applied to widows and also as it is applied to retirement pensioners is something which causes a bitter sense of unfairness in this country. People argue, quite reasonably, "These are insurance benefits. We have paid for them. We ought to get them as a matter of right, not with strings tied on to them." This feeling of unfairness goes on festering. Members of the Government, colleagues of the Minister, are concerned nowadays, and quite rightly, about the social climate of this country. They all recognise, as we on these benches do, the need for carrying everybody with us if we are to make economic changes. So we have to try to remove any sense of unfairness. I believe that by tackling the earnings rule on the lines proposed in the new Clause we shall make a real contribution.
    Many people feel, and with some reason, that where the earnings rule is applied there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. They see that people can retire from their job at 60 or 65 and receive a pension as a right with no questions asked, whilst widows, like retirement pensioners, do not receive the pension as a right with no questions asked but are subject to this limitation. This contrast leads to a widespread and festering sense of unfairness.
    It also leads to a great deal of "fiddling". Some widows evade the operation of this rule by earning money in small sums and keeping quiet about it, just as there is a sizeable number of pensioners who similarly avoid the rule by earning money on the quiet and not telling the authorities about it. This leads to a feeling of uneasiness. People

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    are afraid of anonymous letters and informers. A good many people, through the operation of this earnings rule throughout the social services, are led to the fringes of the law. For this reason also it would be highly desirable to get rid of it.
    Like my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne), I should like to draw the Minister's particular attention to the proposal in the new Clause that
    "This section shall come into force on a day to be appointed by the Minister by an order made in the form of a statutory instrument and laid before Parliament."
    I find this feature highly attractive and I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) on his ingenuity in putting it into the Clause. It blocks up one of the great bolt holes—the plea that we are voting at once for an additional payment which may be large and certainly will be inflationary. This provision enables the Minister to impose a pay pause of his own in respect of the earnings rule.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept that the need for this is extensive and the demand for it widespread. We members of his party will vote for both because we think it right and a matter of fair play and also because we all want to create a new anomaly—thereby hoping that in the not very long run we shall get rid of the earnings rule completely.
    Mr. Edwin Wainwright: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) for the point of view that he has put forward. I disagree with him when he says that the trade unions should be strong enough to make certain that if this type of person is employed in industry he should not be employed at a wage-rate lower than that of the ordinary citizen. If I went into the history of how the earnings rule came about I should be going outside the scope of the debate. I would only say that it was due to the massive unemployment in the country at that time.
    I urge the Minister to accept the new Clause. I can think of one case of this kind among the many with which I have had to deal. It is the case of a widow whose husband was a regular worker on
    504
    seven shifts a week, receiving a reasonable income. He died suddenly and left her with four children to bring up. She lived for several years in dire poverty. She could not go out to work because the children were young and she had to do whatever was possible to make ends meet. It was pitiful to see her trying to do her best to manage on a mere pittance.
    Only someone who has been forced to live on that kind of income can imagine how a person in those circumstances can exist at all. Later, when the children grew up this woman obtained a part-time job but then her widow's allowance was reduced. There are many such cases where women are doing their best to bring up their children as we would like to see them brought up and to give them a reasonable education. There are also minority cases where it is not necessary to pay the widow anything because of her capacity to earn a reasonable salary. That possibly may be at the back of the Government's mind when, from time to time, they refuse to abolish the earnings rule.
    In spite of the fact that we have a wages pause and that the Government think that we should cut down on expenses, we are not entitled to refuse any longer to carry out the provisions embodied in the new Clause. We ought now to give the consideration which they deserve to these widows who have carried out the great responsibility, in dire need, of bringing up future citizens. I hope that the Minister will accept the new Clause and will take into consideration that subsection (2) gives him power to bring its provisions into operation at a future date.
    6.30 p.m.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) for the moderate and sincere way in which he moved the new Clause. I will try to reply in the same vein. The debate has ranged over pretty nearly the whole of the National Insurance Scheme and I will try to reply to the points made in a certain order.
    First, there was the point raised by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock which I would put briefly as asking

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    whether the new Clause would not make the best use of available resources. Secondly, there was the point raised by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) about the basis on which we deduct from a benefit where there are earnings. Thirdly, came the comparison with the industrial injuries widows. So far as I do not cover other points under those three headings, I will do my best at the end.
    The hon. Member for Kilmarnock posed a problem which on this side of the House we always have to face, when we consider the expenditure of any money on any aspect of the National Insurance Scheme. The problem is posed very vividly by this proposed new Clause and was, of course, considered, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, by the National Insurance Advisory Committee. The cost of the Clause would be about £1½ million.
    Perhaps it would help if I gave the numbers of people who are at present in receipt of widowed mothers' allowances. There are about 148,000 widowed mothers' allowances in payment. Some 20,000 of these women suffer adjustments under the earnings rule. Thus, only 20,000 of the widows would, at present, be affected by the Clause. What we must consider, were this £1½ million available now—and we have considered this problem in the past—is how best to use that money. Should it be used in favour of widowed mothers who are able to go out to work? Or should it be used in favour of those widowed mothers who, because they have more or younger children, cannot go out to work, or, perhaps, can only do part-time work, earning so little that they would not come within the scope of the earnings rule?
    Were we to accept this Clause we should be deliberately helping those widowed mothers who, compared with others, are considerably better off because they can go out to work. We should thereby, by implication, be preferring them to those who cannot go out to work. We should, of course, be preferring women such as myself—professional women—over and above those who have young children or who live in areas where they cannot get reasonably highly paid jobs.
    As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock pointed out, the earnings rule for the
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    widowed mother is at present at the level of £5. That is not something to be dismissed lightly. Hon. Members will be aware that when one sits in Opposition one pleads a cause, but standing at this Dispatch Box one has to consider what would be the very best use of resources.
    My right hon. Friend takes the view, which has been endorsed by the N.I.A.C. in the past, that we should use the money in order to increase benefits to those who are hardest hit. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock referred very kindly to the work of the N.I.A.C. on this problem, when the earnings limit was raised for widowed mothers' allowances from £4 to £5 a week. I should like to read out the whole of paragraph 10 dealing with this relaxation. It states:
    "We have complete sympathy with the widowed mother and would like everything possible to be done to help her. There have been many suggestions that the earnings rule for widowed mothers should be abolished and any relaxation of the rule will doubtless be widely welcomed. A relaxation of this rule will, however, mainly benefit widows whose family circumstances permit them to undertake a substantial amount of work, or whose work is relatively well paid. It will not help the widow who cannot readily leave her children and go out to work. We should accordingly prefer to see any additional expenditure on this benefit go to increasing the basic allowances for the mother or her children."
    That was the recommendation. I will read the rest of the paragraph. Hon. Members will never find me reading selected passages out of paragraphs without trying to give the whole picture. The paragraph went on:
    "We understand, however, that the amount which the relaxation of the earnings rule would cost would not be enough to improve the basic allowances significantly. In these circumstances we do not feel able to object to the proposed relaxation."
    That was written just before the earnings rule was relaxed in April, 1960. It was upon that proposed relaxation that the N.I.A.C. was commenting. As a result of the relaxation, the widowed mother got a £5 earnings limit which, of course, gives her a considerable preference over other National Insurance beneficiaries. In deciding to make increases in 1961, we could have done what this Clause proposes or what in essence the N.I.A.C. proposed, which was to increase the basic benefit to the widowed mother who cannot go out to work.

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    We chose the second course. We chose to increase all the benefits, throughout National Insurance, which affect the widowed mother. I do not make any particular point of that, but we also increased the benefit payable in respect of the children of the widowed mother by an amount over and above the amount of the increase for the children of other National Insurance beneficiaries. The child of a widowed mother now draws 7s. 6d. more than the child of a person who is unemployed or who is in receipt of sickness benefit. Until April, 1961, the child of the widowed mother drew 5s. more than the children of other National Insurance beneficiaries.
    The cost of giving this preferential increase to the widowed mother who could not go out to work because of young children was about £1¼ million. I do not think that anything turns on the odd £1¼ million. My point is that when we were faced with this choice of how best to deploy the resources we felt that we should follow the N.I.A.C. and give it to the widowed mother who cannot go out to work.
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Lady has a point there, but does she imply that this benefit was given only to widowed mothers who were not working? If it was given in respect of the children, then it was given in respect of all widowed mothers.
    Mrs. Thatcher: It was indeed, but it will help most of all those who are unable to go out to work, and that is the particular category which we thought we should help in preference to others.
    I now turn to the point raised by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price). I am grateful to him for raising it. He asked on what basis we reduced benefit when there were earnings. It was a point which I had not completely comprehended before coming to the House. Fortunately, I believe that I did comprehend it before coming to this job. It goes to the root of the whole scheme. I do not think that some of those who complain to us about this rule fully appreciate the significance of the change from the old scheme to the new scheme which was made in the 1946 Act.
    The whole basis of the new scheme is that one contributes against the con-
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    tingency of interruption of earnings. One contributes to get benefit when one's earnings are interrupted by unemployment or by sickness, or because one has reached the age of 70 for a man or 65 for a woman or has retired from work during the preceding five years. One is insured against interruption of earnings. It is not an unimportant point but one which goes to the whole basis of the scheme. I hope the hon. Gentleman will see that it applies also to widows' benefits. One contributes to a scheme which supplies benefits when earnings are interrupted, but when earnings are not interrupted those benefits are not payable.
    Mr. J. T. Price: Perhaps the hon. Lady will allow me to interrupt her very charming argument, which she is putting with great ability. I can put her mind at rest on one matter concerning the question underlying most of the scheme. I had to live with it at close quarters from 1946 to 1948 when the basis of the law was changed.
    The fundamental distinction in 1948 was that, for the first time, this scheme was put on an insurance basis with the payment of substantial premiums. We claim, as reasonably and forcibly as we can, that the £1½ million she now says would be represented by this Clause is really the £1½ million provided as a relief to the Ministry by holders of policies of insurance, and that the disposal of these benefits is not a matter for the Minister. I know that under the Regulations the House is talking of where to put the money instead of giving it to the people mentioned in this Clause, but surely this money is being given by beneficiaries through their willingness to go out to work. It is not provided out of the Exchequer at all.
    Mrs. Thatcher: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman comprehends the basis of the scheme. But I must say that at certain times he seems to do his best to conceal that fact. The question remains: What is one insured against? The answer remains: One is insured against interruption of earnings. It is for that reason that there is an earnings rule. The discussion ranged widely over the earnings rule and I do not want to follow certain hon. Members into all its vicissitudes.
    I would point out, however, to those who made reference to the earnings rule

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    for retirement pensioners that if we want the earnings rule abolished—and certain hon. Members said that if this proposed new Clause came into effect one would ultimately have to abolish it—we would also have to abolish the increments scheme which goes with it. The scheme of increments is extremely valuable, is rapidly maturing and enables people very quickly to acquire a larger weekly income because they go on working when they have the option to retire. I will not pursue that further, but it is an important point.
    So the reason why widowed mothers' allowances are subjected to an earnings rule goes to the root of the whole scheme. Were we to abolish the rule for the widowed mother, we should promptly come to the question of what we were to do when she ceased to be a widowed mother and became a widow for the purpose of National Insurance. At that time, she would have been drawing 25s. a week for the last child dependent upon her. According to this proposed new Clause, having been subject to no earnings rule, at the time of going over to the widow's pension—which would also be the time when perhaps she could earn more—she would come under the operation of the earnings rule, having lost a benefit for a dependent child.
    I do not think that this position would be tenable. Naturally widows would at that point feel aggrieved and would lobby hon. Members, who would be able to put their case very well. We should then have to give way on the earnings rule for widows' pensions as well, and ultimately right through the system.
    The cost of doing so for the widow pensioner would be some £5½ million on top of the £1½million for abolition of the earnings rule for the widowed mothers' allowances. If one took it all the way through, it would mean an extra £100 million for the abolition of the rule for retirement pensioners as well. The case I am trying to argue is not that there is any inconsistency in the present position but that the basis of the scheme is quite consistent in this respect for the widowed mother, and does not produce any anomaly.
    I now turn to the comparison with the industrial injuries widow. One point strikes one immediately in this. If com-
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    parison for the National Insurance widowed mother with the industrial injuries widowed mother is undertaken, likewise comparison of the National Insurance widow with the industrial injuries widow must follow.
    6.45 p.m.
    The hon. Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. W. Griffiths), who put this point, on this argument would support my contention that we could not stop at releasing widowed mothers from the earnings rule because the same argument based on the comparison with industrial injuries widows would likewise apply to the widow's pension. The arguments against assimilating the two go very much deeper than that. One contributes to the N.I. scheme in order to be insured against interruption of earnings and one contributes to the I.I. scheme to be insured against loss of life or injury because of the extra hazards at work over and above those in ordinary life. One contributes a certain amount for compensation for loss of faculty or, in the case of a widow, compensation for the loss of a husband. One is insured against something completely different.
    The war widow's pension is not on a loss of earnings basis but is a compensation for the loss of a husband and it is entirely different. There is nothing unreasonable or illogical, if one contributes to certain schemes, in getting the benefit of those schemes when the contingency takes place. It is unfair to take one feature of the Industrial Injuries Scheme, which is what the hon. Member did, and try to assimilate the N.I. widow when the features of the I.I and the N.I. schemes are different throughout. The benefits are different and there are many different features. I have sat through all the debates on the Bill and have heard many arguments against the N.I. Scheme. I sometimes wonder whether it would be better to abolish the whole preference for the industrial injuries, but I do not think that would be in accordance with the wishes of hon. Members.
    Mr. W. Griffiths: The hon. Lady has been saying that there is a difference between industrial injuries insurance and National Insurance concerning the widow. The widow has still the same number of mouths to feed whether her husband has been killed in the factory or, as so often

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    happens, because of an illness or debility which follows from his employment but is not directly attributable to his work, he dies. It is well known that illness happens and death sometimes follows as a result of certain conditions. I should remind the hon. Lady that before she became a Minister she took a slightly different view about this proposal than she takes now.
    Mrs. Thatcher: No, I think that the hon. Member is quite wrong. I went on television in support of the very argument which I am trying to put to the House. In his observations about the I.I. widow, the hon. Member put up a very good argument for abolishing the preferential rates and conditions for the I.I. widow and for assimilating them into the N.I. scheme.
    Mr. Griffiths: Not at all.
    Mrs. Thatcher: The entire basis is different. It has a different historical basis. Compensation is one of the reasons for the difference. Various figures have been given in the debate and I wish to give one or two. With an earnings rule of £5 we should consider what the widow with one child, the widow with two children, and the widow with three children, respectively, has left, assuming that she is earning right up to the £5 limit. I believe that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock gave the benefits paid in one case. I interpose the point here that it is £5 net. It is not necessarily the amount which the widow receives in her pay packet. She can deduct from that anything which is deducted by way of P.A.Y.E., anything she has to pay by way of national insurance, fares to work, the cost of having someone in to look after her children, and the cost of tools, protective clothing, trade union subscriptions and the like.
    When she has deducted all that, she can be left with £5 net. The widow who has £5 net and one child, with what she gets from N.I. and family allowances, will have £9 2s. 6d. If she has two children, she will have £10 7s. 6d. and if she has three children £11 14s. 6d. I am well aware that none of that represents luxury, but that widow is not at present in any way touched by the earnings rule because her net earnings do not bring her within it. The personal benefit of
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    57s. 6d., which is the only benefit in the widowed mother's allowance which can be extinguished by earnings, is not, in fact, extinguished until her net earnings reach eight guineas a week.
    I shall now try to answer some of the points which have been raised by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock said that children had the same appetites after their fathers had died as when they were alive. That argument applies with equal force to children of widowed mothers who do not go out to work. They have children who have similar appetites to those of the children whose mothers go to work. Therefore, one should give as much to those who do not go to work.
    There is the further point in subsection (2) of this proposed new Clause which attempts to suspend its operation until such time as the Minister may decide. I hope that I have said enough to make the House appreciate that I am opposing the new Clause on merit, and for the reasons I have given. It would be entirely dishonest to accept it without having any intention of putting it into operation. I also submit, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), that if he is to vote for this new Clause in the avowed desire to get the whole basis of the scheme changed from its present one of interruption of earnings, perhaps this is not the best way to go about it. If he is going to do that he should do it after due consideration of the consequences and having a very good idea of what he would put in its place.
    For these reasons, I recommend the House to reject the new Clause.
    Mr. Houghton: If I speak briefly I hope the House will understand that my hon. Friends have a very important meeting upstairs at seven o clock. I am most anxious that we should bring our discussion on this new Clause to an end before that time.[Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite have meetings upstairs and they must understand what a nuisance it is to have a whole assembly disturbed in the first few minutes after the meeting has begun.
    I shall therefore compress my remarks into a very few minutes, although I should like to have spent more time replying to the hon. Lady and to the

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    debate. First, I wish to point out that the hon. Lady was the first hon. Member in the whole House to defend the existing arrangement and to oppose the new Clause. On this occasion, not even the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) stayed to defend the Minister. Unthanked and unrewarded, he has deserted the Minister on this occasion. The whole House has approached this new Clause with sympathy and support.
    I want to make quite clear to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) that it is not the purpose of this new Clause to open up substantial consequences regarding the earnings rule as a whole. We thought that this new Clause could be accepted by the House without setting up a chain reaction on the earnings rule generally. The widowed mother has been distinguished from the widow and from retirement pensioners for a very long time. First, the gap was 10s., then it became 20s. and now it is 30s.—the difference between the upper earnings rule for the widowed mother and for other beneficiaries. So the House has already distinguished sharply, and to a growing extent, between the widowed mother and the earnings rule in her case, and widows and retirement pensioners.
    This new Clause would carry that differentiation to the point of abolishing the earnings rule for the widowed mother. That is all that is intended in the new Clause. The hon. Lady said that the earnings rule for widowed mothers, as for other beneficiaries, goes to the root basis of the whole scheme. The root basis of the whole scheme is not the earnings rule. The root basis of the whole scheme is adequate benefits. Paragarph 346 of the Beveridge Committee's Report, on this very point dealing with the new benefits for widowhood, says:
    "For widows of working age no permanent pension will be provided, but every such widow will receive a widow's benefit at the same rate as maternity benefit for 13 weeks. At the end of that time, if and so long as she has the care of dependent children, she will be entitled to guardian benefit. This with children's allowances will be designed to be enough for subsistence even if the widow earns nothing by work. If she does go out to work, a reduction of the full guardian benefit will be made, of a proportion of her earnings."
    Those two things were linked—adequacy of benefit without a reduction if she did
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    not go out to work, but, if the widow goes out to work, a reduction would be made in the full guardian benefit.
    We have to provide the widowed mother with an adequate benefit without her going to work. Who will say that £6 14s 6d. a week is an adequate benefit for a widowed mother who has three children and who does not go out to work? We know that it is not.
    The truth is that by the inadequacy of the benefits widows are forced to go out to work. Then an earnings rule is applied in the sacred name of the principle which the hon. Lady says is the root basis of the whole scheme. These two things must be considered together. Unhappily, Clause 8 will worsen the position of many widowed mothers by depriving them of family allowance for their apprenticed sons if they bring in more than 40s. a week. There are 50,000 apprentices affected by Clause 8. The widowed mothers will undoubtedly suffer some of the disadvantage, along with other parents.
    I do not agree with the hon. Member for Uxbridge that the additional expenditure incurred by lifting the earnings rule for widowed mothers would toe inflationary, for it would mean more widowed mothers would be contributing more to the national economy. At present we are deducting from the benefit the additional earnings beyond the £5 which the widowed mother can get by work. She is discouraged from earning more than £5 a week. Under our proposal she would be encouraged to work more and to earn more. I regret that the response by the hon. Lady has been unfavourable, but this problem will be with us for some time to come. I have no doubt that there will fie a persistent endeavour to secure a revision of our approach to the earnings limit.
    Valuable and wise as I believe the recommendations of the National Insurance Advisory Committee to be, this House has not yet surrendered to that body its right of absolute judgment on a matter of this kind. If ever the time comes when the House can function only by adopting recommendations of outside bodies, we might as well go out of business. We have our job to do. Acknowledging at all times the selfless service of the advisory bodies, we still

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    reserve the right of the House to decide for ourselves.
    7.0 p.m.
    The truth is that throughout the Report of the National Insurance Advisory Committee of 27th January, 1960, was a note of displeasure at what the Government evidently intended to do. That can be seen running through the Report. In paragraph 4 the Committee says,
    "We take it, therefore, that it is the Government's deliberate intention to make the earnings rules more generous than they are at present."
    The Committee could see no reason for departing from what it had said previously. It had to acknowledge that the Government intended to liberalise the earnings rule, which is what we did in the earlier part of 1960.
    I am afraid that I must ask my hon. Friends to go into the Lobby in favour of the Clause.
    Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—
    The House divided: Ayes 172, Noes 216.

    Division No. 35]

    AYES

    [7.1 p.m.

    Ainsley, William

    Herblson, Miss Margaret

    Plummer, Sir Leslie

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Hilton, A. V.

    Prentice, R. E.

    Bence, Cyril

    Holman, Percy

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Probert, Arthur

    Benson, Sir George

    Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Blackburn, F.

    Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

    Randall, Harry

    Blyton, William

    Hoy, James H.

    Rankin, John

    Boardman, H.

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Rhodes, H.

    Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Bowles, Frank

    Hunter, A. E.

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Ross, William

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Short, Edward

    Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

    Jeger, George

    Silverman, Julius (Aston)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Skeffington, Arthur

    Cliffe, Michael

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Collick, Percy

    Kelley, Richard

    Slater Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Small, William

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Lawson, George

    Snow, Julian

    Curran, Charles

    Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Darling, George

    Lipton, Marcus

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Logan, David

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Steele, Thomas

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    McCann, John

    Stones, William

    Dempsey, James

    MacColl, James

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

    Diamond, John

    McInnes, James

    Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

    Dodds, Norman

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

    Swingler, Stephen

    Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

    McLeavy, Frank

    Symonds, J. B.

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Taylor, John (west Lothian)

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

    Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

    Fernyhough, E.

    Manuel, A. C.

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Finch, Harold

    Mapp, Charles

    Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

    Fitch, Alan

    Marsh, Richard

    Thornton, Ernest

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mason, Roy

    Timmons, John

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Forman, J. C.

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Warbey, William

    Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

    Milne, Edward J.

    Watkins, Tudor

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmthn)

    Monslow, Walter

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    Ginsburg, David

    Moody, A. S.

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Morris, John

    Willey, Frederick

    Greenwood, Anthony

    Moyle, Arthur

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Grey, Charles

    Mulley, Frederick

    Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

    Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

    Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

    Oram, A. E.

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

    Paget, R. T.

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Woof, Robert

    Hamilton, Wiliam (West Fife)

    Parker, John

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Hannan, William

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Hayman, F. H.

    Peart, Frederick

    Mr. Redhead and

    Healey, Denis

    Pentland, Norman

    Dr. Broughton.

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Gurden, Harold

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Aitken, W. T.

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Arbuthnot, John

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Partridge, E.

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Percival, Ian

    Barber, Anthony

    Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

    Peyton, John

    Barlow, Sir John

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Barter, John

    Harvie Anderson, Miss

    Pilkington, Sir Richard

    Batsford, Brian

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Llonel

    Pitman, Sir James

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Hiley, Joseph

    Pott, Percival

    Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Bell, Ronald

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Pym, Francis

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Hobson, John

    Ramsden, James

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Bidgood, John C.

    Holland, Philip

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Biffen, John

    Hollingworth, John

    Rees, Hugh

    Bishop, F. P.

    Hopkins, Alan

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Bossom, Clive

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

    Renton, David

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Brooman-White, R.

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Roots, William

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Russell, Ronald

    Bryan, Paul

    Hulbert, Sir Norman

    St. Clair, M.

    Buck, Antony

    Hurd, Sir Anthony

    Seymour, Leslie

    Bullard, Denys

    Iremonger, T, L.

    Sharples, Richard

    Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Shaw, M.

    Burden, F. A.

    James, David

    Shepherd, William

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Jennings, J. C.

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

    Chataway, Christopher

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Kaberry, Sir Donald

    Speir, Rupert

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Stodart, J. A.

    Cole, Norman

    Kimball, Marcus

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Cooper, A. E.

    Kitson, Timothy

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col- J. K.

    Leather, E. H. C.

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Corfield, F. V.

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Talbot, John E.

    Coulson, J. M.

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Tapsell, Peter

    Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Lindsay, Martin

    Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

    Craddock, Sir Beresford

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

    Critchley, Julian

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Teeling, William

    Crowder, F. P.

    Longbottom, Charles

    Temple, John M.

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

    Dance, James

    Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    de Ferranti, Basil

    MacArthur, Ian

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    McLaren, Martin

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Drayson, G. B.

    Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    du Cann, Edward

    Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

    Turner, Colin

    Duncan, Sir James

    MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

    Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Elliott, R.W.(Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Emery, Peter

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Walder, David

    Emmett, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Marshall, Douglas

    Walker, Peter

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Webster, David

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Farr, John

    Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Wells, John (Maidstone)

    Fell, Anthony

    Mawby, Ray

    Whitelaw, William

    Finlay, Graeme

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

    Fisher, Nigel

    Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C-

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Mills, Stratton

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Freeth, Denzil

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Wise, A. R.

    Gammans, Lady

    Morrison, John

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Gardner, Edward

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Gilmour, Sir John

    Neave, Airey

    Woollam, John

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Nicholls, Sir Harmar

    Worsley, Marcus

    Goodhart, Philip

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Goodhew, Victor

    Nugent, Sir Richard

    Gower, Raymond

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

    Mr. Noble and

    Green, Alan

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Mr. Gordon Campbell.

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

    New Clause.—(EXTENSION OF GUARDIAN'S ALLOWANCE TO CERTAIN AUTHORITIES AND ORGANISATIONS.)
    (1) Section nineteen of the National Insurance Act, 1946 (which contains provisions entitling persons in certain circumstances to a guardian's allowance and further provides for the modification of certain of those provisions by regulations), as modified by regulations under that section or under section six of this Act, shall apply to a local authority or a voluntary organisation or a person with whom a child is boarded out by the Minister or by a local health authority or local education authority (or in Scotland an education authority) in respect of a child who for the time being is in the care of that local authority or voluntary organisation or is boarded out as aforesaid as it applies to a person in respect of a child who is for the time being a child of his family.—[Mrs. Castle.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mrs. Barbara Castle: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    The purpose of the new Clause is quite clear from the wording. The aim is to secure that those who take over the guardianship of children shall all be recognised as having the same rights to guardian's allowance under the Act.
    Having been successful in securing from the Minister certain changes in the present provisions about guardians' allowance in Clause 6, I hope that when I draw his attention this evening to what strikes me as another anomaly he will be equally forthcoming and flexible in his mind and responsive to the point which I am bringing before him. This has arisen in very much the same way as the matter which led to Clause 6. We all know that as we go about our constituencies and our Parliamentary work we discover little lacunae in the legislative provisions of various kinds which we have not appreciated before. They may seem to be quite minor, but they can have a substantial and severe practical effect on the life of the people. This is how the new Clause came to be on the Order Paper.
    I was recently in my constituency at a meeting of a body called The Friends of the Blackburn and District Orphanage and Children's Homes, a body which has been in existence for over half a century and which has done invaluable work in taking into its care abandoned, orphaned and generally unhappy children who have not been fitted anywhere else into
    520
    our social system. Quite clearly a body of that kind is doing necessary work and is doing it well. It is inspected by the Government authorities, and if were not a reputable organisation it would not be allowed to continue. Equally clearly, it is doing a piece of work which nobody else is doing, because although the local authority from time to time asks it to take certain children into its care and custody, those children sponsored by the local authority form quite a small minority of its forty-two children. The rest have been put into its care at the request of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children or by the direct application of persons who can no longer continue to take charge of the children, or sometimes even the welfare officer of the local authority will recommend someone to apply to the Orphanage and Children's Home at Blackburn to see whether it can help. It is doing work which would not be done otherwise.
    7.15 p.m.
    When I was helping in an appeal to raise funds, I was astonished to discover that the Blackburn and District Orphanage is totally dependent on voluntary funds and receives no official support except when the local authority specifically puts a child in its care. In that case, the local authority pays the orphanage £3 5s. a week towards the maintenance of the child. But, of course, this is a matter of agreement. There is no statutory entitlement to this sum. I understand that when arrangements of this kind are made by local authorities with voluntary organisations the terms of financial assistance given by the local authority are negotiated locally and are flexible and varied.
    As I say, I was surprised to find that these voluntary bodies, children's homes and orphanages, are not entitled to any sort of social service payment. On making further inquiries, I discovered that they have made representations to the Minister on this point. For instance, I understand that the National Council of Associated Children's Homes, to which the Blackburn and District Orphanage belongs, has made repeated overtures to the Minister asking that family allowances payable to children in the home's care should be paid direct to the home.

    521
    I believe that occasionally there is payment of the family allowance. For instance, when the home admits a child in respect of whom family allowance is payable, it gets in touch with the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance at Newcastle. The person who is entitled to draw the family allowance in respect of the child in the care of the voluntary home is entitled to continue to draw it from the Ministry on condition that it is forwarded to the voluntary organisation which is taking care of the child. Apparently, from time to time the Ministry checks that this sum is being forwarded. If for some reason the individual who is drawing it has not forwarded it to the voluntary body, the Ministry cancels the family allowance when the pension book needs renewing, and thereafter no payment is made to anyone.
    I am told that the Blackburn orphanage has had cases in which as much as £40 has been drawn in family allowances in respect of a child put in its care which has not been passed to the orphanage, and the person who has wrongfully drawn the allowance has been prosecuted by the Ministry.
    In these cases, the orphanage receives nothing. That is why these voluntary homes and organisations have asked that, since the Ministry recognises that it is a sensible principle that the family allowance should come to them in this way, it should be paid to them direct, because clearly a child which needs support is getting it and a child which otherwise would have had a payment from the Government is thrown entirely on charity if that payment is not forwarded to the body which has officially taken over the care of the child.
    It is clear that there have been patchwork arrangements in the past which recognised that it is a reputable principle that a voluntary body which takes over the job of bringing up a child of family allowance age should be considered to be in loco parentis and deserving of financial help under our social services for doing this admirable work.
    It may well be that the Minister will argue, as some people have argued, that we could not possibly pay the family allowance direct to an institution because it would be a contradiction in terms, and that family allowances are payable, by
    522
    definition, to help family incomes. However, that has been stretched a little by practice. I suggest that the same argument does not apply to the guardian's allowance and that is why—I see that the Minister is getting a little nervous and restive—I tabled my new Clause in this form in an attempt to foresee any legalistic or bureaucratic difficulties. I tabled it partly, perhaps, influenced by the knowledge that I have had a little effect on the Minister in this sphere and partly in the hope that I might be twice lucky.
    I suggest that the payment might be by way of guardian's allowance because that allowance is already paid outside the family circle. It is payable to any person in respect of any child who is for the time being a child of his family. There does not have to be a blood relationship. The child has, for the time being, become a member of the family. In the case of children in homes and voluntary institutions, the home is the only family that the child has. It takes the child in and gives him a home in the most intimate sense of the word. Of course, most of them have moved a long way from the old days of the large, impersonal institution.
    I am well aware that it is a far better solution of the problem of the orphan, illegitimate child or abandoned child that it should be found a home, a foster-parent home or an adoptive home, but that is not always possible. The Blackburn and District Orphanage tried to keep abreast of modern ideas and thought by dividing its institution, which has forty-two children in it, into family units, groups of about eight children with one person acting as the mother. Why should a child of this kind, who is living in a family unit which happens to be in a building with other family units, receive no State support? This illustrates a gap in our legislation which, perhaps, we have not appreciated up to now.
    It is for that reason that I have brought the matter to the attention of the House. I should think that there are other hon. Members who were not aware that there are many children who, in the normal way, would receive a payment under our social services but whose welfare and care—because they happen to have been taken into an institution which is not

    523
    run by a local authority but is voluntary—is dependent on voluntary subscriptions and public-spirited people holding bazaars, meetings and campaigns and making collections. It is just like the old days when there was no sort of State provision for the situation in which these children find themselves.
    Apart from anything else, I should have thought that it would have given the children themselves a greater sense of dignity and status if they had known that a contribution was being made on their behalf as of right to the body looking after them, a contribution by the insurance fund in this case, just as it is made in respect of children in similar circumstances who are looked after privately. It would be a move forward from the old Dickensian approach of little waifs being thrown on the charity of their fellow beings. That is a very important reason for trying to close the gap. It is surely anomalous that any child who has been deprived of a parent or parents and who is cast on the world because of his tragic circumstances should not be covered by our social service legislation.
    I hope that the Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will give very careful consideration to this matter, will recognise that there is a gap of which we were not conscious before and agree that the Bill presents us with a useful opportunity to close it.
    Mrs. Thatcher: I am aware that the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) in her overtures to my right hon. Friend, has hitherto met with almost unique success. However, I must inform her that my right hon. Friend is reluctant, indeed does not wish, to go down this particular garden path with her at the moment. I shall try to give the reasons for that.
    We are dealing with guardians' allowance, and the hon. Lady has used family allowances to illustrate her point. But, of course, they are two different things. One is entirely a grant from the Exchequer and the other is part of the National Insurance scheme
    7.30 p.m.
    Guardian's allowance is a payment of 32s. 6d. a week to a person who takes into his or her family a child whose
    524
    parents have died. One of the conditions for payment is, with very rare exceptions, that both parents must have died. There are very rare exceptions. For example, there is the case of the child who is virtually an orphan because it is illegitimate, its mother is dead and its paternity has not been established.
    A second exception is where the parents are divorced, one of them being under no liability for and having nothing to do with the child, and the other one being dead. The third exception is where one parent is dead and the other is missing or untraceable. There is a fourth exception under this Bill, namely, where one parent is dead and the other is serving a lengthy sentence of imprisonment.
    Apart from those exceptions, the general proposition is that guardian's allowance is payable only where both parents of the child are dead. There are, of course, many cases of children in the care of voluntary organisations which would not begin to qualify for guardian's allowance because the children are not orphans since one or other of their parents is alive or traceable.
    Mrs. Castle: I appreciate the terms under which the guardian's allowance is payable, but the hon. Lady will realise that Section 19 of the National Insurance Act covering this point provides that regulations may modify those provisions in cases, for example, of illegitimacy. If we were this evening to decide that the guardian's allowance could be payable to these organisations, presumably we could then, by regulation, decide whether, in a case where a child is illegitimate—there are a number of such children in these homes—greater flexibility could be allowed.
    Mrs. Thatcher: The point that I am trying to impress upon the hon. Lady is that, so far, guardian's allowance is payable only for an orphan. I admit that we have made slight erosions into that rule, but the fact remains that it is payable, usually for an orphan, only where the orphan is taken into the family. The allowance is paid so that the family which takes the orphan into its care shall not suffer financial disadvantage thereby. Its purpose is to help the family which takes an orphan into its care.

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    It is the general purpose of the National Insurance Scheme to provide for payments to individual families or persons who would otherwise be at a financial disadvantage as a result of one or other of the various contingencies for which the scheme provides. It is, therefore, paid to families for specific children. It has never been paid to any general body to meet its liabilities. It is our contention that were this Clause to go through, the central purpose of the scheme would be avoided. The allowance would not be paid for a particular child and go to the benefit of that child. It would, in practice, go into the general funds of the body running the orphanage or into the general funds of the local authority. There would cease to be the essential connection between the payment of the allowance and the benefit of a particular child.
    Mrs. Castle: Surely the hon. Lady is a little hair-splitting. If the guradian's allowance is paid to a family which takes the child into its care, it is going into the general funds of the family. One cannot say that that sum, whatever it is, is earmarked and put into a separate money box. It is not. It goes into the general family fund. If the family happens to be a little larger because it is in a home, the principle is not violated in any way. The principle is the same.
    Mrs. Thatcher: There is a vast difference in degree between a child in a family living as an ordinary family and a child in an orphanage or in the care of a local authority. We provide by other means for children who need to go into care. It is not as if they are left without Government support. As the hon. Lady knows, since the Children Act, 1948, there has been a clear duty on local authorities to provide for all children in need of care, and that duty is recognised by the Exchequer making grants in one way or another. It is not as if one leaves orphans or other children in need of care without the assistance of Exchequer funds. They are provided for in another way. We use the guardian's allowance, as I have said, where a special benefit is required for a child whom someone else has taken into the family.
    Mr. Julius Silverman: Is it not the fact that a court order has to be obtained? Why should
    526
    it be necessary for a court order to be made so that a local authority institution may qualify for the grant?
    Mrs. Thatcher: I am not quite certain about that point. I will find out and let the hon. Gentleman know. I do not think it is entirely as a result of a court order. I know that in the case of the N.S.P.C.C. it is necessary to take a child before the court as being in need of care and protection, but I am not quite certain whether that applies in the case of a local authority.
    At any rate, we do make other provisions for children who are in need of care. It is not a choice between this provision and no provision at all. If this Clause were to be accepted, so far as the local authority is concerned, it would merely mean that it would get 32s. 6d. per child from the National Insurance Scheme instead of getting it through the Exchequer grant.
    Mr. Ross: Surely if these institutions did not do this work it would have to be done by the local authorities. The point is, is any payment made to such an organisation, and, if not, why not?
    Mrs. Thatcher: I have in the meantime checked on the point raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. J. Silverman). No court order is necessary for a local authority acting under the Children Act, 1948.
    On the point raised by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), guardian's allowance is for a family which takes a child into its care. It is not intended to provide any kind of subsidy or grant to voluntary bodies. That is exactly what this Clause would do if it were passed. Where any voluntary organisation boards an orphan out to foster parents, both of the proper parents being dead, and at least one of them having been an insured person, the foster parents can claim guardian's allowance because the general basic conditions of the scheme will have been satisfied.
    But it then becomes an allowance payable to a new family in respect of a child whom it has personally taken into its care and of whom it has personally become the guardian. In that sense people get the allowance, but it is not given as a general subsidy to a voluntary

    527
    organisation. We believe that would be outside the purpose of the insurance scheme, and this is an insurance benefit.
    Mrs. Castle: Is not the implication in what the hon. Lady said that there is no purpose whatsoever in this voluntary work? Is she saying that she thinks the work of these organisations is redundant and unnecessary? If she is not, then they are meeting a need.
    The hon. Lady says that this form of words is inappropriate. What form is appropriate for the State to make the same contribution towards the upkeep of a child in the care of an organisation as it is prepared to make if a child goes into a family? When the hon. Lady says it is different in degree, as I pointed out, there are a number of these organisations such as the Blackburn and District Orphanage and Children's Home where the 42 members of the family are broken up into family groups. It might meet the hon. Lady's point if the finances could be organised on that basis.
    That they are not physically broken up into a number of different homes is only due to the fact that they cannot get accommodation and cannot get the staff, so that they have to keep them under one roof. The difference in degree is not as great as the hon. Lady said. I would, therefore, ask her whether I have to go back to Blackburn and say that in the view of the Ministry of Pensions, this organisation is unnecessary, because as the hon. Lady said, the Government have provided, in other ways for children of this kind?
    Do the Government say, "We provide for them to go into foster homes or into local authority care, and all the rest of it, and if we do not pay you it is because we have provided for them in other ways"? I ask the hon. Lady to say whether she thinks that this organisation might as well be wound up, because she has made other arrangements for looking after the children. If not, in what form does she think these people could most appropriately receive the State help which they would get if the children went into private families?
    Mrs. Thatcher: I do not think that the hon. Lady is drawing the right inferences from her feelings. Of course, there is
    528
    a place for voluntary children's organisations, and I myself, as no doubt does the hon. Lady, contribute personally to quite a number of them. What I am trying to say here is that the guardian's allowance is not a proper method of subsidising voluntary organisations by the State. There is a query whether there is a proper method through the Home Office, but that is not a matter for my right hon. Friend. The guardian's allowance is not an allowance which should or could be deflected to subsidising voluntary organisations.
    Mr. Ross: I can well understand the feeling of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle)—this feeling of frustration. Here we are, on Report, and she is denied the liberty of constant interventions such as we enjoy during a Committee stage.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Lady has not done too badly.
    Mr. Ross: It is not for me to say that. I think that it is a tribute to the persistence of my hon. Friend that she said so much without incurring the displeasure of the Chair. I think that my hon. Friend is on a good point here, though I can appreciate all the difficulties with which the Government are faced in this matter. They are limited by Statute and by the actual definition of "guardian", but when my hon. Friend tells us that, in the case of this very worthy organisation, there is actually an artificial creation of family groups, I wonder whether or not the Minister could not have another look at this point, bearing in mind—and I take it this is the point which the hon. Lady made—that if this same organisation, instead of doing that, had sought out some family and had boarded out a child, that family would have been entitled to the guardian's allowance, provided, of course, that the child came within the original definition; that is to say, that it was an orphan, or, with the few exceptions we have, to which one is being added by the Bill itself. Bearing that aspect in mind, it might well be that something could be considered.
    I know that something is done for these charitable organisations. I think that on both sides of the House we find them worthy, and I can think of one in Kilmarnock—Tanker ha'—which is a

    529
    children's home run by the Church of Scotland for orphan children. I certainly would not like to see the reservoir of private personal charity drying up to the extent that these people become absolutely indifferent, but let us appreciate that if that help were not given, it would place a greater responsibility on the local authorities, and a greater call on State funds.
    We recognise this to a certain extent already. The Rating and Valuation Acts have placed upon local authorities the mandatory power of relieving these charitable organisations of 50 per cent. of their rates, and that loss to the local authorities is partly regained through the equalisation grant. Therefore, we have already had a look at the same kind of problem in regard to charity on a national basis.
    7.45 p.m.
    While I fully appreciate the difficulties of the Government about the limitations of guardianship and the definition of those entitled to the allowance, I still feel that it may well be that something else could be done. I still think that there is a difficulty in doing it through the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, and it may well be that it should be another Department with, probably, more direct responsibility in the social sense. Although I think that my hon. Friend has done a service in raising this point, I must say, quite frankly, that until she told me of it I had not heard of it before. Let me be equally frank and say that I do not think that this is the way in which it could be done.
    I hope that those responsible for the social policies of the Government, who, according to the evidence we have had tonight, are reconsidering it, will look at this point, bearing in mind the amount of money saved to the State by such organisations. If the hon. Lady will have another look at the family aspect of this matter, it may well be that she will be able to meet it without even having a new Clause like this. That is a possibility, if this matter is organised on a family basis. Has the hon. Lady thought of that point? It is very difficult, because unless she has personal knowledge of how the home works, it would be difficult for her, and we would not expect her to answer now. But if
    530
    she made available to some of us her answer on this aspect of the matter, we would certainly be very pleased.
    Mrs. Castle: I was hoping that I might have had some indication from the hon. Lady that she would look at possible ways of dealing with this matter and would communicate with me about it. If she feels that this is not the right way to help, would she consider the point about the direct payment of family allowances to voluntary organisations, which is sometimes now done indirectly? If the hon. Lady, or perhaps her right hon. Friend the Minister, will agree to look at this matter, and see whether there is any way in which it could be done more appropriately, I will not press the new Clause.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary did not rise, because it did not seem to us, as she had already explained, that this matter has anything to do with the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. The work of these homes, as each of us as citizens knows, is immensely valuable, and I am rather sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) phrased, even interrogatively, the suggestion that all of us did not have that feeling. I am quite sure that the National Insurance Fund is not the right basis for the support of these homes, and I must tell the House that it does not come within the sphere of my Departmental responsibilities.
    Mrs. Castle: Not even family allowances?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The homes do not come within the scope of my Department. They come into the picture only in respect of family allowances and only if their arrangements comply with the law of family allowances.
    The basic question, which is what is the best method of helping these bodies, is not a question for me. It would be quite wrong and would mislead the House if my hon. Friend were to say that she would consider or look further at the general issue, because it is for the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn and others concerned to take this matter up, if they wish, with my right hon. Friends who are properly concerned. I must leave the matter there.

    531
    As to whether there is any contrivance which would enable this home to be brought within the scope of guardian's allowance, again I must hesitate to express a view, and so must my hon. Friend. These are matters which are settled by the independent statutory authorities set up by Parliament, and whether a particular body meets the conditions is not a matter on which it would be proper for me to comment.
    Wide though the scope of my Departmental responsibilities is, it would he misleading the House and not helping the hon. Lady if I or my hon. Friend were to take this one on board. The care of children lies in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. There are also the welfare activities of local authorities, which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health deals with. In Scotland, it is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    If the hon. Lady wishes to pursue this subject either on a constituency basis or generally I suggest that she pursues it with the Minister concerned. This does not arise in the Bill. With the best will in the world, the fact that I was able, as she generously acknowledged, to meet her on a point which did come within my responsibilities—that is, the precise conditions in which a family could obtain guardians' allowance—does not enable me to take this general question of the subsidisation of children's homes very much further.
    Mr. Charles Loughlin: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me raising this point with him, because I have not been in the Chamber long. He and his hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary showed a good deal of sympathy with the general approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). Is it not possible for him, now that he has heard the general discussion and has shown his sympathy with the general problem, to raise this matter with the other two Departments with a view to seeing whether something can be done to mitigate it?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No, Sir. I do not think that I should serve the House if I sought to assume responsibilities which are not mine. I am quite pre
    532
    pared to invite the attention of my right hon. Friends to HANSARD, of which I am sure they are, in any event, very regular readers. I hope that I do not seem to be unhelpful, but it does not really help to enlarge one's own very wide sphere of responsibilities to obtrude in other people's. It does not make for efficient administration. It would not help to solve the point the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn has in mind. Those of us who know the hon. Lady realise that she is more than capable of pressing any point in the right quarter if she so wishes.
    Question put and negatived.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): The new Clause—(Application of injury benefit to temporary employment outside United Kingdom)—in the name of the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and other hon. Members, is out of order, as it would increase the charge on the Exchequer.
    Mr. J. Silverman: On a point of order. Can you tell me, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, why this Clause has been ruled out of order?
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I can. As I said, it is because it would increase the charge on the Exchequer. As drafted, its effect would be to extend pararaph 1 of Part I of the First Schedule to the 1946 Act so as to make insurable temporary employment outside Great Britain if it stemmed from a contract in Great Britain. The effect of this would be to increase not only the benefits payable as the new Clause specifies, but also the contributions leviable, since the aggregate contribution levied attracts an Exchequer contribution of one-fifth. This would impose a charge, which is not covered by the Money Resolution.
    Mr. Silverman: Further to that point of order. Before this Clause was drafted I took advice from the authorities of the House. I was told that the Money Resolution, which is a fairly wide one, was wide enough to cover it. Apparently, later somebody discovered Section 2 (b) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946. The new Clause would not place any further charge on the Exchequer, for this reason. It deals, as was intended, with the person who is in normal employment in this country,

    533
    but who is sent by his firm to do a job in another country which is not covered by any reciprocal agreement. The job may last for a week or for two weeks. His insurance payments will continue during this period. He thinks that he is covered against industrial injuries, but if he has an accident he finds, to his dismay, that he is not covered.
    The Clause is intended to deal with a person who is already insured, that is, a person who already pays industrial insurance. It does not impose any obligation upon anybody who is not already paying industrial injuries. Therefore, it does not extend to any class which is not already insured. In these circumstances, the new Clause can apply only—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am obliged to the hon. Member for arguing his point, and it may be that he could have limited his new Clause to keep it within order, but as it stands I am persuaded that it could attract an extra charge on the Exchequer and for that reason I must adhere to my Ruling that it is out of order.

    Clause 7.—(MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS.)
    8.0 p.m.
    Mr. Houghton: I beg to move, in page 7, line 1, to leave out subsection (1) and to insert:
    (1) For the purposes of unemployment benefit and sickness benefit under the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1960, there shall be no distinction between the rate of periodical benefit payable to a married woman and that payable to any other person; and accordingly the Third Schedule to the National Insurance Act, 1960 (which sets out rates of periodical benefits and of increases for dependants, substituted for those in Part I of the Second Schedule to the National Insurance Act, 1946), shall be amended in paragraph 1 by the omission in the first column of all the words after the words "Unemployment benefit and sickness benefit" and in the second, third, fourth and fifth columns of all the figures after the figures "57 6 17 6 9 6 35 0", where those figures first occur respectively in those columns.
    The Amendment seeks to abolish the present differential between the unemployment and sickness benefits applicable to married women and those applicable to single women. I know that in some circumstances a married woman is entitled to the same level of sickness and unemployment benefit as a single woman and a single man. One
    534
    example is where a working wife is supporting a disabled husband. It is only proper in such circumstances that she should get the higher rate of sickness and unemployment benefit. For the ordinary married woman whose husband is working and for whom she has no dependency responsibilities, the sickness and unemployment benefit is 18s. 6d. a week lower than that of a single woman and a single man.
    Why do we pay married women lower benefits than single women and single men? The answer goes back exactly thirty years, when a stigma was put on the married women workers of Britain. It has never been removed. It goes back to the Anomalies Regulations of 1931 and is dealt with in the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services. The Report states:
    "The Anomalies Act of 1931 was introduced to deal with what was undoubtedly a scandal in unemployment insurance: the drawing of unemployment benefit by women who were in no real sense in search of employment. In districts and industries where married women were never accustomed to work and did not expect to find work, the Unemployment Fund, before the Anomalies Act, was tending to become a means of endowing young married life."
    I remember 1931. Well over 2 million people were unemployed and had been unemployed for months on end. Many families were destitute. Some couples got married when unemployed, for had they waited until the man got a job they would never have married. The blight which overshadowed the whole industrial and social scene in that year was something we hope never to see again. They were days when the proportion of unemployment among men and women in some areas was as high as 20 per cent.
    Those Regulations were introduced in 1931 to economise in what was said to be an economic blizzard—when it was considered necessary to reduce the liabilities on the Unemployment Fund. Whether or not the so-called scandal—referred to in the Beveridge Report—was in truth a scandal or whether it was the only means of self-defence for people for whom Parliament and society could not make better provision, I do not pretend to know. In the immediate circle about which I can speak the scandal did not exist. Married women would have been glad to have jobs, had they

    535
    been available, because their husbands were not in employment. That stigma has survived until today and I want to remove it.
    On what does it all rest? It rests on the assumption that married women may not be sick but doing the spring cleaning, or that they are unemployed because they are really not looking for a job. Surely the atmosphere and conditions of today are different from thirty years ago. Let us face it, the nation could not carry on today were it not for the married women workers. I do not know why when there is an interruption in the wages of married women workers by unemployment or sickness they should have less compensation for that than any other insured person.
    We accept equality between women and men for the purpose of National Insurance benefits. We provide for family responsibility by adding to the benefit of the man who has a dependent wife and children. But otherwise the single man and woman gets the same benefit. We had equal pay in the National Insurance Scheme long before it existed in industry, and, believing that principle to be right, I am now seeking to remove one of the disqualifications of being a married woman.
    The Beveridge Report also drew attention to the higher proportion of sickness claims among married women compared with single women. I do not know whether current experience bears that out, but, even if it does, I see no reason for any distinction between the level of earnings. There is no real ground—social or economic—for preserving it. All my life I have sought and worked for equality between men and women, For thirty-five years I gave what energy and influence I had to the campaign for equal pay in the public service, which, I am proud to say, now exists.
    We have heard all the arguments against equal pay and discrimination against women in almost every conceivable direction, but in the context of National Insurance we want to get rid of differences which rely on past history and cannot be defended in present day conditions. I had intended to move an Amendment to the Bill of 1960, but pressure of time seemed to squeeze it out of the debate on that occasion and I am
    536
    glad to have this opportunity of raising the matter.
    I acknowledge that married women under the National Insurance Scheme must be considered, in certain respects, in connection with the benefits given to their husbands, the provision for widowhood, for dependent children and the dependent wife's allowances payable to a dependent wife not insured in her own right but by reason of her husband's insurance and contributions. There is one respect in which the conditions of married women for the purpose of National Insurance differs compared with years ago. Before 1948 a married woman worker was compulsorily insured. Today she has the option of not being insured under the National Insurance Scheme, although she still is compulsorily insured under the Industrial Injuries Scheme. I mention this because married women in the National Insurance Scheme, to whom the Amendment relates, are those who have chosen—for what they believe to be good and sufficient reasons—to contribute to the National Insurance Scheme to secure benefits in their own right. They are benefits in their own right about which I am speaking, and none else.
    When these married women come to retire they get the same retirement pension as a single woman or man. We are aware that, eventually, equality is restored, but this is related solely to unemployment and sickness benefit. Does the Minister intend to defend retaining this differential? The extent of unemployment claims today is, happily, vastly different from that of thirty years ago, and we are glad that nothing like that level of unemployment has been seen in Britain for the last fifteen or twenty years.
    Can the Minister say, therefore, that there is any justification now—in 1961—for regarding an employed married woman as being less entitled to the full unemployment benefit than a single woman or man? Why the difference? Upon what does it rest? Does it rest on the aspersion in paragraph 114 of the Beveridge Report that if the married woman is unemployed she is probably not trying to get a job? Is it considered that her zeal to get employment must be regarded as modified by the fact that she has a husband working or that she

    537
    will set out to deceive the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance to get unemployment benefit when, in honesty, she is not entitled to it? This is a slur upon the morality of the married woman. It cannot be anything else.
    Similarly with sickness benefit. If a married woman is at home sick, is it suggested that she is really not as ill as a single woman or man would be if she or he stayed at home? Is it suggested that she is not really ill but decides that it is time to do the spring cleaning, claims sickness benefit, goes to the doctor and says that she is run down? This raises an important question of principle. I wonder that the married women do not rise up against this.
    The truth is that women have to have men to fight for their rights. That is why I am having to do it. I am glad that on this occasion the hon. Lady the Joint Parliamentary Secretary apparently will not rise and down the married women as she downed the widowed mother only a few minutes ago. I always hate to see women having to get up and denounce the claims of other women. They have been downtrodden so long that they cannot afford the luxury of having their own cause defeated by their own sex.
    I have said enough. I should like to know the answer. I hope that the House will regard this as a matter of considerable importance in our treatment of women under the National Insurance Scheme.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Richard Sharples): This is the second time that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has moved an Amendment of this kind. The hon. Member made it clear in his opening remarks that the purpose of the Amendment is to abolish the differential in unemployment and sickness benefit between the married and the single woman. In view of the hon. Member's earlier remarks, I will not say anything about the drafting of the Amendment, except in fairness to point out that it goes much further than the purpose which the hon. Member has in mind.
    The hon. Member referred to the stigma upon the married woman which dates back to 1931. At the time that the
    538
    National Insurance Scheme was introduced in 1946, there could not have been any remnant of a stigma upon the married woman. The reasons for the differentiation at the time sprang from the recommendations of the Beveridge Committee and from the actuarial position which had been incorporated in benefit rates under the old National Health and Unemployment Insurance Schemes.
    8.15 p.m.
    The first and main reason for the differentiation was fully discussed in Committee during the passage of the 1946 Act. The married woman is in a different position from the single woman or the single man. She has a home provided by her husband. She has a legal right to maintenance from her husband if she should be sick or in other difficulties.
    That basic consideration of the difference in status between the married woman and the single woman was made clear by the then Parliamentary Secretary, the former Mr. Lindgren, when the subject was debated on an Amendment moved by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) in 1946. This is what the then Mr. Lindgren said:
    "… in so far as a married woman is concerned, her need is not so great because, in fact, marriage is a partnership and there is the basis of fundamental provision within the home provided by the husband, or jointly by the husband and wife."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 10th April, 1946; c. 669.]
    I could go on to quote the much stronger words that were used in that connection by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), but as he is not present I will not do so. The basis there was not that of a stigma but the recognition of the fundamental difference in the position of the married woman and of the single woman.
    Secondly—and this was referred to by the hon. Member for Sowerby—the married woman at work alone amongst all insured people, has the option not to pay contributions. Two out of three such married women have elected not to pay National Insurance contributions. The hon. Member for Sowerby was quite right when he said that the reason why married women have decided to pay contributions when there is no legal need need for them to do so is because they consider that they will benefit from the Scheme and that it will

    539
    pay them to contribute. That is a proper reason for doing so.
    The hon. Member referred also to the number of claims submitted by married women. On the sickness benefit side, we have the Report of the Government Actuary covering the five years from 1953–54 to 1957–58, inclusive. The figures are revealing. The employed man claimed an average of two weeks' sickness benefit per year over the whole of that period. The single employed woman claimed sickness benefit for an average of two and a quarter weeks and the employed married woman claimed sickness benefit for an average of three and a half weeks per annum for that period.
    In the case of unemployment benefit, the proportion of married women drawing benefit is much higher than that of other contributors to the Scheme. The figures for November, 1960, and May, 1961, the most recent available, show a rate for insured married women 60 per cent. higher than for men. What is even more significant—
    Mr. Loughlin: I do not understand the significance of those dates. Why has the Minister chosen November, 1960, and May, 1961?
    Mr. Sharples: The explanation is that they are the most recent figures available.
    Mr. Loughlin: If the hon. Gentleman is quoting figures of that kind for unemployment and sickness and making comparisons from one year to another, all sorts of factors influence the periods when people are sick. The figures for November do not tie up with those for May the following year. I know that the hon. Gentleman does not intend to mislead the House, but I wondered why he had chosen this method. If he uses these figures for such different periods, is it possible that they might give a wrong picture?
    Mr. Sharples: There is no significance in the dates. I have simply taken these figures as being the most recent ones available. One is comparing like with like when contrasting the rate for married women with that for employed men in that the extraneous factors would be exactly the same in each case. I
    540
    have not taken these figures with any regard to seasonal factors.
    In comparing unemployment benefit claims between married and single women, the rate for married women is two and a half times the rate for single women during the same period.
    The additional cost to the National Insurance Fund of the Amendment would be about £7 million and this would have to be met by additional contributions. The Government Actuary has estimated that to meet this cost, an additional contribution of 6d. would be required, divided between employers and all women contributors to the scheme. This would mean that there would have to be an addition of 3d. per week to the contribution for all women, including not only married women, but single women and widows who are in employment. The whole of the additional benefit raised in this way would go to the married woman, who is the only person with the option not to pay the contributions, including the additional contribution, if she does not wish to do so.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby rightly referred to the rates of unemployment and sickness benefit which are payable to the married woman who has to support and maintain a husband who is not able to maintain and support himself. In this Bill we have not forgotten the married woman. Clause 7 (1) provides a substantial safeguard for the married woman who is separated from her husband and who gets only a derisory amount in maintenance. I think that that is a very important concession to the married woman and that it will do quite a lot to help a married woman in these particularly difficult circumstances.
    For the reasons which I have given, and above all the difference in status—there is no question of stigma—which there is between a married and a single woman, and the additional rights which she has and Which she has enjoyed since the 1946 Act came into force, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw his Amendment; but I must in any case advise the House not to accept it.
    Mr. Prentice: I had not intended to speak on this Amendment but I feel compelled to do so with a certain feeling of indignation because of some of

    541
    the points made by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, and particularly because he did something which has been a constant habit of himself and his colleagues through the stages of this Bill—and on other occasions on which we have debated amendments to the National Insurance Scheme—and that is continually to hark back to the days of 1946 and to quote what Labour Ministers at the time said and did in that immediate post-war period. In the very early stages of comprehensive National Insurance they could not go further than they did. I think it a bit feeble that when in 1961, after years of experience, we come forward with amendments to the Scheme Ministers of today cannot do better than to make quotations from that earlier time. We must try to bring our thinking up to date on these matters, and although we do not expect Conservative Ministers to keep up with us, at least they should not be so far behind us as they are on some of these matters.
    One of the points which the hon. Gentleman made was that in some way or another married women had smaller needs because they had husbands and because marriage was a partnership and they were given the normal support of their husbands, and all that. That, I think, is a rather dangerous argument, because the benefits laid down in the National Insurance Scheme are not subject to a test of means. The hon. Lady, quite rightly, on a previous Amendment, spoke about the Scheme providing an insurance and the interruption of earnings. All in the Scheme insure against interruption of earnings and, if they suffer interruption of earnings, to get the benefits of the Scheme irrespective of their means—in any other sense: it may be a private income, it may be help by other people. The benefits, however, are not subject to a means test.
    It is really impossible to generalise about the means of married women. Their husbands may or may not be in good jobs. They may have very considerable outgoings and responsibilities. Their situations vary, just as do those of men or of single women. It is not fair to make this generalisation as a reason for discriminating against the benefits which married women could get.
    If marriage is a partnership it is also a partnership the other way round: a
    542
    man may be sick. May be his wife is earning quite good money, but that does not disqualify him from getting sickness benefit. That is not subject to any private means test.
    Another point which the hon. Gentleman made was that married women had the privilege of opting out of the Scheme, but surely if a woman decides to opt into the Scheme and pays full contributions she ought in return to be entitled to the benefits on the same scale and of the same nature as other people who pay full contributions. I do not see why she should be penalised in any sense because she has the right to decide whether to come into the Scheme or not. If she has paid the rate she should get the benefits.
    8.30 p.m.
    The final point I would make is simply that gradually in other ways we are, I think, moving towards the concept of equality between men and women. The concept of equal pay for equal work has, after a very long struggle, been recognised amongst civil servants, teachers and other groups, and it will, we hope, in time spread to industry. I think that if it were in order I would say that we are not satisfied that the Minister of Labour will not meet the point of view of many of us that this country should ratify the I.L.O. convention on the subject. We hope to make some progress on that. The Government are negotiating to enter the European Common Market. The Treaty of Rome lays down certain rules about equality between men and women.
    I should have thought that the general climate of opinion was moving towards this concept of equality, and it is very relevant to the Amendment, and I feel that in this matter as in others the Government ought to try to shift with the times and meet the points we are making.
    Mr. Loughlin: I do not want to delay the House to any great extent but I am rather disappointed with the reply we have received from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. If he was absolutely honest on this matter he would have restricted himself to the analysis on an actuarial basis. We appreciate that there is a higher incidence of unemployment and sickness among married women than

    543
    among other groups of insured contributors. There are very good reasons for that.
    I do not think it is quite as logical to argue that a married woman should not receive the same benefits largely or solely because—and this was the substance of the hon. Gentleman's case—she is entitled to maintenance by her husband. We are moving into a period, as one of the Minister's hon. Friend's said—not somebody on this side of the House—when it is recognised by almost everybody that women, married or otherwise, are entitled to go into industry and to reflect their personalities outside as well as inside the home. I do not know why the Minister looks so surprised about it. He was not here. If we accept this concept of industrial equality and we have an insurance scheme we ought to accept equality of rights under that scheme.
    We pay to an insurance scheme not to insure the continuance of the same standard in the event of our having to suffer unemployment or sickness but to maintain a standard, a standard which constitutes at least a minimum comfort standard. There are quite a lot of women who go out to work today because their husbands—and here I am arguing the other side of the medal—are not in receipt of wages which will maintain anything like a comfort standard.
    I know that it is quite customary for a lot of people today to talk about average earnings in industry, but I think the Minister will accept that in many trades and industries the husband's rate is a pretty low one. Let me quote just for example the laundry worker's rate. The rate of the Laundry Wages Council, about which some controversy has been raised in this House in the last three weeks, is £7 7s. 10d. The woman who is married to a laundry worker goes out to work and helps to augment the income. Between them they manage to maintain a decent standard. When the wife is sick she is entitled to the comfort standard reduced to the level of the sickness benefit, but in this case there is an additional reduction. There is something which is not equitable about this.
    I appreciate the Department's problems in this matter on an actuarial basis
    544
    but when we are considering this issue at a time when more and more married women go out to work it should be possible for the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at the problem. It creates an injustice, and even though it might require an increase in contribution to meet the problem—and I do not accept that it necessarily does—that is a hurdle which we have had to face in the past and which we shall have to face in the future. If the Minister will have a look at this problem with a view to adjusting this inequity he will do himself as well as other people justice.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill:—
    The House proceeded to a Division; Mr. GORDON CAMPBELL and Mr. MICHAEL HAMILTON were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

  Second Schedule.—(SET-OFF OF OVER- PAYMENTS ON ACCOUNT OF BENEFIT OR FAMILY ALLOWANCES.)
  Mrs. Thatcher: I beg to move, in page 16, line 41, to leave out sub-paragraph (3) and to insert:
  (3) As regards benefit under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, 1946 to 1960, provision may be made by regulations under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, for treating benefit paid to any person in pursuance of a decision which is afterwards revised on a review, or reversed or varied on an appeal, as paid on account of any benefit which it is decided is or was payable to him under those Acts in respect of the same accident or disease and, unless either benefit is a gratuity, in respect of the same period.
  On the first coming into force of regulations made for the purposes of this subparagraph subsections (2) and (5) of section fifty-two of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, shall cease to have effect.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if, with this Amendment, we also discussed the following Amendments in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance.
  Mrs. Thatcher: That would be convenient, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
  This is a fairly technical series of Amendments which arise out of the following circumstances. They seek to

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  extend the scope of the Minister's regulation-making powers in relation to adjustments of industrial injuries benefits, following a decision on review or appeal.
  The present position is that where, on review or appeal, a different benefit is awarded in respect of an accident, and the two benefits are of a different kind—that is to say, a pension is awarded in lieu of a gratuity, or vice versa—the Minister already has power to make regulations covering the set-off between benefits. But where the benefits awarded are of the same kind, the Minister has no power to make regulations.
  The case law on this subject has, therefore, developed along two lines. First, it has developed from the regulations made pursuant to the Minister's power. To take account of the way that has developed, we could, of course, vary the regulations without asking for extra power in the Bill. But the second branch of case law however, does not derive from the regulations but from the Commissioner's decisions. We should have no power to vary the effect of those decisions by regulation without asking for it in the Bill.
  The position is that the two sets of case law have resulted in a considerable number of anomalies, and the set-offs have been adjusted in different ways. This matter came particularly to my right hon. Friend's attention by way of a recent decision by a National Insurance Commissioner. In his report—C.I. 55/61—the Commissioner said:
  "We do think it right, however, to express our considered opinion that the law on this topic is in a most unsatisfactory state. It is not merely doubtful but anomalous. One anomaly is that where the set-off is under Section 52 a claimant is entitled to very substantial advantages under Regulation 28, but these are not available to a claimant where the set-off is otherwise than under Section 52."
  At the end of that paragraph, he said:
  "We venture to suggest that these are matters to which the attention of the legislature could very properly be drawn."
  It is in response to those remarks by the Commissioner that my right hon. Friend is bringing forward these Amendments. They will give him power to make regulations for adjusting benefits, whether they are of a different kind or of the same kind, and we hope that this
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  will enable us to introduce a simplified and consistent code to this field.
  It may be helpful if I indicate how my right hon. Friend proposes to exercise his new power of adjustment. It is designedly limited so as to enable adjustment of pensions and allowances to be made on a period for period basis only. To achieve this, a gratuity would be notionally converted into a periodical payment at a rate proportionate to the amount of the gratuity and the length of the period covered by the relevant assessment, taking a life gratuity as seven years.
  If I give examples the position may be made a great deal clearer than by the use of a large number of words. For instance, I will show how a case would be dealt with under the present law and how it would be dealt with under the proposed new regulation-making powers. Let us suppose that a medical board assesses a claimant's disablement at 10 per cent for life from 1st January, 1959, and that a gratuity is awarded and paid. On appeal, the medical appeal tribunal varies the assessment to one of 30 per cent. for one year final from 1st January, 1959.
  Under the present rules, the insurance officer, when awarding a pension consequent upon the 30 per cent. assessment, will regard the whole of the life gratuity as available for adjustment against the pension. Under the new rule, only one year's worth of the life gratuity will be available for adjustment against the pension.
  8.45 p.m.
  The second example is where, consequent upon the decision of a medical board, the insurance officer awards a 5 per cent. life gratuity. On appeal, the medical appeal tribunal makes an assessment of 15 per cent. for one year final. Under the present rules, the whole of the 5 per cent. life gratuity would be regarded as available for adjustment against the 15 per cent. for one year gratuity, which means that the man would be paid nothing.
  Under the new rules, only one year's worth of the 5 per cent. life gratuity would be regarded as available for adjustment against the 15 per cent. gratuity, with the result that a further payment could be made to the claimant. This type of case has given rise to some

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  difficulty in the past, particularly where the second award is provisional. It is not easy to explain to a claimant that he cannot have any more money even though his assessment has been increased.
  I must make it clear that though the new rules will, in some cases, be more favourable to the claimant, in some cases they will be less favourable. The National Insurance Commissioner's decision which has given rise to these Amendments was far more favourable to the claimant than the law had been up till then. In some cases however, the new law would be much more favourable. I would not like to mislead the House.
  This new method should produce a more consistent and simplified code. It will also mean that where we find further anomalies they can be dealt with by further regulations without my right hon. Friend having to come to the House for a specific new power—subject, of course, to any new regulations coming before the House in the ordinary way.
  It might be convenient if I refer to a further Amendment—all these Amendments are consequential—and make a small comment on it. That Amendment is the one to paragraph 10 of the Third Schedule. This is a transitional provision to enable the regulations to provide that where a decision relating to adjustment has been made in accordance with rules existing before the date of the coming into force of the new rules, and that decision is the subject of an appeal or review after that date, then the appeal or review is to be determined in accordance with the old law. It is similar to the provision in paragraph 9 of the Third Schedule to cover the change from "good faith" to "due care and diligence.
  Mr. Prentice: I should like to make one or two comments on what the hon. Lady has said and to express my doubts and uncertainties about what is concerned here in the hope that these matters may be made a little clearer.
  I appreciate that the way in which the law operates at the moment produces anomalies and I see the strength of a need for some review. I understand that at the moment if an appeal resulted in a
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  gratuity being changed into a pension or a pension being changed into a gratuity, an adjustment can be made, but it cannot be made if what had been a gratuity were still a gratuity or what had been a pension were still a pension.
  Mrs. Thatcher: Adjustment is made in either event. Adjustment between unlike benefits is made by virtue of regulations made under Section 52 (2). Adjustment of like benefits is not provided for specifically in the Act, but it is provided for by virtue of the National Insurance Commissioner's case law. There is adjustment in either event, but on different principles.
  Mr. Prentice: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that explanation. I see the case for being able to make the kind of adjustment to which she referred in her speech.
  Perhaps I may put my point in this way. There are certain kinds of adjustment to which I would see some objection. I am not sure whether this kind of adjustment will be made in future. If it will not be made, I should be happy, but if it were to be made I should object. Suppose a man has been awarded by a medical board a disability pension of 40 per cent. which is reduced as a result of an appeal by the Ministry to one of 20 per cent. Will it then be the intention that he should have to repay the difference between the 40 per cent. and the 20 per cent. which he has already received? If it is the intention that he should repay it, would not the practical effect be that from the date of the appeal tribunal decision he would receive less than the 20 per cent. until he paid off the extra amount? Is it the intention that that should be done?
  Mrs. Thatcher: Not so far as I am aware. I have a specific example with me which I have had carefully worked out. If it is convenient, perhaps I may give it now. Where a pension has been awarded on the basis of a 40 per cent. assessment by a medical board and the medical appeal tribunal subsequently substitutes for the board's assessment one of 20 per cent., the over-payment in respect of the 40 per cent. award will not be recoverable from future payments of the 20 per cent. pension. All that will

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  happen is that payments of the 40 per cent. pension will be treated as made on account of the arrears of the 20 per cent. award. I think that meets the case made by the hon. Member.
  Mr. Prentice: I want to make quite clear that what ought to be avoided is, as it were, penalising a claimant in any way for the fact that he was fortunate enough at the medical board level to receive an assessment which has subsequently been found at the appeal tribunal level to be too high. In the interval he has perhaps enjoyed something to which he was not entitled, but to which he thought he was entitled and he received it in good faith. Because of an industrial accident he has had to spend money. It would be a hardship if he had to pay back the amount he should not have received. If that is not the intention, I am happy.
  The other case I have in mind—which, from what the hon. Lady has said, is probably excluded—is that if there is an addition to the disability pension by reason of a special hardship allowance and if that is awarded and then it is found that the claimant is not entitled to special hardship allowance, as the law stands, I understand that from the moment of the Commissioner's decision that allowance will be suspended, but he does not have to repay it unless in some way he has acted in bad faith. I believe that there are regulations about that.
  It seems reasonable to recover if the man acted in bad faith, but if he acted in good faith it would be unfair to try to get it back from him because a lower court had decided in favour and then the appeal tribunal decided against it. I hope that that is not the intention.
  Mrs. Thatcher: It is proposed that the regulation power for which we are asking should not have the effect of requiring the recovery of an overpayment where a payment was received in good faith. In that respect it would re-enact the existing law in the example given by the hon. Member. May I emphasise that we are asking only for power to make regulations, and that the regulations will be laid in the usual way?
  Mr. Prentice: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that explanation. I think we shall want to see the regulations when they are made, but certain doubts have been cleared up on these points.
  Mr. Houghton: This is one of the occasions when the House of Commons ought to have a blackboard. Then we could see these things a little more clearly. The hon. Lady has done her valiant best with her most reassuring manner, but she was candid enough to say that some people might be worse off under this equalisation of treatment scheme while others would be better off.
  My hon. Friend has been applying his mind to the document which the Minister allowed us to have—for which I am grateful—in connection with these Amendments so that we could study the matter a little more closely. I find the report of the decision of the National Insurance Commissioner a very long and rather bewildering document. I have never seen anything like it outside documents concerning Income Tax. I did my best with it late last night, but I was unable to report progress and I handed it over to two of my hon. Friends and asked them to be ready to speak intelligently about it at some time during the day. I cannot say any more than that I have tried to master it and that we shall have to leave it until the regulations to be quite sure what the Minister intends to do.
  Clearly, however—speaking seriously—the anomalies to which the Commissioner has drawn attention have to be tied up. It was indefensible to go on like that. As in all cases when one is trying to get a unified code, sometimes advantages which have been enjoyed by some people for a time are modified in order to establish some unified code applicable to all concerned. At the risk of being discovered quite wrong and corrected by the Parliamentary Secretary, I wonder whether I can clear my mind on the three points which were mentioned in a summary of this matter which I looked at. At present, where a 40 per cent. assessment for life is replaced on appeal by 20 per cent. for life, the arrears overpaid are not available for set-off against a future pension.
  Do I understand that it is proposed that in such a case the arrears overpaid will be available for set-off against the

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  lower pension during the same period? That is not expressing myself very clearly. Let me put it this way. Will the existing position be continued in regard to this class of change?
  Mrs. Thatcher: I understand that the answer is, "Yes". I thought that I gave a specific example to that effect. It reproduces various figures.
  Mr. Houghton: Which shows how dull I am.
  On the second example, where 10 per cent. for life is replaced on appeal by 30 per cent. for one year, at present the whole of the life gratuity is available for set-off against pension. I understand that now the gratuity will be apportioned over a seven-year period and that one year of that gratuity will be available for set-off against the 30 per cent. grant instead of the whole of it. I understand from the hon. Lady that I am correct in saying that that will be so, and similarly with a third category in which 5 per cent. for life is replaced on appeal by 15 per cent. for one year. At present the whole of the life gratuity is available as set-off against the one-year gratuity, and in future, as I understand it, that will continue as at present, and the whole of the 5 per cent. gratuity will be available for set-off against the 15 per cent. awarded. Am I correct in that? There will not be a double benefit for that period?
  Mrs. Thatcher: I am not certain about the actual example, but the general principle up to date in the cases which the hon. Gentleman has given has been to get a set-off of money against money. What we are trying to get now is a setoff of period against period, which is much better.
  Mr. Houghton: In those circumstances, we on this side of the House are agreeable to the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 17, line 22, leave out "it" and insert "that enables or".—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

  Third Schedule.—(COMMENCEMENT, TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS, ETC.)
  Amendments made: In page 21, line 13, at end insert:
  10. Regulations made for the purposes of sub-paragraph (3) of paragraph 1 of the Second Schedule to this Act may, as respects cases where a decision given before the first coming into force of regulations so made is after their coming into force reversed or varied on appeal, or revised on a review, provide for questions arising on the appeal or review to be determined in accordance with the provisions as to benefit overpaid in force immediately before the first coming into force of regulations so made.
  In page 23, line 2, after "Act", insert:
  "(not being regulations described in that Schedule as regulations under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946)".[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]

  Fourth Schedule.—(REPEALS.)
  Amendments made: In page 27, line 24, column 3, at end insert "(2)".
  In page 27, line 25, column 3, after "(4)", insert "(5)".—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]
  9.2 p.m.
  Mr. Sharpies: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  This is a fairly detailed and somewhat complicated Measure which, I think it is fair to say, has had a full and careful examination both on the Floor of the House and in Standing Committee. It may be that we have not been able to accept all the Amendments which the Opposition wished us to accept, but at least the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) has the satisfaction of having made legal history by introducing skylarking into the statutes for the first time.
  It has been the desire of both sides, consistent with our duty to give careful consideration to a Bill of this scope and complexity, that the Bill should be passed into law with as little delay as possible. We have particularly in mind the provisions in Clause 1 which will give extra help to at least some of the old workmen's compensation cases. It would be churlish not to thank hon. Members on both sides for their cooperation and forbearance when perhaps at times their speeches were cut short. The result is that, provided all goes well in another place, we hope that the Bill

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  will receive the Royal Assent before the House adjourns for the Christmas Recess.
  With that proviso, I can say that it is intended to put the allowances for the totally disabled under the Workmen's Compensation Acts into payment from a date in the third week in January. Allowances for the partially disabled will depend on amending schemes which require an affirmative Resolution of both Houses. It will not, therefore, be possible to pay the allowances for the partially disabled until a little time after the payment to the totally disabled has been put into effect. I think that the House will understand why it is not possible for me to be more specific at this stage, but I can give the assurance that it is my right hon. Friend's intention to put these allowances into payment as soon as possible.
  With regard to the other main provisions of the Bill, we hope that insurance contributions will start to count towards pension increments under the new provisions in Clause 5 from a date some time in January. The new provisions for family allowances for incapacitated children will come into force immediately the Bill receives the Royal Assent. It is planned to bring the family allowance changes for apprentices into effect some time early in April.
  Finally, I wish to pay tribute to the help and advice that we have received from the National Insurance Advisory Committee and from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council over the years. They have given us the benefit of their advice and experience in finding solutions for the complicated problems which we have had to examine. I think that this help and advice is appreciated, not only by those connected with the Ministry, but by all right hon. and hon. Members who interest themselves in these matters.
  I commend the Bill to the House and ask hon. Members to give it a Third Reading.
  9.6 p.m.
  Mr. Prentice: It is only just over a month since the House gave the Bill a Second Reading. I think that we on this side deserve the compliment that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary paid us. We did exercise restraint in
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  Committee and we did curtail many of our speeches and did not say things that we should have liked to have said on various aspects of the Bill—a Bill many of whose aspects we disapprove of—because we wanted to see it passed in order that the supplementary allowances in Clause 1 could be paid at the earliest possible date. However, the fact remains that we are disappointed with many aspects of the Bill. We are disappointed with the inadequacy of some of the reforms that it makes. We particularly disapprove of Clause 8.
  Clause 1 provides some modest improvement in the allowances for the old casualties of industry. We on this side have been pressing for this for a considerable number of years. We have taken every possible opportunity to move Amendments to previous Bills to try to get something done for these old cases. Many of my hon. Friends have brought forward Private Members' Bills on the matter. As I say, we welcome this modest improvement, but we think that it should have gone a great deal further.
  We are considering people who were injured before 1948. Many of them were injured in industry in the 1920s or even earlier when safety precautions were a great deal less adequate than they are today. Many people were permanently incapacitated and have suffered for the greater part of their lives as a result of industrial accident which should not have happened. The debt that the community owes to these people is great. It is one which we have never properly discharged and which we still shall not properly discharge by this Bill. In so far as the Bill makes a modest improvement in their lot, we are anxious to speed it on its way.
  We welcome the Joint Parliamentary Secretary's assurance that the new allowances to the totally incapacitated will begin to be paid in January. We promise him that we shall watch the progress concerning the partially incapacitated people very closely. We shall table Questions on the subject if we do not think that that progress is fast enough.
  In Committee we spent a lot of time on Clauses 2 and 3, and many of us feel that here again some very modest improvements have been made that ought to have been made a long time ago. Clause 2 extends the scope of the

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  National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts to some extent, particularly in relation to those who are injured in the course of their employment as a result of what have been called common risks—people who suffer from assaults, from being struck by lightning or, as the Clause puts it, "by any object", and people who suffer as a result of the presence of animals, fish, insects and so on. This seems a rather bizarre collection, but it has a very real meaning for people in industry, and a great many cases have been rejected under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts in the past because of failure to legislate in this way.
  I remember some years ago as a trade union officer helping to draft a memorandum on many of these points, and the fact that it has taken from 1948 until 1961 for these requirements to be brought forward is an indication of the very slow and timid approach of the present Government towards any reform in social legislation.
  We still feel on this side of the House that Clause 2 does not make all the improvements we want. We feel that transport workers in particular will suffer disabilities compared with other workers in the sense that nothing has been done to extend the scope of employment in the way that we and the trade union movement have been requesting for many years. This again is a matter to which we shall have to return as soon as possible.
  Perhaps I may at this point refer to the Industrial Industries legislation. In the course of our discussions in Committee there were occasions when we put down Amendments on which the Minister said that he could not go all the way with us because he felt that the wording which we had chosen was not correct, and it was difficult to devise a form of legislation which would meet some points of substance that we had in mind. Clause 2 makes an improvement and it will fall to be interpreted by the National Insurance Commissioner. Here I think it is worth saying what has been said on another occasion, that a new National Insurance Commissioner has taken on the work recently and we all wish him well. Many of us hope that in interpreting Clause 2 he will find the opportunity to ensure that the scheme is operated as widely as possible.
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  In a scheme like the Industrial Injuries Scheme a borderline has to be drawn somewhere. This Bill shifts the borderline a little. There will still be disputed cases and fine points of law to be decided. We all hope that what is contained here will lead to a substantial improvement in the operation of the Scheme and that the decisions made in the future will give the widest possible expression to the Scheme.
  Having said that we welcome the contents of Clauses 1, 2 and 3 and, indeed, some of the later Clauses, though we wish they went further, I am afraid we cannot say the same of Clause 8. This is a Clause which we regard as being entirely bad, at least as far as its main provisions are concerned. We wish that it could be put into a separate piece of legislation so that we could express exactly what we feel about it.
  The Minister has failed to meet the main point made by hon. Members on this side of the House and, indeed, made in Committee by at least one hon. Member on his own side. He failed altogether to take account of the practical effect of this proposal so far as it will affect apprenticeships. There are many families in which the decision as to whether or not a boy or girl can undertake an apprenticeship is very marginal indeed. In families where the father is earning a low wage, or where there is a widowed mother, or where there has been a great deal of sickness particularly on the part of the father—in such families which have had a struggle to make ends meet, the decision as to whether or not a boy or girl should undertake an apprenticeship may well depend on whether or not the family allowance is payable in respect of that boy or girl up to the age of 18.
  When this House is asked to legislate in such a way as to reduce the number of family allowances being paid in respect of apprentices, it is in fact legislating in such a way as to cut down the total number of apprentices. During the Committee stage, the Minister said that he did not think that in the majority of cases the withdrawal of family allowances would lead to a decision against a boy or girl having an apprenticeship. This may be correct, but we are not concerned with the majority of cases. We are concerned with a minority of

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  cases, and probably a very substantial minority, in which it will make a difference. We want to urge once more upon the House that the economic position of this country at the moment does not permit us to do anything that would reduce the number of young people undertaking industrial training. It is a matter of the greatest possible urgency that we should have the highest possible quantity and quality of industrial training.
  If, as I believe it will, the effect of the Clause will mean that perhaps some hundreds of young people do not undertake apprenticeships, and perhaps some further hundreds who are now in apprenticeship training may withdraw, I think it is quite indefensible in the context of this country's economic problems. It seems to me that the Minister and the Department drafted this Bill without any proper consultation whatever with the other Government Departments concerned with the economic problems involved. Certainly, neither on Second Reading nor during the Committee stage, could the Minister give us any assurances on our doubts on this problem. I urge him at least to give us some reply and to recognise the simple fact that this country lives by its skill, that it is desperately short of skilled workers, and that it will need more of its young people in apprenticeships. No Minister in any context should do anything to reduce the number of young people in training.
  I remind him, as we have reminded him before, that his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has toured the country asking industrialists to take on more apprentices. I remind him that, only a few months ago, we celebrated Commonwealth Technical Training Week, in which a great deal was said on this subject. I ask the Minister to recognise that today he is doing something, perhaps, in regard to only a few cases, but nevertheless, something that will damage the structure of industrial training in this country, and it is wrong for any Minister to do anything on those lines.
  On other occasions, we have put the case in this House that the Government are not doing enough to encourage and expand industrial training. Be that as it may, it is wrong for the Minister or anyone to do anything which will make
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  the situation worse. This Clause is a bad Clause. We think that the rest of the Bill is unsatisfactory, because it does not go as far as we should like it to go, although it contains some modest improvements for which many of us have pressed for many years. Therefore, we shall feel bound to support the Third Reading tonight, although with a great sense of disappointment at the inadequacies of the Bill generally, and particular disappointment about Clause 8.
  9.18 p.m.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: Before the House passes this Bill, I should like to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) in saying a few words about apprenticeships. Quite apart from the social inequity which we must recognise, I agree with my hon. Friend that there has surely never been a more inappropriate moment at which to discourage apprenticeship schemes than this moment, and yet this, in fact, is what the House is being asked to do in giving the Bill a Third Reading.
  To cut off family allowances from apprentices at this moment, of all moments, seems to me to be a most shortsighted policy. No one can say that this is an encouragement. It certainly is not an inducement to young men and women to enter apprenticeships, because, as my hon. Friend has said, the decision whether they go in for apprenticeship schemes is in a great many cases a very marginal decision indeed, and this will just tip the scale.
  We are told that there will be a saving to the Exchequer. But the loss to the country in terms of skill and technical training will be incalculable. This will occur at a time when the Russians and the Americans are doubling, trebling and even quadrupling educational facilities of all kinds to train and equip their young people. Everyone must deplore this part of the Bill.
  In spite of the short-comings, omissions and blind spots to which my hon. Friends have referred, I welcome the part of the Bill which refers to what the Parliamentary Secretary calls the "old cases". Together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), I represent a mining area in which there is a tragic incidence of

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  pneumoconiosis. I welcome the increases under the Bill, particularly the increase for the totally disabled under the old Workmen's Compensation scheme before 1948, although I regret that their rates are still lagging painfully behind.
  We on this side also welcome the increased compensation for the partially disabled. It is not much. It falls very far short of what we on this side would like to see. However, we acknowledge that it is an advance. It is a small mercy, but I suppose that we must describe it as a mercy. We also welcome the increase of 7s. 6d. in benefit for those suffering from pneumoconiosis who had left the industry and did not qualify for compensation.
  These were all anomalies, and we are very glad that they have been put right. Although these changes are small in scope, I hope that they will be the precursors of wider, further and much needed legislation to deal with the injustices and inequalities which still exist.
  9.22 p.m.
  Mr. Dempsey: I want to comment briefly on some of the provisions contained in the Bill. I welcome some of the modest improvements, but I am extremely disappointed that the Bill has not gone far enough. It has not brought about something which is crying out for achievement, namely, parity between certain types of benefit. The Bill, like the proverbial curate's egg, can be described as being good in parts. Unfortunately, there are disadvantages in other parts.
  I am particularly concerned with Clauses 1 and 8. Clause 1 is very disappointing because, in spite of the increases to those in receipt of workmen's compensation as totally disabled, it would seem that they will still be approximately 15s. worse off than similarly injured persons who come within the provisions of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. This is really most regrettable. This would have been a splendid opportunity for the Minister to display his generous approach by bringing about parity of treatment.
  There are a number of disabled miners and many disabled steel workers in my
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  constituency. There is also a concentration of heavy industry there, and, frankly, it is almost impossible to persuade the recipients of workmen's compensation that the Minister's suggestions are reasonable and sound, for they see that, at the end of the day, they are worse off than others similarly disabled. It is difficult, therefore, to persuade these ex-miners and ex-steelworkers that there is any justice in Clause 1.
  The Minister should recognise that these men have given their life blood to the basic industries on which our economy depends. The right hon. Gentleman should appreciate the service and self-sacrifice which they have made, and the least that he could have done would have been to take advantage of this opportunity to establish parity. We are not asking for anything new. I understand that parity existed for a period of eighteen months to two years. It should have appeared to him that in the Bill a glorious opportunity now existed to restore it.
  After all, the recipients of workmen's compensation must pay the same prices in the shops for the goods and foodstuffs which they purchase. There are no special prices for ex-miners or ex-steelworkers who are living on compensation. They pay the same as anyone else and the right hon. Gentleman should have some regard to their circumstances and offer them the same financial benefit as other totally disabled workers receive.
  The subject of apprentices has already come in for a good deal of discussion. In the Bill there is a departure from all the principles I have heard enunciated, not only by the right hon. Gentleman but by previous Government spokesmen of both parties. This evening we have been treated to the usual dissertation—"This is what Labour Ministers said ten or twelve years ago", or "This is what a Labour Government did on that occasion". Then we were told what my hon. Friends said and did from 1945 to 1951.
  We have heard all that before when dealing with problems of National Insurance, but surely the right hon. Gentleman realises that he has made certain statements over the years. I recall his words a few years ago when he said

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  that he recognised the importance of family allowances. The right hon. Gentleman, referring to apprentice incomes, used the phrase, "not in receipt of earnings which provide him, wholly or substantially, with a livelihood". That statement was the yardstick used to determine the element that could be incorporated in the income of a family for family allowances purposes with regard to apprentices.
  We find that there has now been a complete departure by the right hon. Gentleman from that stand which he took just a few years ago. We discover that he has actually jettisoned the principles which he enunciated at that time and has introduced the provision in Clause 4 whereby 40s. will be the probable maximum for incorporation in incomes for family allowances purposes.
  In essence, it means that whereas in 1956 the right hon. Gentleman argued that he was becoming generous—was extending the scope of family allowances to incorporate an additional 30,000 apprentices—we discover now that he is going to exclude 50,000 apprentices under the present Bill. Five years ago he brought 30,000 apprentices into the fold and now he proposes to exclude 50,000. The departure from that yardstick and those principles intrigues me. It is well known that on many aspects of National Insurance administration attempts have been made from time to time to declare just what is a reasonable income on which an apprentice might be regarded as being able wholly to maintain himself or herself.
  It is equally true that it is difficult to arrive at an exact formula. We have seen several formulae in the past few years. In 1956, many of the referees agreed that up to 55s. of an apprenticeship income should be included in the family income for family allowance purposes. In 1959, the figure suggested—not by the politicians, but again by those independent authorities—was 67s. 6d. There is no need for me to mention the case which gained widespread publicity throughout the United Kingdom, upon which the judgment was based. That occurred only in 1959. Now, in 1961, it is proposed that the figure should be reduced to 40s. After a period of two years, when the value of the £ has fallen and the cost of living has risen, instead
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  of increasing the figure of 67s. 6d., it is being reduced to 40s.
  What the Minister will succeed in doing, whether he likes it or not, is to encourage indifferent parents to dissuade young members of the family from entering apprenticeships because of family allowance restrictions of this nature so that they might earn better money in general employment.
  I am the first to admit that the parent who is ready to sacrifice and keen to encourage his or her children to enter apprenticeships will continue to do so in spite of the Government's restriction. The Minister can, however, be assured that the indifferent parent will take an entirely different view and that the stream of potential apprentices will be diverted away from industry. Only in the last few weeks we have heard laments, especially from the Government side of the House, about the shortage of craftsmen in industry and in the building trade. It was one of the arguments adduced in the Scottish debate to explain why we are spending £1 million less on housing in Scotland next year. Only last week, in reply to a Question by me, the Parliamentary Secretary admitted that there was a serious shortage of engineering apprentices in industrial design, so much so that certain machines cannot be designed for factories by United Kingdom manufacturers.
  This serious problem which confronts the nation will never be overcome by Measures of this type. The Minister is not saving money, because the finest type of capital in which the country can invest is, not finance capital or industrial capital, but human capital. Unless we recruit the men and women of the next generation in sufficient numbers to our crafts and industries, to our semi-professional and, indeed, professional bodies, the civilisation of tomorrow is bound to suffer.
  The Minister has taken a short-sighted view of the problem. For the sake of the infinitesimal sum involved, it would have been in his interests and in the interests of the House and of the country not to interfere with the system of allowing apprenticeship incomes to be included in the family income for family allowance purposes. By so doing, we would have stimulated the desire and the interest of

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  these young people to fit themselves for apprenticeships in all walks of life and all sections of indstury, for the good both of the industry, of themselves and of the nation.
  Therefore, while welcoming the Bill and indicating that it will have my support, I very much regret that the Minister has been short-sighted in these respects. I hope that in the light of experience, he will come to realise that it will not pay dividends to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance to treat apprenticeship earnings in this fashion and that as a result of trial and error he will learn from his mistakes and we can look forward in the near future to adjustments on the lines suggested by hon. Members on this side of the House.
  9.35 p.m.
  Mr. John Robertson: Most of what I wished to say has already been said. Therefore, I will not keep the House very long. I cannot feel as enthusiastic about the Bill as the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. The Bill provided me with my first experience as a member of a Standing Committee. I have a feeling that it went through altogether too quickly. It might have taken a little longer had it been before the Scottish Standing Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Coat-bridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) said that, like the curate's egg, there were good and bad parts of the Bill. I am reminded of the butcher—or was it the baker?—who was accused of making his rabbit pies with horse meat. He strongly denied it and declared that his pies were half and half—one horse to one rabbit. The "horse" of the Bill is Clause 8, in which the Minister is doing the wrong thing. Whatever may have been this reason for undoing what he did before, the effect will not be for the general good of the country.
  I agree with my hon. Friend that in a large number of families the decision whether a young man becomes an apprentice or goes into a dead-end job is a marginal affair. The new description of apprentices as persons
  "not in receipt of earnings exceeding forty shillings a week"
  will, from my investigations, exclude almost all the apprentices. At least, I
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  have not been able to find any apprentices who will not be excluded, and I would suggest that the numbers excluded will be many more than the numbers given by the right hon. Gentleman.
  The effect of Clause 8 must be to make it much more difficult for families to apprentice their boys. I was reading the Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue the other day, and they were saying that the average expenditure on food for an adolescent was 34s. a week. If we take that as being true there will be very little left to pay all the other expenses which apprenticeship costs a family.
  The real trouble though, about Clause 8, is that we do not really know what it means. I listened to the right hon. Gentleman on Second Reading when he said that this would be conditioned by certain allowable expenses, and I read the speeches made in Committee, but I am still not clear as to what exactly is intended by the Clause. We should be given a clear definition tonight.
  Would the right hon. Gentleman say exactly what is meant by
  "earnings being for this purpose calculated or estimated in such manner and on such basis as may be prescribed"?
  I think that that would be useful. I think that we should get it on the record, because we may be faced with many difficult cases of interpretation. I can see that trade union organisers will be very busy fighting cases over this interpretation in the future.
  I am sorry that I cannot give the Bill a welcome. I have spent years dealing with the problems of skilled men and apprentices in industry, and it is my belief that the Bill will injure the country rather than help because of the inclusion of Clause 8. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman thought it was necessary to do this at this time.
  9.40 p.m.
  Mr. Houghton: I am sure the House is very grateful to the Leader of the House for having rearranged the business for today to give us more time to consider the final stages of the Bill. It is true that, in Committee, we adhered to a self-imposed timetable in order to get the Bill back to the House in reasonable time for it to pass through all

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  stages and receive the Royal Assent before the Christmas Recess, and we are about to pass the Bill to another place in accordance with that intention.
  We are grateful to the Minister for having secured a place in a crowded legislative programme for a Bill containing a number of improvements which have long awaited attention in this House. I am not at all sure that he would have found it so easy to get this favourable place in the legislative timetable in this Session if he had not included Clause 8. I think that must have warmed the heart of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and facilities were given to the Bill to come on early, because of the savings which Clause 8 will secure.
  This is a miscellaneous Bill. There is no one theme running throughout, and we have to take each Clause and part of the Bill more or less by itself and consider it in the light of our experience and knowledge of respects in which reform is called for. The Minister has had detailed consultations with the Trades Union Congress and it has assisted him in bringing forward a number of these proposals. I am sure that has been for the general assistance and convenience of the House.
  I suppose my hon. Friends and I could claim to have had some part in Clause 5 dealing with the younger widows. We seem to have given the National Insurance Advisory Committee a very complicated and baffling task. It was a long time producing its Report. I did make inquiries as to how it was getting on and was told that it was a very difficult job which had been assigned to it. Naturally, we are disappointed that the Report of the Committee did not clear the way to the removal of this sense of unfairness about wives under 60, whose husbands are older than they are and who defer retirement, but in respect of whose deferment the wife under 60 enjoys none of the increments in her pension which the husband earns to his pension in the period of deferred retirement during which she was under 60.
  A small concession is given to the widow in these circumstances and the widow under 60 is now to receive one-half of her husband's increments for the period during which she was under 60 and he was deferring retirement. Perhaps this is the best that can be done
  566
  with this difficult problem, though in Committee we thought that there was still an improvement which could be made without giving rise to all the consequential difficulties which the National Insurance Advisory Committee feared. However, there it is, and Clause 5 gives something to these widows under 60 for the whole of the time when their late husbands deferred retirement.
  The benefits to the old cases under the Workmen's Compensation Acts are naturally welcome, but, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, we had hoped that it would have been possible for the Minister to make more adequate provision for these long-standing casualties of industrial accident and disease.
  Clause 8 is undoubtedly the blot on the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, the thin layer of jam spread over a rather wide area concealed this somewhat bitter pill in Clause 8. When the significance and the effect of the Clause become appreciated more widely, hon. Members on both sides of the House will hear an outcry from many of the parents concerned. Frequently, when these matters are being dealt with in Committee upstairs they do not receive the publicity which would flow from discussing them on the Floor of the House. It may not be known yet in many households that the family allowance which they are now drawing will be terminated when the new regulations are made with effect from the beginning of April.
  Whether family allowances are, in any case, the best way of dealing with apprenticeship is perhaps a matter for debate. The whole field of extended education, apprenticeship and training for vocations and professions needs re-examination with a view to offering greater encouragement and inducements for our young people to embark on careers of skill. But since Her Majesty's Government have not yet tackled the matter in a comprehensive and radical way we have to rely on the family allowance scheme to offer an additional encouragement to many parents to consent to their boys and girls becoming apprentices.
  I hope, however, that the parents of apprentices and the apprentices themselves who are adversely effected by

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  Clause 8 will not allow that to interfere with apprenticeship or with the parents' plans for the apprenticeship of others of their children. The interest of the young people themselves and of the country must triumph over this discouragement in Clause 8. Sometimes it takes a great deal to rise above the annoyance and sense of injustice that these changes bring about, but I am sure that those parents who allow it to make no difference will be glad of it in the days to come and that, especially, the young people themselves will be glad of it.
  It is sad, that in this respect, the Minister is now changing the basis of the Family Allowances Act, 1945. How much should an apprentice earn and still enable his parents to qualify for family allowance? The various decisions of the Commissioners have raised the amount from time to time, until the more recent reward, when a Commissioner decided that a young person aged 16 could be earning £4 4s. 6d. as an apprentice and still not be in conflict with the conditions of the 1945 Act, seems to have goaded the Minister into taking drastic action. He is now reducing the qualifying earnings of an apprentice for the purpose of the family allowance below the level which has been in existence for some time. That is regrettable.
  The right hon. Gentleman has not merely put right, in his view, the highest and most recent award. He has gone back over past awards and has fixed a level of 40s. a week, which is much lower than the figure which the National Insurance Commissioners recommended and which has been in operation for some years.
  Other parts of the Bill have been referred to by my hon. Friends in varying degrees of contentment or dissatisfaction. There is no doubt that Clause 1 will remove a great deal of difficulty over accidents arising in the course of employment. Whether the introduction of this normal word "skylarking" in the Bill will make very much difference, I am not sure. If "skylarking" it is, then there will be no difficulty about its being covered by Clause 2, because the word is there and everyone knows what it means. I suppose that our legal friends may say that there is a difference between misconduct and "skylarking". If there
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  is, the Bill takes care of any doubt in that respect.
  On the whole we must assent to the Bill being given its Third Reading. We regret that it is not more adequate in its beneficial Clauses, and we deplore the Minister's action in Clause 8. We sincerely hope that the result which many of us fear will not come about as a result of the worsening of conditions under the 1945 Act. We hope that the Minister, on another occasion, will get just as favourable a position for a Bill which will be more satisfactory to us and more agreeable to the House as a whole. We could have overlooked many of the Bill's defects had it contained the thing we most passionately desire—a general improvement in the whole range of National Insurance benefits.
  9.53 p.m.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I had the privilege of saying the first few words on the Bill in this House a few weeks ago, and I should like, at much shorter length than on that occasion, to say what I have no doubt will be the last words about the Bill in this House.
  As did my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, I would like to thank the House for the way in which it has dealt with the Bill. I do not mean—and I do not think that anyone will misunderstand me in this—that either side has shirked its duty to give a Bill of this character proper consideration and discussion. On the other hand, it has been a very good example of the parliamentary process at its best in dealing with a complicated Bill.
  There certainly have not been speeches for speeches' sake. On the contrary, there has been genuine good will between the two sides, although opinions on the matters at issue have differed a great deal. The good will has been there in getting on with the job of giving the Bill the discussion it needed, but not prolonging debate for its own sake. I thank the House. I would also thank the many people outside the House who have helped us in bringing about this complicated Measure—the National Insurance Advisory Committee, the T.U.C. and, nearer home, the people in my own Department, and the parliamentary draftsmen.
  The Bill contains a mass of detailed provisions some of which there is not

  569
  time to mention now. Many of them are items of improvement in the scheme which I have wanted to make for some time but which have had to await the opportunity for legislation. I am very grateful that, with the co-operation of the House, it has been possible to deal with those matters in the Bill.
  Naturally enough, the main discussion in this short debate has turned on Clauses 1 and 8. I realise, and the House appreciates, that Clause 8 is a very good illustration of the problem, which we meet when we try to alter the pattern of a particular social service, of redeploying resources in new circumstances and in new directions. It is a thing that we are always rightly urged to do, but it is also something which, when we do do it, naturally raises comment and criticism from those who are, or think they might he adversely affected by the change.
  We should certainly not have brought Clause 8 forward if we had thought that it would have an adverse effect on the willingness of young people to take up apprenticeships or of employers to provide opportunities for them so to do. I agree with what the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and other hon. Members have said about the crucial importance to this country of our people training themselves, with every opportunity they have, in the skills and techniques of modern industry. But in bringing the Bill forward I came to the view, to which I still adhere, that this provision will not have such an adverse effect, and I ask the House to look at it in proportion.
  I do not believe that, when we are dealing with the only people who will be affected by this—apprentices bringing into the home at least 40s. a week net—the question of whether family allowances at the present rate will or will not be issuable will be the decisive factor. I feel that when one remembers the purpose of family allowances—to provide for truly dependent children—it was right to make this change and to redeploy our resources in this way.
  570
  In reply to the hon. Member for Coat-bridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey), who is not, I think, in his place, there is no inconsistency between this and improvements made in 1956. Those improvements involved increasing the age at which a person otherwise entitled either as a schoolboy or schoolgirl, or as an apprentice, would be eligible to qualify his family for family allowance. Of course that remains absolutely unaffected by this Bill. In my view, this restores the family allowance scheme to its true purpose of providing some additional payment to those families whose children continue to be dependent upon them because they are undergoing either education or skilled training.
  In reply to the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson), the words at the end of the Clause to which he referred indicate that we shall prescribe in regulations the conditions as to what shall be treated as earnings for this purpose. Those regulations will be laid before the House and will be subject to the Prayer procedure.
  At this stage I say only this about this Bill. I am very glad to have had the opportunity of bringing it forward. It provides a considerable number of things which improve our social services. And I am particularly glad to be able to do it at a time when, for obvious reasons of finance and national economy, the making of improvements is not easy. That they are improvements I am sure, and I believe they will do some good.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (MARRIED WOMEN)
National Insurance (Married Women) Amendment Regulations, 1961,[draft laid before the House 28th November], approved.—[Mr, Boyd-Carpenter.]

ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY (BORROWING POWERS)
10.1 p.m.
The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood): I beg to move,
That the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order, 1961, a draft of which was laid before this House on 6th December, be approved.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that with your approval and that of the House, we may consider this Order, which relates to England and Wales, with the Order which relates to the South of Scotland Electricity Board.
The Electricity Borrowing Powers Act, 1959, gave to the Electricity Council and boards in England and Wales and to the South of Scotland Electricity Board power to borrow up to the limits, respectively, of £2,300 million in the case of the English and Welsh boards, and £135 millions in the case of the South of Scotland Electricity Board. It also laid down intermediate limits of £1,800 million and £110 million respectively, which are the limits at present in force, and provided for those limits to be raised by means of the kind of Orders which we are discussing.
The purpose of these Orders is to raise those limits to the final figures which were contained in the 1959 Act. I must remind the House that it was always thought that the intermediate borrowing limits would be sufficient until the present time, 1961–62. Therefore, the making of these Orders fits in perfectly satisfactorily with the forecast which was made three years ago. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I, in an attempt to help hon. Members who would like to compare the performance of the industries since 1958 with the estimates which were made in 1958 and in order to try to give the best estimate possible of the years immediately ahead have issued a White Paper, which no doubt hon. Members will have read, which contains figures that are strictly comparable to those in the earlier White Paper issued in connection with the 1959 borrowing Bill.
I draw hon. Members' attention to paragraph 6 of the White Paper where they will see that in the case of the
572
Electricity Council and boards in England and Wales the total capital requirements in the last three years have been rather less than was estimated, £844 million instead of £850 million. In the South of Scotland Electricity Board the probable out-turn to 31st December this year is about £1 million below the estimate. Going back to the Electricity Council and boards, hon. Members will see that rather more than was expected in 1958 has been met from internal resources, £360 million against the expected £355 million. Therefore, in the case of those boards the borrowing required is rather less, about £11 million less than was expected. In the case of the South of Scotland Electricity Board, because the self-financing has itself been a little less than was expected, the borrowing required is exactly as estimated three years ago.
I have made it clear that the financial out-turn so far in the last three years is consistent with the expectations in 1958, but the plans for the remaining years of the period have changed owing to the demand for electricity now growing at a faster rate than was foreseen three years ago. In order to meet the continuing high rate of increase in the demand for electricity, the industries, both in England and Wales and in Scotland, have had to accelerate their plant-commissioning programmes and have had to increase their planned level of investment on main transmission and distribution. Both the industries would have liked to bring the additional generating capacity into commission earlier, but, for reasons which are obvious to hon. Members, this is not physically possible, and, despite this increase in their programmes, the margin of spare capacity in the later 1960s will be rather less than 2½ per cent. in average cold winter conditions and, the margin will be even smaller in the intervening years.
The recent growth in demand and the technical advances of the last few years have made necessary a re-examination of the methods of providing the additional generating capacity which will be necessary during this decade. In the White Paper which I issued in 1960 on the nuclear power programme, I explained the reasons for the revision of the

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nuclear programme which then took place, as a result of which it is now planned to provide by 1968 about 5,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity, which will probably reduce the industry's capital needs up to 1966 by £90 million.
In conventional electricity generation, there has been great technical progress, too, and the cost per kilowatt installed has been considerably reduced. In 1958 it was £53 per kilowatt, and it is now down to £40; in the later 1960's it may well be down to £35 per kilowatt, or possibly even lower. In addition to the lowering of capital cost there has been, through increased thermal efficiency, a decrease in running costs, too.
The increased demand has not only led to the necessity for increased generating capacity but also to the need for increased capacity on main transmission. The Central Electricity Generating Board is planning to introduce a 400 kilovolt main transmission network, and at the same time the increased demand is also affecting the area boards' distribution system and is adding still further to the investment needed in the areas for distribution.
Clearly, the greater the demand the more important it is that the plant should be used as fully as possible. I am quite satisfied that both the industries recognise the prime importance of a high load factor. The Central Electricity Generating Board recently announced changes in the bulk supply tariff which will encourage off-peak sales, and the area boards, too, are offering off-peak tariffs to their customers.
The financial implications of these changes, which are the changes looking ahead to the next two years, are summarised in paragraph 9 of the White Paper which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have published. It will be seen from paragraph 9 that the total capital requirements over the whole period in the case of the Electricity Council and boards have gone up, for the reasons which I have mentioned, by £210 million. Of that £210 million extra capital investment, the Council and the boards will find from their own resources rather more than half—in fact, the difference between £980 and £1,100 million, which is £120
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million extra, leaving the net extra borrowing, to be met in the way that we are providing, of £90 million. Similar figures for Scotland are shown in the lower half of the table, and they are £27 million total extra capital requirement, financed through internal resources to the extent of £11 million and extra borrowing required to the extent of £16 million.
The rate at which the programmes will proceed and the amount of borrowings which will be necessary from year to year will be subject to Government approval and will be reported to Parliament in the White Papers which are published biennially—in April the White Paper on Government Expenditure Below the Line and in October the White Paper on Public Investment in Great Britain. Parliament will also be told, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised in the debate on last year's Finance Bill, of any major changes in the forecast figures.
For example, the borrowing in 1960–61 in respect of both the industries was £17 million lower than was forecast in the White Paper issued in April, 1960; on the other hand, the industries' borrowing in the present year, 1961–62, seems likely to be over £30 million higher than was forecast in the White Paper issued last April. While there are certain to be fluctuations of this kind from year to year, over the whole period covered by the Orders the industries' self-financing ratio is expected to be rather higher than was forecast in 1958.
This brings me to the question of the financial targets which are to be set the industries under paragraph 20 of the White Paper, which was also issued in April, 1961, entitled, "The Financial and Economic Obligations of the Nationalised Industries." This White Paper stated the Government's intention to agree, after consulting each autonomous board, a framework of financial performance over the next five years, and since the issue of that White Paper my right hon. and learned Friend and I have been undertaking consultations with the industries concerned. My own consultations with all the thirteen boards in England and Wales are not yet complete, but I should like to give the

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House a general indication of the industries' projected level of performance.
The Government expect from the industry as a whole in England and Wales total surpluses of about £325 million over the five year period between 1962–63 and 1966–67. That is an average surplus for the whole industry of £65 million a year. About half of this is expected to come from the Central Electricity Generating Board and the remaining half from the area boards collectively. On present estimates of capital requirements, this level of performance represents a gross yield on average net assets employed of about 12½ per cent. and a net yield after depreciation of nearly 7 per cent.
A performance at this new level implies a self-financing ratio rising from about 50 per cent. at the beginning of the five-year period to nearly 60 per cent. at the end of it. All these figures apply to the industry as a whole in England and Wales. Figures for each board individually will be published when consultations are complete.
Mr. Gerald Nabarro: Self-financing is obviously the nub of the astronomical figures that we are discussing. Are my right hon. Friend's figures for future self-financing up to 1967, rising from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent.—I repeat what my right hon. Friend has just said—calculated on precisely the same basis as the self-financing figures shown on page 7 of the Electricity Council's publication "Finance for Power", which, in retrospect, have been 44·8 per cent. estimated and 45·6 per cent, actual? If so, will my right hon. Friend explain how it is that the electricity industry is proposing to find an increase of as much as one-third in its self-financing facilities?
Mr. Wood: I think that the basis which my hon. Friend has quoted is slightly different, in that the provision for debt redemption is included in one and not in the other. If I may help him, the figures that I have just given are matched in paragraph 6 of the White Paper—
Mr. Nabarro: Which White Paper is that?
Mr. Wood: I appreciate my hon. Friend's uncertainty, because there are a
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number of White Papers. The White Paper to which I refer is that issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself headed "Memorandum on the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order, 1961—
Mr. Nabarro: Cmnd. 1564.
Mr. Wood: My hon. Friend is right. The figures to which I wish to draw his attention are in the second line of the first part of the table in paragraph 6 under the heading "Electricity Council and Boards". Has my hon. Friend got that?
Mr. Nabarro: I am with my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Wood: The figures in the table are £355 million and £360 million. The percentages in respect of self-financing are 42 and 43 respectively. I hope that I have made the position clear to my hon. Friend. That is the comparison with which the figures of 50 per cent. and 60 per cent. correspond.
Mr. Nabarro: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. If we are to make progress and to understand this mass of publications, it is important that all the statistics should be rendered on a strictly comparable basis. Of course, I am with my right hon. Friend in his publication Cmnd. 1564. I followed what he said about that precisely. But the figures for self-financing which he has quoted do not agree with the figures for self-financing as percentages in the Electricity Council's publication "Finance for Power". I want the two sets of figures reconciled.
Mr. Wood: I have done my best to reconcile them for my hon. Friend. I have explained the reason for the discrepancy between the two figures, and I have tried to give the comparative figures for the years 1958 to 1961 which correspond to the figures that I have given for the five-year period from 1962 to 1967, which are 42 per cent. in respect of the £355 million estimated for self-financing in 1958 and the actual out-turn of £360 million, which is 43 per cent., in 1961. If my hon. Friend is not clear about the matter, perhaps he will raise his doubts later and we can try to clear them up before the end of the debate.

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In addition to the consultations which I have been undertaking in respect of the Electricity Council and the boards in England and Wales, similar consultations have been undertaken by my right hon. Friend with the South of Scotland Electricity Board. I should like to emphasise as strongly as I can that the surpluses which I have mentioned amounting to £325 million are not over and above the needs of the industry. They are contributions from revenue to the capital development of the industry which must be ploughed back year by year to reduce borrowing and the burden of interest.
I should like to quote from the other White Paper for the benefit of my hon. Friend, Cmnd. 1337:
"… there are powerful grounds in the national interest"—
Mr. Nabarro: this?
Mr. Wood: I beg my hon. Friend's pardon. It is the fifth line in paragraph 22:
"… there are powerful grounds in the national interest for requiring these undertakings to make a substantial contribution towards the cost of their capital development out of their own earnings, and so to reduce their claims upon the nation's savings and the burden on the Exchequer."
It is clear from paragraph 9 of the other White Paper, Cmnd. 1564, that the maximum limits which were laid down in the Act of 1959 will be reached rather sooner than was thought at that time. It will probably be necessary to ask Parliament for fresh borrowing powers in respect of England and Wales during the Session 1963–64.
In the South of Scotland the maximum limit will probably be reached about a year earlier. The estimates which were made three years ago proved substantially correct and the intermediate limit has been reached almost exactly when it was expected. The estimates made in 1958 of the Board's borrowing needs between now and 1965 will be exceeded, in spite of greater self-financing, because, as I have explained, the industry has had to expand more rapidly than was expected in 1958.
I think the House will agree that the industries deserve congratulation for the increasing proportion of necessary capital which they are finding and intending to find from their own resources.
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I hope the House will now agree to provide them with sufficient borrowing powers to enable them to continue to meet the ever-growing demands for electric power, not only by industry and commerce, but also for domestic use.
10.22 p.m.
Mr. G. R. Mitchison: This is a success story. It is a success story which could not possibly have been achieved under private enterprise but has been achieved by this nationalised industry. If that requires any support, I should like to point out one or two things that private enterprise could not conceivably have done. The principal one is the length of the programme which is required in modern conditions for expenditure on capital assets in this industry. The 1959 Act and the last White Paper provide for a seven-year period.
Before I say any more about that, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question. He referred to the White Paper on the "Financial and Economic Obligations of the Nationalised Industries" and he referred to the part of it which has troubled me slightly. I am looking at page 8, paragraph 24, and this appears to refer to the electricity industry as well as to other industries. It contemplates not a seven-year programme but in this case, so far as I can see, a programme for the next five years ahead, followed by an upper limit on the amounts to be spent on investment during the two years ahead, followed again by an annual reasoned estimate submitted to the Government by the undertaking. In this case I suppose we may call it the Electricity Council or the electricity industry.
Those seem to me to be limits which were put into this White Paper as recently as April, 1961, long after a seven-year programme had been found necessary and had, indeed, been adopted. I suggest that the whole tenor of the White Paper, of the 1959 Act and the arrangements made under it, and, indeed, of what we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman points to a seven-year period. I see every reason for it. I am referring to the Report and Accounts of the Electricity Council, the first chapter of which is in the reprinted version that has been going round lately.

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It does not matter very much which reference one makes, so long as it is clear which document it is, and the document I have here is the Report and Accounts of the Electricity Council for the year ended 31st March last. I see that here a firm programme of transmission requirements has already been settled for primary transmission in 1965 and for secondary transmission in 1964, and that provisional programmes have been settled for 1966 and 1965, respectively.
While I agree that these dates do not by themselves pass the five-year limit, although they get uncommonly near to it, it is quite clear from the rest of the Report, with which I will not trouble the House, that foresight on a more provisional basis has to go even beyond the five years contemplated by the Government's White Paper on the nationalised industries. I have no objection to this. It seems to me to be right in all the circumstances, so far as I can judge them, but I emphatically point out that private enterprise could not possibly have planned, either on the national scale which we are now considering, or for the length of period that the Government and the industry are using for the purposes of their programme.
I welcome this, and I see that the Electricity Council, in paragraph 36 of the same Report, says:
"The record of the past three years is one with which the Electricity Boards can be reasonably satisfied."
They are, after all, the bodies which actually distribute the electricity.
"They have honoured the financial prospectus on which their borrowing powers were increased."
The Report then proceeds to consider the future.
I have been through this Report with the care appropriate to someone who does not know too much to begin with about a subject on which he has to speak, and I must say that I am very impressed by the details of what has been done, not that we are going into all of them tonight. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out, and I was glad to hear him say it, that the White Paper makes it perfectly clear that what is now asked for cannot carry the industry to
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the end of March, 1965. Indeed, the actual figures of the present forecast in the table on page 5 in paragraph 9 of the last White Paper, Cmnd. 1564, actually exceed by small amounts the limit now to be covered by these Orders.
Therefore, it is quite clear that the forecast made in 1958–59 did not provide sufficiently for the growth of the industry, and when one turns from that to a little more detail, to see what has happened in the expenditure during the years since then, we find the reasons for it. The right hon. Gentleman quite rightly said that the figures of capital requirements, the estimate compared with the outturn, showed that the estimate had not quite been reached, but what I think he did not make quite clear, at any rate to me, was that that is only arrived at by a combination of two things.
The first is that the actual expenditure on generating plants and main transmission and distribution has increased beyond the estimate. But that has been more than counter-balanced by two things. One is the phasing of or cut in—whichever one likes to call it—the nuclear power programme, which was the subject of Command Paper 1083 in June, 1960. The other is the considerable change in the working capital figures, which, as I see it, simply means that by the commercial accident, as it were, that always happens in dealing with this kind of thing, a draft has actually been made on the working capital.
It is, therefore, true to say that, apart from the nuclear power change and apart from the change in working capital, there has been, as indeed the Report makes clear in some detail, an excess of growth beyond what was forecast earlier. That excess of expenditure is due to two things, as I understand it. Less than half of it is due to any rise in costs and prices; more than half is due to what is called in one passage in the White Paper "the upsurge in demand".
It is perfectly clear if one looks at this Report that the electricity authorities, by which I mean the Council or the operating boards, including the Generating Board, have found it very hard indeed to keep pace with the upsurge in demand.

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I would praise the efforts that they have made to do it so far as one can judge them from the Report, but they have indeed required an effort.
What I think is particularly to be commended is that the upsurge in demand and the meeting of it have resulted in an increased production of, for instance, units of electricity, and, though there have in fact been, some tariff increases, we see from the Reports that the average revenue per unit is actually down by 2–3 per cent. or thereabouts. If we look at what is really the same question, although another way round, the cost per kW. is about 10 per cent. down.
That is really a very remarkable and creditable state of affairs. Without coming down on the consumer at a time not only of rising prices but of the usual series of Government financial crises, the electricity industry has managed actually to reduce the cost to the consumer in general to meet an upsurge in demand which, with the best judgment it had, it certainly did not fully foresee when the 1959 Act was passed, and to do this by reducing costs on increased production.
One can, no doubt, find matters to criticise here and there if one looks closely enough, but the general tenor is, I suggest, quite remarkable creditable to those concerned, and creditable to the necessary concept of this industry as the public service which under modern conditions it seems to me it is absolutely bound to be.
I take one other matter which I think may serve as a rough test, and I take it because I notice that it was mentioned in the debates on the 1959 Bill. That is what is called by the experts, I believe, the system load factor. It is quite clearly explained in the Electricity Council's Report, particularly on page 27. There, after what appear to be the proper and appropriate adjustments, we have a continuous history of a rise in the percentage indicating the system load factor from 1948 to 1961, with one very small exception in the early years. This, as I understand it, is the way in which those best versed in these matters indicate the fullness of the use being made of the electrical resources provided. It is a question of not merely providing for peak periods but also
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spreading the demand for electricity, as far as that can be done, over the day.
When dealing with this the Electricity Council points out that there are limits to what can be done in this matter, because the changes in what it calls domestic and industrial conditions largely dictate what the load factor will be. The Council says in paragraph 113:
"The adoption of more shift working, a wider use of electricity for continuous processes in industry and agriculture and the greater use of power in the home in off-peak periods would do much to help."
In another part of the Report the Council indicates the corresponding difficulties. I mention this and dwell on it because it indicates the character of the industry and the elasticity with which it has to meet the demands on it. The more credit to it that this has been done. It has been done, as the Report indicates, under continuously changing conditions and in the light of developments in industrial and domestic use which are now happening in other countries too.
That is the general picture. There are one or two points upon which I should like to ask the Minister of Power, or whoever is to reply, some questions. I notice that the cost of research in the industry in the year covered by the Report of the Council—namely, the year ended 31st March, 1961—was £4·9 million. I notice, too, that the industry benefited to some extent from the research conducted by its suppliers of plant. However, this is a very small percentage of the money available for the industry to spend on research. This is an industry in which a great deal of research is required and where there is a real danger of falling behind if it is not undertaken.
Passages towards the end of the Report of the Electricity Council emphasise the need for training in the industry, which is closely connected with research. It is pointed out that, if it is not carried out, the industry will not play its part and this country will lag behind other countries in this important respect. I am not for a minute going back on what I said about what the nationalised electricity industry has done, but, after all, it has had in many ways an uphill task.
I want to mention a matter which again shows how much the industry has done and yet how much was needed to

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be done. I refer to the supply of electricity to farms. In 1948, when the industry was taken over, only 48 per cent. of all farms in this country were supplied with electricity. In 1958 it was 70 per cent. and by the end of March 1961, it was 84 per cent. The comments on this in "Power for the Future"—a statement of a programme that was issued in connection with the 1959 Bill—point out that although something had been done by private industry, a comprehensive approach to the problem of rural electrification was inhibited by the early structure of the industry. It states:
"Development up to 1948, influenced mainly by economic factors, had been characterised by a gradual spreading out from urban centres rather than a systematic plan to tackle the field as a whole."
That seems a fair and reasonable comment and exactly what one would expect from electricity if one attempted to organise it in a set of private companies. It is the sort of social demand which the nationalised industry has been able to meet.
I have asked the right hon. Gentleman about research and I want to ask him a further question. My hon. Friends, at intervals, have complained to him that there is a sad lack of a national fuel policy and I notice a comment in the Electricity Council's Report which refers to the consumption of coal and oil during the year 1960–1961 compared with the previous year. Actually, both have gone up. I see no particular significance in these figures, but I should like to know what steps are being taken to consider the question of what is going to be provided by way of plant using coal and plant using oil for the use of the Generating Board and any other boards concerned with this form of capital equipment. If I am asking a question which the right hon. Gentleman has already answered six times to other hon. Members, I hope he will not bother to answer me but will tell me to look up one of his previous answers. It is far from clear in the Report who is really the deciding authority.
I turn to a picturesque incident of a special character which I find in the Electricity Council's Report. There must be few nationalised industries which publish a career novel. But I notice "Keith in Electricity" is part of the
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output of the Electricity Council. A career novel is a bright idea and well worth mentioning.
In the extremely interesting venture of linking up with the French electricity system the cash savings appear to be substantial, and whoever thought of that one deserves credit. There is such a thing as public enterprise as well as private enterprise in this case in point. It means that for the reasons given in the Report one can increase the system load factor considerably by pushing over one's electricity to France at the time of the day and in the circumstances in which they stand in more need of it than we do and by receiving electricity from them in converse circumstances.
If the House will allow a personal observation, I find in the reading of the Electricity Council's Report and the other working papers a great many points of extreme interest, and perhaps I speak for the ordinary user of electricity when I say to the Electricity Authority, the boards and the others concerned, "Thank you for what you have done. You have had a difficult job. You may not have done it all perfectly, but it is a very good show".
10.45 p.m.
Mr. Gerald Nabarro: I did not intend to resort to party political considerations during a debate dealing with massive electricity finance for the future, but as the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has endeavoured to cloak his lack of electricity economics and finance under a shroud of party political polemics, I might, perhaps, be allowed to point out the phenomenal growth of electricity generation during the ten years of Conservative rule since 1951. The rate of increase has been larger in this country than in any West European country with which we are so often compared in economic and industrial matters by hon. Members opposite.
In 1950, the amount of electricity generated in British power stations was 45,717 million kilowatt hours. Eleven years later, in 1961, the output has risen to 111,414 million kilowatt hours, an increase of approximately 150 per cent. The average rate of increase in electricity—
Mr. William Hannan: My hon. Friend must listen to

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the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). Everybody must listen.
Mr. Nabarro: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I appeal to you to ask the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) that if he wishes to intervene in my speech and will rise, I will immediately give way, but not to conduct a private conversation and endeavour to destroy the arguments which I am trying to put to the House. Does the hon. Member wish to intervene?
Mr. Charles Loughlin: I was not even interested in what the hon. Member was saying.
Mr. Nabarro: Perhaps I might now be allowed to resume amid silence from the benches opposite. I was saying that in ten years of Conservative rule, electricity generation has increased by about 150 per cent. or at the rate of between 11 and 12 per cent. per annum in arithmetical progression, which is a higher level of increase, taken at an average, than that of any West European industrial competitor of ours. That is the basis, therefore, on which I consider that my right hon. Friend should come to the House this evening for consider-ration of increasing the borrowing powers of the electricity industry, the greater part of the moneys being devoted, of course, to the requirements of generation.
The correct measure of an affluent society, a phrase which has been used on several occasions during the debate this evening, is the amount of electric power consumed both in industry and in the home. I believe that in the next few years we should provide for a rate of increase at least equal to that of the average of the last few years. It is significant that my right hon. Friend, in his opening speech in support of these Orders, and the Electricity Council, in its publication "Finance for Power", quote a large number of technical figures, but at no stage have they stated the anticipated annual growth in electricity demand year by year during the period of five years ahead, for which we are being asked to vote the capital sums under these Orders.
My first question, therefore, to my right hon. Friend is to ask what is the average rate of growth that he is anticipating during the next four or five
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years in support of these capital investment figures. Am I correct in assuming that he has based the rate of growth on the average of the last ten years, which in arithmetical progression is 11 per cent. per annum, or the lesser rate of growth postulated in the Report and Accounts of the Central Electricity Generating Board for the year ending 31st March, 1961, a rate of growth of only 7–8 per cent. per annum? The difference between the two sets of figures, either 11 to 12 per cent. per annum, which is the retrospective average in the last decade, and the 7 to 8 per cent. for the future suggested in the last Report of the Electricity Council can, of course, make a difference of millions of pounds per annum in the capital investment programme being considered under these Orders.
The second matter I want to put to my right hon. Friend is this complicated matter of self-financing. There are evident discrepancies in the fashion in which the appropriate statistics for self-financing have been presented to the House. Of course, my right hon. Friend correctly, in connection with the White Paper, Cmnd. 1564—it is so much easier to refer to it by its number than by its title—in the second line of the table in paragraph 6, quoted the rates of self-financing. Estimates based on the 1958 basis were 42 per cent., and in out-turn or actual fact have proved to be 43 per cent. They do not, however, compare accurately with the sets of figures in the official publication, "Finance for Power," page 7, where the rates of self-financing were quoted as being derived from "Power for the Future"—in 1958, 44·8 per cent.—and are said in actual fact for the last three years to be at the rate of 45·6 per cent. I have no doubt there is an explanation for these discrepancies. There is a difference of 2 to 3 per cent. in the figures, and I suspect that it may be found in the sum for debt redemption payments annually in respect of certain vested assets.
What I want to say to my right hon. Friend is this. It is frightfully unsatisfactory dealing with these huge sums of money if two different bases for presentation, which do not allow of proper comparison the one with the other, are laid

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before the House in different publications. The basis of comparison—I repeat, the basis—should always be the same.
I now come to another point in this matter of self-financing where my right hon. Friend is not evidently presenting the figures, again, on a strictly comparable basis. Would he turn, please, to page 5 of Cmnd. 1564. It is estimated that on present forecast up to 31st March, 1965, the total capital requirements of the industry will be £4,039 million. It is further estimated that the sum found from internal financial resources will be £1,659 million. I have worked out the percentage of self-financing in this instance and find it is 41 per cent. Would my right hon. Friend make a note of that figure—41 per cent. of self-financing? Yet in his speech he said that he expected in the next three years the level of self-financing would rise to 50 per cent. and later to 60 per cent. There is evidently, therefore, a grave discrepancy again in the amount of self-financing which is anticipated in this industry.
My appeal to my right hon. Friend is to present his figures on a strictly comparable basis in all official publications and not to use different bases and different formulae in different publications which lead to grave misunderstanding and confusion in the minds of his listeners and the wider public outside this House. These words are addressed to my right hon. Friend, principally in response to his plea during his speech that he was helping me by giving me the appropriate references.
I now turn to the critical point in the huge sums of money which we are now discussing, and that is the growth in thermal efficiency in the power stations which are already in existence. My right hon. Friend hinted that credit squeeze activities which he is obliged to pursue by the Treasury—and I sympathise most sincerely with him—circumscribed the money available for capital investment in this most costly of all public enterprises in the matter of capital investment. Electricity takes about 5 per cent. of the nation's gross capital investment a year. I do not begrudge one penny of that investment so long as the maximum efficiency is being derived from the huge sums invested in the industry. I am not sure
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that that is so today, and this is not only a criticism of the nationalised electricity industry but also of the industry from which it draws most of its fuel supplies.
Would my right hon. Friend turn to paragraph 82 of the last Annual Report of the Central Electricity Generating Board?[An HON. MEMBER: "Why should he?"] Because it is a matter of economy of capital investment. That is another ribald intervention.
Mr. Denis Howell: I am glad to have that on record. The fact of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), above all people, accusing another hon. Member of ribaldry is something which ought not to go unrecorded.
Mr. Nabarro: Paragraph 82 on page 25 of that Report states:
"Due to the commissioning of new generating plant operating under more advanced steam conditions, and to improvements in operating techniques, the average thermal efficiency of steam stations improved"—
Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;
House counted, and 40 Members being present—
Mr. Nabarro: Perhaps, due to the interruption, I might quote that paragraph again:
"Due to the commissioning of new generating plant operating under more advanced steam conditions, and to improvements in operating techniques, the average thermal efficiency of steam stations improved from 21·69 per cent. in 1950–51 to 26·80 per cent. in 1960–61. The improvement from 26·53 per cent. in 1959–60 to 26·80 per cent. in 1960–61 was not as great as in some earlier years, due to the need to run older and less efficient plant for longer periods during the colder weather of the autumn of 1960 and to delays in the full commercial commissioning of some of the modern plant due in service; thermal efficiency was also affected by the wetness and quality of some of the coal available from stock."
Circumscribing capital investment programmes for new generating plant is wasteful policy, because it leads the Board to keep in commission much older plant that would otherwise be scrapped, which is thereby operated at a low level of efficiency and which causes a loss of efficiency over the system as a whole and is generally extremely wasteful.
The second point I put to my right hon. Friend is whether he will make representations to the National Coal

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Board, which is desperately seeking to increase its sales, notably of low-grade, high ash coal, to improve the quality of the coal sent to power stations, and thereby raise the thermal efficiency. I hope he realises that these very high figures of capital investment he has come to the House for could substantially be reduced if the thermal efficiency of power stations were improved along the lines I am suggesting.
There is one further point to which I draw his attention tonight. This concerns the load factor of power stations, which is far from satisfactory. He now has a copy of the Report from which I am quoting. Perhaps he will turn to page 19, paragraph 62. There he will see that the load factor of our power stations ten years ago, in 1950–51, was 43·2 per cent. In the ten years to 1960–61, it has increased to 48·5 per cent. That is an increase of only approximately one-half of one per cent. per annum, a rate of increase which is far too low. As a result of the tardiness in the level of increase in the load factor year by year, a great additional cost is, of course, incurred for capital investment purposes.
My right hon. Friend was serving at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance at the time, but I would like him to reread and absorb, before he authorises the capital investment for the electricity industry for the next year, some words which I quoted to the present Secretary of State for the Colonies—who then spoke for the Ministry of Power in this House—on 20th January, 1959. They were:
"If the load factor could be permanently improved by 5 per cent. it would mean a vast saving in capital. Electrical engineers are anxious to use the most efficient stations and classify them most scrupulously according to their thermal efficiency—though even the most efficient loses 70 per cent. of the value of the fuel consumed. But to search for ways and means to maximise the use of the vast plant under their care does not seem to concern them. To do so would require some unorthodox thinking and departure from tradition. There would have to be some drastic modifications in tariffs; all this would not be easy and rather unpopular in the industries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January. 1959; Vol. 598, c. 128.]
What is my right hon. Friend doing about improvement in load factors? The words I ask him to reread were not mine. They were quoted from the
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book "Nationalisation in Britain" by Mr. Kelf-Cohen, whose authority for using them was that for many years he was the second principal civil servant at the Ministry of Fuel and Power. He therefore had to deal directly, year by year, with these capital investment figures, and was thus singularly well qualified to comment on wastage of investment funds in this most expensive of all nationalised industries.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will he at pains to answer my questions.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): I always am.
Mr. Nabarro: I am delighted to have my hon. Friend's assurance that he always is. In that regard he differs from the Minister of Power, who declines to answer questions in debate. I shall look forward particularly to hearing answers to my questions on efficiency matters—on thermal efficiency and on the load factor of power stations—because in all these matters there is the greatest opportunity for economy of funds in this huge capital investment programme that is before the House.
11.5 p.m.
Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: My hon. Friend the Member for Kiddermnster (Mr. Nabarro) indicated that the load factor in the United Kingdom is 48·5 per cent. It would be difficult to increase that figure substantially. An international comparison with, for instance, the United States, where it is over 60 per cent., would not be appropriate, because different factors apply and additional fuels are available. If the load factor were very much higher in the United Kingdom, however, the nuclear power stations would be much better placed now. It would be possible on that basis for it to be competitive with other fuels before 1970.
To come straight to the point, when we look at this Order we see that my right hon. Friend is asking for the ceiling to be raised from £1,800 million to £2,300 million, a quite significant rise. This is not an immodest sum. What is more, someone has to provide it, of course, the Council has direct access to the Treasury and in turn the Treasury has to raise it. Either it has to come

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from the taxpayer or the Treasury has to go to the market in due course. If it fails to secure the necessary funds, there is the question of Treasury bills, which may themselves be inflationary. I should have thought that the time had arrived when my right hon. Friend would be prepared to allow the boards to go to the market for part, if not all, their funds. In times of financial stringency perhaps not all would be secured, but part could be.
He is asking for moneys which could be utilised up to 1965. I am not entirely surprised that my right hon. Friend says that he may have to come to this House again in 1963–64, but on the prior point it may be that we see a glimmer of light in the publication, "Finance for Power". It says:
"… the Council cannot ignore the facts that the industry enjoys direct access to the Treasury for capital, that a large part of the capital thus lent to it is obtained by the Treasury from taxation, and that the market for fixed interest stocks is far from easy".
Here we have a glimmer of light, It continues:
"But this does not mean that the Electricity Boards and Council would never be willing to face the capital market on their own record and prospects; their view would depend on the conditions ruling at any given time".
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster will be prepared to concede that that is an additional point. If industry is prepared to go to the market and raise stocks why cannot this industry at a suitable time do precisely the same?
I make a further suggestion to my right hon. Friend. Her Majestys Government have a 50 per cent. interest in British Petroleum. That private enterprise company went to the market in Switzerland and borrowed funds. If the electricity industry finds the rate of interest in the United Kingdom too unfavourable, perhaps it can go to the Continent where it can borrow money more cheaply. If a company in which the Government have a 50 per cent. interest can go to Switzerland and, I think, also to Western Germany, there is no reason why we should not have a little fresh thinking in this case. The boards may themselves go abroad where they can borrow money much more cheaply. For the size of the problem one has only to look at "Public Investment in
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Great Britain", published in October, 1951, to find that the approved expenditure of the electricity industry for 1962–3 is estimated at £397 million out of a total of £915 million for the nationalised industries and public corporations. In fact it is 43–2 per cent. of the total. I am not going to say at this stage that this immense investment is unnecessary. On the contrary, this is expanding fast and will require reasonably cheap fuel, certainly to be competitive with Europe But we must be in a position in the United Kingdom to secure what we require and to see that the House has effective control over expenditure.
Miss Margaret Herbison: I take it that the hon. Gentleman has read Cmnd. 1337, in paragraph 27 of which the full reasons are given, after very careful inquiry by Lord Radcliffe, why the industries should not and could not go on to the market as the hon. Member suggests.
Mr. Skeet: The hon. Lady should appreciate that we are looking ahead and that we may be on the threshold of joining the Common Market. The trouble in the past has been our inability to do any forward thinking on these matters. There will be a free flow of capital into the United Kingdom from Europe and vice versa if we join. I gave the example of a private enterprise company which had raised funds on the Swiss and, I believe, the German markets. While it would have been impossible for certain deficit industries to do this, there is no reason why success industries should not do it. This is a question of looking ahead.
Mr. Speaker: Order. There is great difficulty about this. I have been allowing the hon. Member as much licence as possible, but the discussion is on an Order pursuant to a Statute which regulates borrowing from the Treasury, and to borrow elsewhere for this purpose would involve amendment to the Statute, which the hon. Member cannot urge in this debate.
Mr. Skeet: I fully accept that Ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I was pointing out, before I was led astray by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), that a heavy burden

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falls on the taxpayer, because the taxpayer has to foot part of the bill. In these industries we have not noticed over the years any surplus handed back to the consumer in reduced prices.
A surplus can be used in two ways: it can be ploughed back. There is ample reason for that. But the public is placed in the situation that as the years unfold especially as more money will be spent on plant very large sums will be borrowed from Government sources. But the taxpayer has two capacities—taxpayer and consumer—and he will foot both bills. The House must appreciate the significance of these remarks.
I do not want unduly to prolong the debate, but there are one or two economies which my right hon. Friend might bear in mind. He mentioned that conventional power costs had been reduced to about £40 per kilowatt installed, but in even the most up-to-date nuclear power stations the figure is slightly over £100. Does not that indicate that if he wishes to save on expenditure in future the nuclear power programme should be further contracted?
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) referred to the link between this country and Europe. It might be a useful step for us to invest in the hydro installations in Europe, because that might ultimately reduce our costs in the United Kingdom.
It has been indicated that the demand for electricity is expanding rapidly; it doubles every ten years. But that does not necessarily give a true picture throughout the country. The expansion has been very much faster in the South than in the North—or, rather, in certain parts of the North. In the South there are only a certain number of points available for nuclear power stations. It is very difficult to bring power south because of public objection to transmission lines and there is little coal south of the Trent. Therefore, my right hon. Friend may have to look increasingly to other fuels. I hope that when my right hon. Friend gets this additional right for the Electricity Council and others to borrow these very large sums up to 1965 he will see that they are properly applied over that period. These are vast resources. We have noticed in the past that errors
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have been made and we would not like to see those repeated.
11.15 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): May I deal straight away with one point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) on the question of going to the market for finance at some time in the future. The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) was correct in saying that the point was dealt with in paragraph 27 of Cmnd. 1337. One cannot possibly rule it out for the future, and we would all hope that this might be possible.
Miss Herbison: We are discussing the borrowing powers for the present and for a few years ahead. That was all that was being discussed. I should be surprised if this industry, which has such a success story, were not in the position at some time in the future of having to apply to the Government.
Mr. Maclay: We are all in agreement about that. I agree that there is a success story and I welcome the compliments that have been paid on both sides of the House to the industry.
A number of questions have been asked and I will deal with them. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) made some pointed comments about comparability of figures in different documents. I took the trouble to look at the speech that I made about two years ago when we discussed these matters. I read the whole of it. I also looked at the speech that my hon. Friend made then. I was hoping that my hon. Friend would compliment us on the very long way that we have gone to implement everything that I said we would do on that last occasion by making available a large number of very useful documents into which my hon. Friend could get his teeth and which he could explore in his usual way. He did not pay us a compliment about that, but he criticised us for a certain degree of lack of comparability. The point is taken and we will examine how far it is possible in this complex matter to ensure that figures are comparable.
Mr. Nabarro: May I apologise to my right hon. Friend for my failure to observe the customary courtesies. I have

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before me his speech of 20th January, 1959, reported in column 152 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. He has implemented all his promises in laying these magnificent documents before the House, and I am deeply grateful to him. If he would only imbue his advisers with the vital necessity for seeing that all figures are quoted on a comparable basis in all official documents we should all be much happier.
Mr. Malay: I am grateful for that very handsome gesture.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) asked a number of questions, one of which related to the matter of research and development. A very large increase in the scale of research and development by the electricity supply industry is planned for 1962–63 and there are plans for still further increases in years to come, but I am not able to quantify them this evening or to give figures.
The hon. and learned Gentleman also asked a question about Cmnd. 1564, paragraph 24, and asked me to reconcile the five-year operation with the seven-year operation. I do not think they are inconsistent. Clearly we are thinking ahead a number of years. What is stated in paragraph 24 of that White Paper is what happens year by year or at different stages in the operation, and the procedures are not inconsistent. I think we all recognise that this industry has to think ahead a fair number of years.
The hon. and learned Member asked about a national fuel policy, and narrowed the subject down a little to the question of who decides, and what steps are taken to decide, between different fuels—coal and oil. I think that was the substance of his question.
Mr. Mitchison: I dare say that I did not make it sufficiently clear. The point was—what are the reasons for deciding between building stations which will use oil and stations which will use coal?
Mr. Maclay: I appreciate that. The point is that in this case my right hon. Friend and I myself, in Scotland, are in close consultation with the boards when there is a new plant in contemplation. I can say from my own knowledge that there is a great deal of discussion and that a great deal of care is taken to en-
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sure that each plant is fuelled in the way most appropriate to the area in which it must be situated. I am afraid that that is the only manner in which one can wisely decide this. One is always watching the progress of nuclear developments, but in any case the answer depends very much on the precise area in which the station is needed, and the stations tend to be sited in relation to suitable types of coal that are available. If there were a case where the coal was not suitable, another type of fuel would have to be contemplated. This is a continuing process. It must be examined carefully with every station.
Mr. Mitchison: I trust that the right hon. Gentleman also bears in mind that these stations use, I believe, a rather low-quality coal and that they might be so sited in Scotland as to continue the use of collieries which otherwise might be shut down. I am sure that my hon. Friend and neighbour would have something to say on that.
Mr. Maclay: We are very conscious of that indeed. In fact, we are in one or two instances in Scotland using slurry. Quite a lot of work has been done in that direction. It is not yet altogether certain how much further one can go, but that sort of consideration is very much in our minds.
I turn now to some of the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster. He asked about the average rate of growth. As I understand the position, the average rate of growth of electricity demand is 7·2 per cent. over the period of the programme. That is close to what has happened in the past decade.
I am afraid that I could not follow, or check in the time available, how my hon. Friend arrived at the figure of 11 per cent. I should have to do some research into that before I could reconcile the figure of 11 per cent., because I cannot discover where it comes from. But what I have said is correct, that the rate is 7·2 per cent. for the period of the programme, and I repeat that that is close to what has happened during the past decade.
My hon. Friend also spoke about thermal efficiency and the load factor. Everything is being done to use the most efficient stations as fast as we can. He

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asked specifically why the industry still uses old plant with low thermal efficiency. The short answer is that it uses these stations only for a relatively few hours per year. It may be that it would be much more expensive to invest capital in new plant to operate for what might be a relatively small number of hours over a year. The point of that is obvious. At any stage of development of a programme there are old stations, and one has to use them to meet special requirements at special times of the year rather than go in for major investment which would produce other stations of maximum efficiency.
My hon. Friend also referred to coal quality, and asked why the National Coal Board does not supply better coal. Up to a certain point, the Board can supply only the coal nature provides. But, fortunately, the electricity industry can efficiently use a much lower grade of coal than any other industry can. That is one of the advantages of this industry in relation to coal.
I think that my remarks have covered the questions by my hon. Friend that I can reasonably deal with this evening.
I conclude by saying that I welcome the fact that we are able to put before the House of Commons borrowing powers for such an admirable reason—that we have an industry which is getting itself ready to meet the tremendous upsurge in demand that is coming. It
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is a very good test, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster said, of the health of the country that it is demanding this increased electricity. I sincerely hope that the House will now approve these Orders.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Order, 1961, a draft of which was laid before this House on 6th December, be approved.
Electricity (Borrowing Powers) (South of Scotland Electricity Board) Order, 1961[draft laid before the House, 6th December], approved.—[Mr. Maclay.]

SIERRA LEONE (GIFT OF A MACE)
Resolution reported,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that Her Majesty will give directions that there be presented, on behalf of this House, a Mace to the House of Representatives of Sierra Leone, and assuring Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.
Resolution agreed to.
Address to be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

ADJOURNMENT
Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock.

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  V-Bomber Force (Skybolt Missile)
  V-Bomber Force (Skybolt Missile)
  Singapore
  Singapore
BRITISH ARMY
  Private J. Raybone
  Private J. Raybone
  Junior Leader Unit (Exercise, Dartmoor)
  Junior Leader Unit (Exercise, Dartmoor)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Conference, Cranwell
  Conference, Cranwell
SCOTLAND
  Control of Public Expenditure (Plowden Report)
  Control of Public Expenditure (Plowden Report)
  Charollais Bulls
  Charollais Bulls
  Housing (Improvement Grants)
  Housing (Improvement Grants)
  AUTHORITIES WHO HAVE NOT MADE DISCRETIONARY GRANTS
  AUTHORITIES WHO HAVE NOT MADE DISCRETIONARY GRANTS
  AUTHORITIES WHO HAVE NOT MADE STANDARD GRANTS
  AUTHORITIES WHO HAVE NOT MADE STANDARD GRANTS
  Average Earnings
  Average Earnings
  Housing (Scotland) Bill (Representations)
  Housing (Scotland) Bill (Representations)
  Farm Improvement Scheme
  Farm Improvement Scheme
  Ploughing Grants
  Ploughing Grants
  Dunfermline and West Fife Hospital
  Dunfermline and West Fife Hospital
ROADS
  Epping New Road (Lay-bys)
  Epping New Road (Lay-bys)
  Toll Bridges
  Toll Bridges
  A.34 Road, Sandleford
  A.34 Road, Sandleford
  Redbridge Lane East, Ilford
  Redbridge Lane East, Ilford
RAILWAYS
  Lines and Stations (Closing)
  Lines and Stations (Closing)
SHIPPING
  Coastal Shipping (Small Ports)
  Coastal Shipping (Small Ports)
  "Queen Mary" (Replacement)
  "Queen Mary" (Replacement)
TRANSPORT
  National Gallery Site
  National Gallery Site
  GERMANY (BRITISH FORCES)
  GERMANY (BRITISH FORCES)
EMPLOYMENT
  Iron and Steel Industries
  Iron and Steel Industries
  Handicapped Persons, Cramlington Area
  Handicapped Persons, Cramlington Area
  Unemployment
  Unemployment
  Apprenticeship and Training, Northern Region
  Apprenticeship and Training, Northern Region
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Hovercraft (Licensing)
  Hovercraft (Licensing)
ROYAL NAVY
  Officers' Widows (Pensions)
  Officers' Widows (Pensions)
HOUSING
  North Eastern Housing Association and Ennerdale Rural District Council
  North Eastern Housing Association and Ennerdale Rural District Council
  Subsidence (Subsidy)
  Subsidence (Subsidy)
  North Eastern Housing Association (Subsidy)
  North Eastern Housing Association (Subsidy)
  Clean Air Areas (Grates)
  Clean Air Areas (Grates)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Off-Street Parking (Outer Greater London)
  Off-Street Parking (Outer Greater London)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield

UNCLAIMED DIVIDENDS AND ASSETS
2.35 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, following the precedent of the Trustee Act which mobilises charitable funds otherwise unused, they will consider taking steps to free unclaimed dividends and unclaimed assets in safe custody after a sufficient period has elapsed so that the value thereof may be turned to some good purpose.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government see no valid justification for the course proposed which is in any case open to serious objections. Unclaimed dividends on Government stocks are, however, already used by the Exchequer under the provisions of Section 5 of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act, 1955.
LORD FRASER of LONSDALE: My Lords, does my noble friend share with me the suspicion, or guess, that where the persons who have an interest have died there may be millions, possibly tens of millions, of pounds locked up in unclaimed dividends or in the vaults of banks? Can it really be said to be in the public interest that this should continue rather than that these assets should be mobilised and used? Further, without suggesting that they should be sequestrated, may I ask whether the application of something like the cy-prés doctrine might not bring them into a use
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nearer that which was originally intended; and whether the Government would appoint a Committee, or, if that is too big an enterprise, a civil servant or an ex-civil servant, to inquire how much money is thus locked up and what would be required to be done to free it for use?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, my noble friend has given me a question or two to answer. I will try to answer some of them. In the first place, I think I can allay his suspicions to some extent about the amount of money locked up in this way. I think that probably rather less than £6 million is locked up with the clearing banks, and a somewhat similar figure with the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustee Savings Bank. It is not the gold mine which it is sometimes thought to be. Secondly, I should like to mention the objections which the Government see to the course proposed by my noble friend. First the Government would have no moral title to these balances. Such use would involve violating the secrecy attaching to private bank accounts and would raise difficulties about the particular point in time at which the balance in question should be regarded as dormant. In any event, I should like to remind my noble friend that the Exchequer already has the use of a good deal of this money in the form of Treasury Bills, or by way of investments. These sleeping balances are not so fast asleep.

TREATMENT OF MIGRAINE
2.37 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Ministry of Health are aware of the work being done at the Putney Migraine Clinic at the Putney Health Centre and the Wendy Leyton Memorial Migraine Prevention Centre in Harley Street for patients suffering from migraine and whether the development of special modern treatment for migraine on lines similar to that carried out in the said clinics or otherwise is contemplated within the Health Service.]
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, the work done at these clinics is known to my right honourable friend's Department. The methods used have been published, and it is open to any doctor in the National Health Service to adopt these or any other forms of treatment which he considers appropriate for migraine.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, is this not a most extraordinary thing? So far as we are aware, this clinic does nothing that is not done by other doctors throughout the country. Are we to have clinics for every disease under the sun simply because somebody happens to be particularly interested in them? Is not the work done there all common knowledge?
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, before my noble friend replies, may I ask this question? Whereas it is within my knowledge, though happily not for myself personally, that certain people who have suffered from this most disabling disease have had it alleviated, these methods of treatment are not generally known and are certainly not generally available. Will the Ministry of Health inquire whether these treatments, or indeed other treatments which will help to cure this disease, cannot be made more widely available?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I must make clear that my right honourable friend has no responsibility for assessing treatments or advising doctors how to apply them. It is for doctors themselves to judge the validity of claims made for any particular forms of treatment. But I have heard with interest the views of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, who is a doctor, and the views of my noble friend.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, would not the right thing he for Doctor Leyton (I think he is called) to publish a series of cases treated by him and controls, with a certain amount of follow-up for a period of years, so that the medical profession could themselves judge what is the value of these treatments, rather than that there should be any question of indulging in some kind of trials? Doctor Leyton has the power there. Would not that be the right thing to do?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I can, of course, speak only as a layman.
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Again, the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, is a member of the profession, and on the face of it that is a sound and very wise suggestion.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would not the noble Lord say that the only difference between these clinics and the hospitals is that these clinics take every opportunity to advertise themselves, whereas the hospitals would not descend to these methods?
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that many of us, myself included, looked upon migraine as "just one of those things," possibly even a malingering disease, whereas those of us who have come into contact with these cases must now know that it is in its severest form very, very crippling, and in its mildest form widespread in its effect? Extremely little is known about it and very little has been done about it, and, whether Dr. Leyton is right or wrong, or the best or nor the best, he at least has done something, whereas most people have done nothing. Is it not therefore a good thing that trig Ministry should look into this mailer and see whether what is good can he; brought to people's help?
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, again with due respect, that is not true. An immense amount has been done about the study of migraine, an immense amount is known about the reactions of drugs on migraine, and every general practitioner and every specialist knows certainly as much as is known in these clinics.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: That is in question.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, if a family doctor or a specialist considers that the clinic is the best way to organise treatment, that can be arranged. There are headache clinics at three London hospitals and one at the Midland Eye Hospital, Birmingham. I understand that the College of General Practitioners have recently formed a research group to investigate the prevalence and incidence of migraine, and the group have also studied methods of treatment.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether the medical profession know how to cure migraine or not?
LORD NEWTON: That is not a question for me, my Lords.

BOMBS FOR UNITED NATIONS IN KATANGA
2.45 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what reply, if any, they have received from the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the representations and the request for clarification made by them with reference to the supply of bombs to the United Nations for use in Katanga.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): I am not in a position to make a further statement at the moment but hope to be able to do so to-morrow. Mr. Godber, the Minister of State, and Sir Patrick Dean, our representative at the United Nations, have had further discussions with the Acting Secretary-General, upon which we have received reports.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for the information which he has given, and I shall certainly put the Question tomorrow. But he has not really attempted to answer the Question on the Order Paper, which asks whether the Government have had any reply to the question that was submitted to the Secretary-General. If they have had a reply, what is the reply?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I think it would be better to wait until we have considered the various communications which are still taking place about this, before making a further statement about it in Parliament.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I take it from that rather circumlocutory reply that the Government have received replies from the Secretary-General but that they are considering them. If I am right,
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why cannot the noble Earl say so? I perfectly well understand that replies must be considered before they are disclosed to this House, but is it not a fact that replies have been received and that the Government are considering them and hope to make a statement to-morrow?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, all I mean to imply is that it is not always a very wise thing to butt into the middle of a conversation before it is finished.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether any action has been taken with regard to the proposed cease-fire, and whether any further information has been received by Her Majesty's Government about that?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, the approach about the cease-fire, which was decided on by the Government yesterday evening, has not yet had time to encounter any kind of reaction that we know of in the United Nations.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, arising out of that answer, may I say that I am sure that everybody in all quarters of the House would welcome an effective cease-fire if it could be arranged? May I ask whether, in putting forward this proposal, the Government regard it as an essential step to negotiations for a peaceful or a constitutional settlement in the Congo, and a settlement within the terms of the Security Council's resolutions?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes, my Lords. As the House is aware, Her Majesty's Government have always been working actively for conciliation and I think that was made very clear in the statement of Sir Patrick Dean when he explained our abstention on the vote in the Security Council on November 24, with which the noble Lord is no doubt familiar.
LORD ROBINS: My Lords, arising out of the noble Earl's reply, he must be aware that the public of Great Britain were informed on the radio this morning that the petition for a cease-fire had been turned down by the United Nations. If that is the case, may I ask him whether Her Majesty's Government do not consider that the time has arrived for them to say that they will no longer support

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a campaign in Katanga carried out by the mercenaries of the United Nations?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Shame, shame!
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, might I ask whether the Government rely for their information upon the Press or upon the radio? Surely they have more reliable sources of information than that.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I have already indicated—and I hoped that noble Lords opposite understood what I meant—that conversations do not proceed at lightning speed or in monosyllabic form between the representatives of different delegations at New York. I think we cannot expect an abrupt, monosyllabic answer, in reply to any proposal or any representation, in an hour or two, or even perhaps in a day or two. In reply to my noble friend, I might perhaps just remind your Lordships of what Sir Patrick Dean said in his statement at the Security Council on November 24, when I happened to be present, because I think that some people are sometimes apt to forget it. He said:
"I must make it clear that the continued full support by the United Kingdom of the Congo operation must depend on the skill and wisdom and the conciliatory manner with which the United Nations carries out its mandate."
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, is the noble Earl not in a position to give a direct negative to the question from the noble Lord opposite, that the United Nations have turned down a request for a cease-fire in the Congo?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I would not anticipate that the United Nations would ever directly and finally turn down a request of that kind. They might tell us that they did not think it was quite possible yet, but I have not any authoritative information about that.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the noble Earl will not be surprised to hear that I propose to put down a similar question for further information for to-morrow.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I had hoped that I made that easy in my original Answer, in which I said that I hoped I might be able to say something more to-morrow
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in view of the supplementary question which was put by the noble Lord opposite, which the noble Earl did not answer fully, may I ask the noble Earl whether he would not agree that the troops in Katanga under the United Nations are regular soldiers of their own countries, that they are serving in Katanga as a contribution by those countries and that they are not mercenaries, as we understand that term?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I often wish that the word "mercenary" were more exactly defined, to whomever it is applied.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, while we all wish and hope that the request for a cease-fire will in fact achieve its purpose and that there will be a ceasefire, could the noble Earl assure us that Her Majesty's Government are still as strong and loyal a supporter of the United Nations and of the collective decisions of the United Nations, even though we may not entirely agree with them, as we were when we originally helped to draw up the Charter and became a founder member of the United Nations?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes, my Lords; and we think we can help the United Nations by advising them when they are wrong as well as by following them when they are right.
LORD LATHAM: In the same way, I suppose, as the Tory Government of the day helped the League of Nations over Abyssinia?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I think it would be a pity if we embarked upon a general debate on foreign politics at the moment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That leave be given for the Lord Henderson's Motion (now standing for Wednesday the 20th instant) to be advanced to Monday next.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CARE OF THE ELDERLY
2.53 p.m.
LORD AMULREE LORD AMULREE rose to draw the attention of Her Majesty's Government to deficiencies in the arrangements for the care of the elderly, both sick and infirm; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, once more I have put down a Motion dealing with the problems of the elderly, but before I develop what I am going to say I should like to explain what type of elderly person it is to whom I refer. Most of the people to whom I shall refer in the course of my speech will be taken from the 5 million-odd pensioners, and, there again, most of them will be among those people who are in receipt of National Assistance as well as their pension and who number about one million. A large number of elderly live quite comfortably with their families or with their friends and therefore pose no problem at all; but we find this quite big number—although it may not be very large as an actual number, it is certainly very big from the point of view of their problem—which does pose a great difficulty. Most of the elderly sick will get their treatment in hospital or in their home in just the same way as younger people do.
I do not want to claim for a moment that those services which may be called the geriatric services should take up all people of pensionable age—that is, women of over 60 and men of over 65—but the people I refer to are those people who do require some sort of geriatric service. We must not think of that as being merely a hospital service. It is a service which has to include the care of them when they leave the hospital; the care of those who have no families or homes to go to; and the care of those who want some kind of assistance in their normal life, whether that may be continued in their homes or whether they need to go to some kind of communal home. That sets out the problem I want to talk about; and, because I have set it out in that way, I should like to take the hospital side of the question first. That may be looking at it rather the wrong way round, but I think it is the most convenient from my point of view.
One finds that geriatric departments have now been set up in about one
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hundred hospitals. They have generally been constructed in what were the chronic sick wards of the old Poor Law infirmaries. There, I should like to make the suggestion to Her Majesty's Government that we call them geriatric departments of hospitals and not geriatric units. If you call it a geriatric unit, that rather makes it appear as if it is something by itself and separate from the normal services, whereas if you call it a department it means that it is an integral part of a general hospital, and I think that that is the conception to which we want to return. We rather have the idea that the elderly sick are something special, whereas they are something exactly the same as the younger sick but they require a better kind of treatment.
One of the troubles about the fact that they are housed in what were, for the most part, the chronic sick wards of the old Poor Law infirmaries is that, in a way, they have not made a great deal of claim. Take the question of staffing—and I dealt with this point the first time I spoke to your Lordships' House, which was, I think, in 1946. One of the troubles is that there are these large hospitals with insufficient medical staff. There are a number of these geriatric departments which have improved a great deal, but a survey was carried out recently by the British Geriatric Society, of which I have the honour to be the President, in which we inquired about the staffing of these new geriatric departments. We found that in the areas of seven of the Regional Hospital Boards there was one physician in charge of 400 beds. Now that, I maintain, makes practical, good medicine almost an impossibility, because not only does the doctor in question have such a large number of beds under his care but, in quite a number of cases, he is not of consultant status. Therefore, he cannot talk equally to his colleagues. He is of a status called senior hospital medical officer, which is a junior grade to consultant; and that, as I have said, does not make it easy for him to get full collaboration from his colleagues.
The other difficulty in most of these areas is the shortage of ancillary staff. Here, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Taylor (and I am sorry I was not here for his debate the other

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day) in paying tribute to doctors from the Commonwealth and foreign parts of the world, to whom we owe a great debt. They are people who will take jobs in these geriatric departments and who will do their work extremely well, and if they were not there I do not know what would occur. The same remark applies to the other branches of medicine which one expects to find in a general hospital. We have not the right number of people in occupational therapy, in physio-therapy, in the almoner's department and in all those other departments of the hospital which we now regard as essential for the proper treatment of patients, whether they be young or whether they be old.
Another difficulty is that these departments are, in general, in what were the old Poor Law infirmary wards, and some of the buildings are buildings which should have been pulled down and demolished many years ago. Some of your Lordships may have seen a certain amount of correspondence in the papers during the summer. when Dr. Sheldon conducted a survey in the Birmingham Region. The conditions he found and the state of the hospitals where the aged folk had to be housed were really too shocking to be believed. About a fortnight or so ago there were two very good articles in the Sunday newspaper the Observer, a London paper, in which a woman called Susan Cooper gave a rather similar account, which again showed that a large number of these elderly sick or infirm people were housed in conditions which savoured of the worst sort of buildings of the nineteenth century.
I will not say that there has not been a certain amount of improvement, because the idea is spreading around that elderly people can be properly treated and must not just be firmly tucked up in bed the whole time. But although I will not say that there has not been some improvement, there is still a very great deal of improvement to come. What is rather sad about what has occurred with the new departments is that we have lost one of the good things of the Poor Law. Although there were not many good things about it, there were one or two and one of them was that a person in need of a bed was entitled to a bed. Whether that was a
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good or bad bed, I am not going to argue to-day; but a person was entitled to a bed, whereas nowadays people in need of a bed often cannot get into hospital. That just shows what some of these buildings are like.
Then, if some of these elderly folk fall sick and need to go into hospital, there is very great difficulty in finding a bed for them because of a shortage of beds. May I quote one or two figures to your Lordships? I have some figures which apply to the London area. They are supplied by the Emergency Bed Service, which is an organisation set up by the King Edward's Hospital Fund. If a patient is between nil and 50 years of age he has a 98 per cent. chance of being admitted to hospital. If he is between 70 and 80 years of age then his chance has fallen from 98 to 92 per cent. If he is over 80, the figure is down to 89 per cent. That shows that people who really need hospital accommodation find it increasingly difficult to obtain it as they grow older. Again, I think that is something which is rather to be deplored.
What has been found during the past few years is that if these elderly patients go into hospital they can be treated and cured. Of course, a large number of them will die because they are old, and they have gone into hospital to die. But, again, a very large number will eventually be fit for discharge. There we come up against another really big difficulty. It is not so bad if they have families or friends to take care of them, or have somewhere to go; in that case it does not really pose any particular problem. But what one finds—and, here again, I am talking about the big built-up area in and around London, because that is the sort of area where I myself work, and about which I have most knowledge—is that a very large number of people live by themselves, and when I say "live by themselves", I really mean by themselves.
In some parts of London as much as up to one-fifth of the people of pensionable age live by themselves. In the country areas, the figures are nowhere near as large as those for London, but so far as London itself is concerned that is certainly the case. There are various reasons for that. Because London is a great big sprawling area, members of a family may go to work in different

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parts of London. The family itself does not want to move—there is a very great housing problem in London, to which I shall refer in a moment. Therefore, a large number of people do live by themselves, and do not live in very satisfactory conditions.
One of the things which make it even more difficult is this. I have been going over some of the figures of aged patients admitted to my wards during the past five or six years, and I find a really rather frightening thing. In 1956, 60 per cent. of the people admitted to my wards were at least 75 year of age. In the first half of 1961, the figure had gone up from 60 to 70 per cent. That means that you have a very large number of elderly people coming into hospital, and more elderly people being eventually discharged. Supposing they live by themselves and are unable to cope that creates a very serious problem.
There are two alternatives to deal with that. The first alternative is provided under the National Assistance Act, 1948. If I may just read a brief sentence from Section 21, subsection (1), that Act provides:
"It shall be the duty of every local authority to provides—
(a) residential accommodation for persons who by reason of age, infirmity or any other circumstances are in need of care and attention which is not otherwise available to them:"
For the London areas the local authority is the London County Council and the Middlesex Council. In those areas we find that the amount of accommodation available under that section is extremely limited; in fact, it is nowhere near enough. The accommodation they provide at present consists of two types. Quite a large number of extremely good, new, modern homes have been built, which are comfortable, pleasant to look at, and, I should think, comfortable to live in. But at the same time, several of the old workhouses still exist. There is one in Marylebone; there is one in Islington; and there is one in North London and one in South London. These are great big nineteenth century barracks of places, containing about 1,000 or 1,200 people, and although they have been considerably improved, they are not what you would call very good accommodation now.
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The trouble about there not being enough accommodation available in these homes is that a large number of patients—or, rather, let us call them persons who have been patients and have recovered from the acute illness which sent them to hospital—have recovered enough to be able to lead a semi-normal, independent life but cannot do so by themselves, and therefore have to be kept in hospital at the present time. I have ninety beds, and in those beds I have fourteen persons who have been accepted by the L.C.C. as being entitled to have accommodation but who have been waiting for it for between four to eleven months. The longest wait has been eleven months; the shortest, four. That is a very serious state of affairs, because it gives rise to waste of medical staff and nursing and ancillary staff; and people who are sick in their homes and who should be admitted to hospital cannot come in because we cannot get the other persons transferred to other accommodation.
To come to a rather more mundane matter, this, in turn, costs more money, because in a hospital like the one where I work the average cost of a bed is about £41 to £42 a week, whereas if one goes to one of these homes the cost is about £7 a week. I do not want to stress that side of it, but I think it is a point to be taken into consideration; we are being rather extravagant about it. I have talked to officials of the L.C.C. They are extremely kind; I do not say a single word against them. They try their best in a very difficult situation indeed and try to do all they possibly can, but they are confronted with this grave difficulty. I think that for the complete L.C.C. area there is a waiting list of about 500 persons, of whom about half are in hospitals and half are in their own homes. Quite naturally, the L.C.C. first take people who are in their own homes, because they are in need of some kind of care, whereas those in hospital are certainly being taken care of already. Therefore, it means that if there is a long waiting list the future is a little difficult. I suppose that to accommodate 500 persons would require five or six new homes, because the new ones they are building take between eighty and ninety people.
Things are going to be worse than that in future, because one of these

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big workhouses, which is now called Luxborough Lodge, is going to be pulled down. I think that everybody would agree that that is a very good thing. Although it has been improved a lot during the last 12 or 15 years, it is still not an attractive place in which to spend the rest of one's days. It contains from 1,000 to 1,200 people and they have to be rehoused somewhere else. It is not a very difficult sum, if you know that the new places are going to have 90 beds, to get the result that some 10 or 12 new homes will have to be built over the next few years, and then Luxborough Lodge can be pulled down. But that means that there is going to be no increase in the number of beds. The type of bed will improve, but the number will remain the same, and the problem I am talking about will continue.
I do not want to criticise the L.C.C. at all violently, but this raises a point in one's mind when they are talking about building a National Theatre and the like. Although I am greatly in favour of building a National Theatre, and by the L.C.C., I think we have to get our priorities right somehow. Surely, building to deal with a great social problem like this is a greater priority than a National Theatre.
I am bound to say that things are not so bad in the country. In Scotland, for instance, as the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will appreciate, things are very much better. The average waiting time is about two weeks, and if old people have to wait longer the doctors are very surprised and shocked. They do things better there than they do down in England.
One of the great problems we are up against is what to do with people who have recovered, who have been rehabilitated in hospital, and who yet cannot go back to their homes, particularly when they have no home to go to. This is the third problem, the question of housing. Again I must refer to London entirely. A lot of people could go home if they had some reasonable house to which they could go, but we have the old story in London of tenement houses which were built in the middle of the nineteenth century as family dwellings and, because a change of population has occurred, have been cut up into single
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rooms and small flats, but not improved inside. They are often four-storeyed houses, with maybe another storey in the basement, and one finds even now that in these houses there is only one w.c. on the ground floor or frequently across a little courtyard. The old folk generally go to live in the basement or on the top floor, because the rooms there are cheaper, and that does not make it very simple for them, if they have to come down several flights of stairs and cross the courtyard every time they want to go to the w.c. It is quite common for old people not to be so continent with their urine as younger people and they need to visit the w.c. more frequently.
One would have thought that, if a person was well enough to be discharged, it would be easy to find a house for him, because a great deal of building is going on now in London; but during the last 18 months I have managed to get only three people rehoused out of quite a number who needed rehousing. Sometimes I do not even think it worth trying, because I know there is absolutely no chance of getting a new house for them. They have to go on living in these most uncomfortable conditions, which lead to their health breaking down again and to the recurrence of long-term degenerative diseases, and they need to come back into hospital again for treatment, which is both expensive to the country and uncomfortable to the person concerned. The principle was enunciated by Edwin Chadwick, the great social reformer in the nineteenth century that if we get proper houses, proper mains, proper drains and good environmental condition, we are going a longer way to stopping infectious sickness than we think possible. If we want to prevent old people from becoming sick and causing a lot of difficulty, we should press on with getting more and more houses for old people. I know that I shall be told that a lot has been done. I agree; but it is not nearly enough. When one sees housing accommodation being torn down to make way for the building of new blocks of offices, when there is this crying need for all sorts of people to be housed, it makes one wonder whether there is not something wrong somewhere.
There is one question I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Newton,

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who is going to reply, of which I have given him prior notice. I would ask whether the Government can tell me the number of people who are at present bedfast in their own homes and the number who are permanently housebound. This is information which is difficult to find, but perhaps figures have come in from regional boards from which it might be possible to give some idea of what the total may be.
Supposing old people do go back home, many can cope perfectly well by themselves, but a certain number cannot. There are a certain number of domiciliary services available. The first, and most important, is the home help service, which consists of somebody going to the homes of old ladies, old gentlemen or old couples, to keep the place clean, cook meals and do the shopping. There is also the home visitor, who is very important. These services should be expanded, but that is not so easy, because the home helps are volunteers and obviously volunteers are the most suitable people for this kind of work. It is a service which, I think, can never cover all needs, but I think it can be extended, if more propaganda were done and more encouragement were given to people to take on this extremely valuable job.
The home help service was started from the maternity and child welfare service. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, shaking her head. I am sorry if I am wrong, but I think that that was one of the important aspects of health visitation which produced the home help service. It happens sometimes that home helps are taken away from old people to visit younger persons who are ill and the old people are left by themselves. Another valuable service is the district nursing service, which does an enormous amount of excellent work and keeps a large number of sick people comfortable in their homes. What we should do without it, I simply do not know. I should like to see it encouraged and increased, if possible.
The next important question is the supply of a midday meal. I do not want to go into this in detail because we had a long debate on this during the summer, but I should like once more to stress the importance of the midday meal. A great deal is being done by voluntary service, which is doing a fine
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job of work. They are serving more meals now than they were a year ago, but we cannot say that the country is properly covered until it is possible for everybody who needs a meal to get one five days a week. I do not say that all will want this, but a five-day-a-week service of meals should be possible so that old people and the sick can really stay at home and be properly fed. A six-day week, with the weekend, can be difficult, but a five-day week service is perfectly possible. At the same time, one would like it if some of these meals could be given in the form of rather simple diets—I do not mean an elaborate form of dietetic service—so that it would be possible for people who need special feeding to have the food provided. That is why, if you are going to have the big meal services going, you must have some kind of medical advice attached to it so that the diet question can be solved. However, there is a Private Member's Bill in another place dealing with this matter and I will not go into it further.
There is one other point on which I should like to touch, and that is the question of the health services and the welfare services. One of the difficulties which occurred when the National Health Service Act and the National Assistance Act came into force was that they ran on parallel lines and there was little point of contact between the two. It appeared to be all right on paper, and the Government of the day told me during the debate on the National Assistance Bill that they were fully conscious of the need for a close liaison between the health and welfare services, because otherwise matters would not be satisfactory. Things were not satisfactory for quite a long time, but I am pleased to say that they have improved now, because the Local Government Act, 1958, made it possible for county councils to delegate their powers to authorities with more than 60,000 members; and most of them have taken advantage of this and have put the medical officer in charge of the welfare and health departments. I am sure that will make for simpler and easier running and for a far better service not only for the old but for younger people as well.
At the same time, some eleven of the county councils have put their medical

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officers in charge of the welfare committees; and some of the county boroughs—21 out of a very large number—have done this, too. Once again I am afraid I must say that things were done better in Scotland, where the large burghs, which cover a very large part of Scotland, combined the services under the health authority. That is two occasions to-day on which I have said that they do things better in Scotland.
LORD TAYLOR: They have a higher infant mortality rate.
LORD AMULREE: Never mind. To continue, that again was one of the great advantages of the old Poor Law. I said that there were two; I have quoted one, and now I will quote the second. It is that if you got people in the old workhouse they had an infirmary attached and it was possible in winter for the sick and frail people to be transferred to the infirmary, with no question of administrative difficulty, and in the spring they went back again to the house. I am not wanting to get that system back, but it was important that there was no trouble in getting sick people into hospital and fit people into some other kind of accommodation.
Finally, I want to put to the Government that what we have never really known is the total number of beds required for the elderly population who are unable to live in their homes. We have some idea of the number of hospital beds required; but there is an enormous number of different kinds of beds wanted, some with a good deal of care and attention and others with not so much. But for people who cannot live alone, we just do not know what number is wanted. That is something I should like to put to the Government, to see whether we can get some figures out of the total number of beds required in any one part of the country; and it will not be the same all over, because parts of the country differ widely in their social structure. It would be a good thing if we could get some figure as to that, because we could then really begin to think about a proper co-ordinated service for those old people who require it. As I said before, housing is the crux of the whole matter. If you have your population well housed in appropriate housing you will not require so much
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institutional and hospital accommodation and your people will be much more comfortable and happier. We are going to have more old people, and I hope that what I have said to-day may help them in the future. I beg to move for Papers.
3.26 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, any of your Lordships who wish to see the Welfare State at its best cannot do better than go and visit the geriatric department at the University College Hospital which is looked after by my noble friend Lord Amulree. It is housed in what was one of those terrible old workhouse buildings, and any of your Lordships who knew St. Pancras Infirmary as it used to be in the Poor Law days, overlooking the coroner's court, and not the most cheerful of spots, between St. Pancras and King's Cross stations, would hardly believe your eyes if you went there and saw what beautiful geriatric wards have been created out of those old wards by spending public money really sensibly and intelligently. I think there is a lesson there for all of us when we look at old buildings and wonder whether they ought to be pulled down or converted. It is surprising what can be done by conversion, and very often conversion is cheaper.
I agree with almost everything that the noble Lord has said—perhaps not everything about Scotland, and I would make one or two other provisos which I shall come to in a moment. I am sure, however, that we are all grateful to him for drawing our attention to the problems and difficulties and deficiencies in the services for old people. I count it my good fortune that I have spent a good deal of my life with people who are much younger or much older than myself. It is very nice to be with young people, because they are so full of vigour and enthusiasm; but I almost enjoy the company of older people more, because one learns so much from their experience and wisdom. There comes the point when one's young friends suddenly start calling one "Sir" and one realises that one is getting old. That is the time, of course, to enter your Lordships' House, because all of a sudden you become "My boy" again. That was one of the most delightful things

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that happened to me when I arrived here.
In the fifth chapter of the first book of Aristotle's Rhetoric he describes what he calls Eugeria, which is the art and science of growing old healthily and sensibly, and I think that is nowhere better exemplified than in your Lordships' House. I am sure that this process has to start when one is young. You cannot start to grow old when you are getting old; you must learn about it when you are young. It involves having the capacity to amuse and occupy oneself, by oneself it may be, because old people have to spend a good deal of time by themselves in their own homes. They do not mind this, but it is a great help if when they were young they learned to do things for themselves and to enjoy doing things for themselves. For it cannot all be done by other people, however much they may try.
Inevitably very old people live in some measure in the past, when they remember with advantage the feats they performed in other days. I feel that the B.B.C. could do more for them by having perhaps a special programme once or twice a week for the very old, enabling them to live again the days of the 'nineties, hearing the old songs and old stories again and the old music they like. The B.B.C. do many good things for the blind and other special groups. The very old, with an exceptional point to which I am coming in a moment, merit their special consideration.
When I was thinking about this debate, I went to visit one of the old buildings to which my noble friend Lord Amulree was referring. It is a building called "Hillside", and is at the bottom of Highgate Hill. I am sure the noble Lord knows it well. It was an old workhouse, and it is now one of the large L.C.C. homes for old people. While I was in there I met a dear old lady of 105 who had broken her femur, which is the large bone of the thigh, when she was 102, and had had a satisfactory operation. There she was, not perhaps hail, but not too had. When I got back home my children said, "Did you ask her the 64 000 dollar question?" I said, "No, I forgot." It was just a sign that one was getting old. The 64,000 dollar question was, "Do you get a telegram from Her Majesty The
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Queen on your 101st, 102nd, 103rd and subsequent birthdays?" I subsequently found out that you do not; you get it only on your 100th birthday; therefore, if you whack up a good score you do not get another one. It is not usual, and one can perhaps understand the difficulties that might arise.
This old lady is in one of several wards for bedridden people, the great majority of whom are incontinent. There is no smell, and no bedsores. It is a very nice ward, although it is a very old building. There are four-hourly changes of linen by the nursing staff, and in the laundry of that home 16,000 articles have to be washed every week. The average age of people admitted to that department—it is not an institution; it is a home—is 72 to 85; some are 95. The average age of death is 79 for men and 86 for old ladies. They live for years and years, up and about, most of them, although some are in bed. They live a very simple, sheltered existence. They are warm, clean, and well fed. There is a gradual closing in of interests as they get older. There are plenty of games, cards and handicrafts that they can do. There are books in the library, but as time goes on they do not want these things. They just gradually close in. The very old ones do not altogether like the radio, partly because they are deaf and it muddles them up if they have a deaf aid. So their lives become simpler and simpler. They just sit and think, or perhaps sometimes just sit and watch the television. As long as they can watch the television, that is a very good thing.
This sort of cabbage life of some of the old is not necessarily an unhappy one, for with the blunting of the senses there appears to go a blunting of sensibilities, which is a good thing. They have no reason to die. They do not very often become ill. They appreciate their food very greatly, and at "Hillside" one of the nice things that have recently been done is that they have a trolley from which the patients—they are not really patients, but old folk—can buy things. They have 11s. 6d. a week pocket money after they have paid for their accommodation. Three months ago they started having Guinness on the trolley, and I am pleased to say they are taking 80 dozen bottles of Guinness a week off the trolley, which is a very good thing indeed.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: That is advertising.
LORD TAYLOR: This is not the B.B.C., my Lords. I still think it is a very good thing indeed. If these old folk cannot organise their money, if they are too confused to hand it out, it is kept for them. An account is kept, and if they want any little things they just ask for them and get them. I think we should all agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said: that old people should be able, with help if necessary, to look after themselves in their own homes. I know my noble friend Lady Summerskill is going to say something about those homes in a few minutes. But in the attainment of this ideal everything depends on those services which my noble friend Lord Amulree was mentioning. There is the home itself. It should be small enough, and within the capacity of the old person to cope with. There is nothing sadder than to see old people landed with houses too big for them, and yet, because it is their home they do not and will not move out of it. Yet they cannot cope, and you see a gradual deterioration. It is much better if they can move into accommodation within their capacity.
Secondly, relatives and friends should be near at hand. I entirely agree with what my noble friend Lord Amulree was saying about the tragedy of the lonely old people in London and other great conurbations, where loneliness can be far more real and terrible than in the smaller towns and in the countryside. Then there are the home social services to which my noble friend referred. To the first line of detection, which very often is the general practitioner, one would add the parish priest. I hope the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Sheffield, will say something about the work of the parish priest and the old people, because I think the parish priest has a very important part to play, not only in knowing where they are—because that is one of the problems—but in this simple act of being a friend to them.
I would join with my noble friend Lord Amulree in paying tribute to the district nurses. They do the most remarkable and wonderful jobs with these old folk. They nurse them at home with
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never a mark on their backs, and it is quite remarkable how they do it. The Lambeth Borough Council run a special laundry service for those old folk who are incontinent in bed at home. That is another wonderful service, and a very good thing. I am sure many other borough councils do the same, but it just happened that I came across that instance to-day. Now the home helps. Again I endorse all my noble friend has said. With regard to "meals on wheels" we cannot say enough for them but, alas! there are many areas where they are not yet available. When my friends say that, I always reply, You write to Baroness Swanborough, and all will be well we hope"—and often it is.
There are other folk who ought to be available in a home. There are the chiropodists. Old people need a chiropodist very much indeed. More and more local authorities are providing chiropody clinics for old people, cheap or free, but not necessarily a mobile service. I do not know of any, but I believe there are one or two services where there is a mobile chiropody service to go to the old people who cannot go to the clinic. Then there is home physiotherapy. There is a great shortage of physiotherapists, and the hospitals have said that they must concentrate these physiotherapists in the hospitals. I am not sure that that is right. I think there is a great deal to be said for bringing a physiotherapist to the old people in their homes, particularly those people who are not necessarily bed-bound or room-bound.
As my noble friend Lord Amulree has said, some of them are stuck at the top of a house for life. It is an awful thing. There they are, at the top of these high blocks in St. Pancras and Islington, unable to get down. One of the great jobs is to keep old people mobile. It is all too easy to let them take to their beds and stay there—because they want to, very often—and of course it makes the care of them easier in the home. It makes them easier to look after if they are in bed. One of the dangers is the danger of mental apathy because by being in bed and doing nothing there follows circulatory enfeeblement due to muscular disuse, difficulty with the bowels and all sorts of other difficulties which may make the job of the geriatrician not difficult, but sometimes impossible.

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We are all agreed about the value of holiday homes and holiday periods for these old people, either in a hospital in a geriatric department, or in a welfare place where they can go for two or three weeks just to give the relatives a break. Very often by doing that it is possible for the family to carry on with their home care. May I express my own personal gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree?—because he, in his unit, gives just that kind of help, and my family have actually had experience of it. But there comes a time when home care becomes impossible. Often a widow carries on for a year or so after the death of her husband but, being a very old person, she finds she cannot cope. Or an old man is without a wife or relations. They, in the words of the circular which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, quoted:
"… are in need of care and attention which is not otherwise available, and are not sick."
Then they become eligible for Part Three accommodation—and what a horrible phrase "Part Three accommodation" is. But there it is; that is what it is always called. But 'Part Three accommodation is not as bad as it used to be. It is getting better all the time, but I quite agree with my noble friend when he says we have still a lot to do.
He put the number of places on the L.C.C.'s waiting list for Part Three accommodation (that is, for old people who are not ill but in need of care and help) at 500, although I spoke to the Chief Welfare Officer a little while ago and learnt that it is actually 1,000. His breakdown was not inaccurate, because 400 of them are waiting for selective vacancies; that is to say, people who only want to go to vacancies in small homes, and it is not absolutely urgent that they should go in. That 300, as he said, are in hospital. Again, exactly as he said, the welfare officers are inclined to say, "Those old people are being looked after all right; we will not worry too much about them," but by not worrying too much about them, they are blocking the way for other old people. Again, precisely as he said, there are 300 urgent cases in the L.C.C. area.
The L.C.C. has 8,000 places for these old people; 4,000 in the large homes, which are being upgraded to small home standards; 2,000 in the small homes, mostly of the excellent new variety
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which my noble friend is talking about; and 2,000 in voluntary homes, which are paid for in part or wholly by the welfare authority and which are making a very real contribution. To each of these there are as a result of the natural course of events—that is to say, because of death—about 100 vacancies a month, although the figure varies with the time of year, and that is what the L.C.C. in the County of London area can accommodate. In 1948 they had 6,600 places for old people, mostly in very unsuitable condition. Now they have 8,000 places, and there are another 700 in the pipeline—that is to say, up to 1965. But I agree that I do not know what the answer to the closing of Luxborough Lodge is, because this will knock out 1,000-odd places and will produce a very serious and difficult situation. Again, I agree so much with my noble friend that it would be very valuable if we could have a real estimate of the whole problem. Nobody knows how many more old people's places are required to meet the need. It cannot be an enormous number because, with a waiting list of 500, not a tremendous number of places would be required to get rid of that waiting list.
A word about conversion or new building. Each new place in a new home costs £1,500; in hospital it costs say £3,000 to £6,000 per place, so it is obviously much more economical to provide such places in welfare authority homes where a smaller measure of nursing care is given than in hospitals. But if we take the conversions, the upgrading of old workhouse buildings, some is very good indeed and the L.C.C. have done a remarkable job. For example, the frightful old corridors and great high rooms have artificial ceilings fitted across them. They all have Parker Knowle chairs, delightful modern furniture, modern little coffee tables, and so on, and they are very homely and nice, even though outside the old building remains an awful old building. Most expensive of all, of course, they have to fit in an entirely new heating system. That sort of thing costs about £900 per place, usually with small dormitories or rooms for couples. There are increasingly places for one old person by his self or herself, but many old people like to sleep two together, just in case something happens in the night and there is

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somebody to lend a hand. For these the maximum charge is £7 a week. The great majority of the people, however, are getting N.A.B. pensions of £2 17s. 6d., of which they pay in £2 6s., and all must have, as I said earlier, 11s. 6d. a week for spending and pocket money after they have done that.
L.C.C. places have gone up by 25 per cent. in twelve years, and the quality has gone up very greatly, but as the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said So much has been done, so much remains to be done," and they are my sentiments, too. What has been done is a tremendous achievement. When one looks back to before the war and how we did not look after our old people, one realises that it is a wonderful thing that has been done since the war. We ought to be proud of what we have done, though we still have to do a great deal more. However, matters are moving in the right direction, especially in geriatrics. The subject is new. If we take the country as a whole, the figure has gone up to 84,500 places, an 82 per cent. increase since 1949, since the Health Service came in. But that is not all old people, for one must knock off 11,000 of these places for other welfare cases, such as the blind, deaf, epileptic, physically handicapped, and so on.
As my noble friend said, there is the problem of the margin where the line is drawn between the hospital and the welfare home, though the position is much better than it was. The difficulty is that there are too few beds for both, and so we get the hospital's beds blocked up. The noble Lord quoted his own department. Your Lordships may have seen a letter in the Guardian from Dr. James Andrews, Geriatric Consultant to the South-West Middlesex Group: it is the same situation, only worse. In this hospital his geriatric unit alone has 38 patients, accepted by the Middlesex County Council Welfare Authority, whom they are unable to take. Some of these patients have been waiting over two years—two years in a hospital bed at probably three times the cost of a welfare bed. This, in turn, stops the admission of sick and elderly people who are in urgent need of care in hospitals.
One of the things which strike one when one goes round these beds for the
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care of the medically sick, whether in hospital or in welfare home, is that of the people who are looking after them half come from the Republic of Eire and the other half come from our Commonwealth. They are coloured folk from the Commonwealth, not only from the West Indies. I met a very nice boy who was a young male attendant and who came from British Honduras. I do know how much we owe to the patience and kindness and the good nature of these people, and the supervisory nursing and lay staff who train them and help them to give of their best, and get so much out of them in terms of efficient and good service. It is incalculable. Are we sure that the position will not be prejudiced by the legislation which is now before another place? We have to be very sure, when that legislation comes to us.
Another piece of impending legislation which will affect this subject is the Government plan for Greater London. I am going to say one thing only; in the distribution of these homes for old people, the L.C.C. has built them where there were sites available. The result is that if you take Wandsworth it will have a very good supply indeed of old people's homes when they all go back to borough status, but other boroughs will not have one home at all. I think we shall have to do some adjusting there; there will have to be a great deal of interplay if we are to get by with it.
I have three more points. The first is the presence of ill-health in the elderly and the importance of dealing with it early. One of my friends who is a general practitioner makes it his business to go round his old patients in the summer when he is not too busy and have a look at them, and give them a general checkover to make sure things are not going on that he will miss in the winter. That is a very sensible thing to do. One of the things which easily gets missed is a condition called chronic glaucoma, which is a gradual increase in tension in the eyeball, which comes slowly and which results in blindness; and yet if it is detected early it can be dealt with. There are a number of conditions where early detection in the old can save a mint of misery and really put off the process of ageing.
Perhaps I may say one word about private nursing homes. These make a contribution, but I am not sure that it is

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altogether a very good contribution. Certainly the women who run them—and they are mostly nurses; some are run by doctors—are doing a service, but it is not altogether satisfactory. Some of your Lordships will have read the National Corporation for the Care of Old People's Report on Nursing Homes in England and Wales. A great many of them are looking after old people. One defect is lack of sitting rooms. Although 62 per cent. of the elderly patients seen in this survey in private homes were not bedfast, few proprietors seemed to provide sitting or dining rooms. They had single rooms but no sort of social mixing. Ten to twelve guineas a week was the average charge, though many were more expensive and there was no clear relationship between the price paid and the quality of care received. I know that many of the old folk who go into Part III accommodation, having been in private care, say it is better in the new circumstances. One cannot blame the excellent folk who try to run these nursing homes. These homes have grown up because of the demand and because we are not meeting it properly, but it is not really a suitable form of private enterprise, because one cannot do this sort of thing really well and make a profit; the better you do it, the less money there is to spare.
I would say one word about the role of charitable bodies. I am delighted to see that immediately after me the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London is to make his maiden speech. I used to be the Member of Parliament for the Barnet constituency and he used to be the vicar of High Barnet. He went up and I went out; he was promoted and the Barnet electorate rejected me. It is very nice indeed to see him again after all these years, and we are delighted that he should have chosen this occasion to make his maiden speech. I want to say one word about the valuable work which the churches can do and in some cases are doing for the care of those who are slowly dying. The Roman Catholic Church has done most in this sphere; they do a very remarkable and wonderful job, not necessarily for old people though often for old people.
Some of your Lordships may know a very remarkable lady called Dr. Cecily Saunders, who started as a nurse and was
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impressed with the plight of those dying in these circumstances that she became first an almoner and then a doctor. She has now set out to try to build a hospital for the dying and has got to the point of raising £50,000. She will succeed, I have no doubt, and if any of your Lordships can help her it would be a fine thing. It is a wonderful effort she is making for patients of all denominations, but actually within the Church of England—what the Catholics are doing so well for their people. She is now our greatest authority in this country on the care of the dying. I commend her activities to your Lordships.
I would say one last word, and that is about research into ageing and the differential rates of ageing of tissues. It is an extraordinary thing, this business of growing old. Human tissues repair and replace themselves throughout our lives, and if you take human tissues and grow them in tissue cultures outside the body some will grow for ever, so far as we know. There was taken from a lady called Helen Lane many years ago a tumour which has been sub-cultured and grown in laboratories all over the world. She has been dead for years but her tissues are going on growing indefinitely. They are know as Hela tissues. This apparent agelessness of undifferentiated tissues makes one wonder whether old age as we know it is a normal process or a disease.
There is a clue here. I mentioned at the beginning of my speech a word called "eugeria". There is a condition called progeria, which is very rare. I have seen only one case. It is premature senility occurring in children. The one' I knew was a sweet little girl aged 13, but her body was that of a woman of 70 or 80. She had advanced osteo-arthritis, arterio-sclerosis, and her mind was the mind of an old person. This premature ageing gives one a clue. It must be a disease. It must be that something has gone wrong with that little child and made her tissues grow old far too fast. It may be that in due course we shall be able to prevent this disease so that we shall grow old in years but not old in our minds and bodies; and what very excellent things can follow from that! The question of Life Peerages will have to be thought about again, because goodness knows how long we shall all go on being Peers for life.

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A country general practitioner friend of mine, on analysing deaths in his practice over the past four years, found there had been 84 of them among his 2,000 odd patients. The peak age was 80 to 85; there were 7 deaths over 90. He summarised his conclusions in these words:
"If you can avoid cancer and severe high blood-pressure, you have a very good chance of living to ninety. If, in addition, you can avoid all disease of the heart and blood-vessels, there seems no particular reason why you should die at all—if you are wise enough to live in our village."
Here, surely, is a plain case of Back to Methuselah. Your Lordships will remember this excellent play by Bernard Shaw. I thought it was his best. A couple of gentlemen called the Brothers Barnabas lived on Highgate Hill, and they were really prophet biologists. They spotted that it might be possible for people to go on living, because they wanted to go on living, for 300 years without deterioration of the tissues, and then, and only then, would good government of mankind become practicable. To learn wisdom in the conduct of our affairs we need not one lifetime but four. The follies of youth weigh heavier than its achievement; the true wisdom of age more than balances its rigidity and conservatism.
In broad principle, I think the Brothers Barnabas were right. The coming of the antibiotics, modern anæsthesia and modern surgery on the old, has started to make longevity the rule. In the next twenty or thirty years I think we are going to see fresh biochemical advances which may have even more spectacular results. It is true that the Barnabas postulate of isolated peninsulas of longevity is not being realised, but in fact we are achieving a broad advance on a wide front. The advantages which we enjoy in consequence are already showing themselves.
It is interesting to examine the obituaries in The Times and to strike out everything that happened to persons before they were fifty. It soon becomes apparent that we are already a gerontocracy. Both power and influence are largely in the hands of the over fifties. Indeed, our chances of earning an obituary in The Times depends almost on our capacity to earn a living and to work until well into the seventies.
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In British politics in particular, a measure of gerontocracy has been established for close on a hundred years. The physical basis for this is to be found in the very arduous conditions of life in the House of Commons. Only the toughest can survive. The banging, slanging side of politics, the glib and fluent rhetoric, and the demagogy are easy enough in one's twenties, thirties and forties, but they are aspects of political childishness, embarrassing and perhaps sometimes even pathetic when they persist into one's sixties and later. By then the elements of the art of politics should have been learned. Here most of the superlative craftsmen are in their sixties, often their late sixties or early seventies. It is part of the art of politics to know not only when to act but also when to take no action. Sometimes action must be swift and ruthless. Sometimes calculated procrastination is the secret of success. At these high levels, often the right thing is the dull thing. To the outsider, the doughy platitude may seem no more than a doughy platitude. Yet it is in fact nicely calculated to mop up a lot of explosive emotion, which could do a lot of harm.
It may be objected that gerontocracy tends to negate the creative or artistic side of politics. Yet experience does not bear this out. If we take three great pieces of political imagination, the liberation of India, the creation of the National Health Service, and the inception of the New Towns, we find that all the principal performers were in their fifties or their sixties. One has always believed that the best hope for mankind lies in more science rather than in less. In recent years this naive belief has been somewhat knocked about, but it has survived and now it is justifying itself. Virtue is a slowly growing plant. To be truly good one must have known evil and survived, and it takes time. For the exercise of the greatest virtue, one needs the greatest capacity to keep on keeping on to the end of the road. By pushing back that end, we increase the sum total of virtue in geometric progression.
4.3 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: My Lords, it is with considerable reluctance and hesitation, not to mention nervousness, that I rise to speak to your Lordships on a subject on which I cannot

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claim the professional knowledge of the two noble Lords who have just spoken. But, as the noble Lord mentioned, the parochial clergy do know rather a lot about the needs of old people and they do communicate those needs to their bishops. Therefore, though some of what I know on this subject is second-hand, the source is pretty reliable.
The impression that one gets of the situation as it is to-day, and particularly in the London area, is that almost everything which is needed for the care of old people is there, but nowhere is it present in adequate size. The various units or departments are doing extremely good work, but nowhere are they adequate to the need. So we have the problem of lack of hospital beds; we have the problem of old people returning home too soon for lack of sufficient post-hospital homes for them, and sometimes going back to conditions which are appalling. I had brought to my notice recently the case of an old lady returning from three weeks in hospital to the room in which she lived alone, which was itself damp, to the bed which had been unmade since she left it three weeks previously to go into the ambulance to go to hospital. The home help service, "meals on wheels" and the district nurses are all doing magnificent work, but nowhere do they seem to be adequate to the need. The home helps in particular, so often themselves at the mercy of their own domestic needs, cannot always guarantee to be there, and often old people are left for almost days on end, seeing practically nobody and having no contact with the outside world.
There is one aspect on this side of the problem to which reference has not been made, but which I think should come into our calculations—namely, that there seems to be a real need for more places in which the senile and mentally infirm old people may have the right kind of care and treatment, preferably not in large mental hospitals, of which they are inordinately afraid, but in small homes where they can keep something of their sense of independence and of being persons.
There are two other points which I want to pick up and which have been mentioned by the two noble Lords who have just spoken. One is the need for
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dwelling units of the right kind. I am told that in the course of 1960, 39,000 dwelling units specially designed for old people were provided, and that the same number approximately may be expected to have been provided in 1961. With the increase in the percentage of people over the age of 65, it would seem that that rate of progression is quite inadequate. There is a further point which has been borne out clearly by experience: that old people are happier when they can be accommodated in houses or flats suitable for them, not too far away from where their children and their grandchildren are. That is an aspect of the care of old people which is of vital importance in any properly planned housing developments.
Almshouses perhaps should be mentioned, because they have their own part to play in this subject. I know quite a number of almshouses which cannot be modernised through lack of funds belonging to the trustees. When I was rector of the parish to which the noble Lord referred I was also a trustee, and in two cases the sole trustee, of no fewer than eight sets of almshouses and in one case I was practically reduced to putting the slates on the roof with my own hands because there were no funds at all which the trust could draw upon. Something like 35,000 old people are, I am told, in almshouses at the present time. That number could be raised, perhaps not inconsiderably, if the trustees could have access to funds which are not theirs now, or could obtain further charitable donations and perhaps almshouses (though the word is not a popular one nowadays, but something of that kind), if these could be more the object of charitable gifts and legacies than they appear to be at the present time.
Reference has been made to the work of the voluntary agencies. It is to this that I should wish to draw your Lordships' attention more particularly. On the side of providing suitable accommodation, the voluntary societies are doing a great deal, and are stepping up what they can do. The Church Army itself has, I believe, in the last two years provided no fewer than 57 units for old people. They take over large houses, convert them, put someone in charge who has some nursing skill, and

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eight or nine old people can live quite happily together. Other societies, such as the Abbeyfield Society depending entirely upon charitable gifts for the capital for the conversions, are able to do a great deal. Perhaps more can be done in this way. Perhaps this illustrates, also, that in the care of old people the voluntary element is of very great importance, for what we do for old people we must, I believe, do out of a sense of respect for them, and not out of a sense of something that must be done because there is a social problem to be solved.
I think it was J. A. Froude who, in one of his essays which I had to learn as a schoolboy, said:
"In the old man nature has fulfilled her work".
In the sense that old people have contributed to society, society, in looking after them in their old age when they can no longer look after themselves, is only repaying a debt which one generation owes to another. But it must also do so out of respect for them as persons, and therefore it is only persons who can care for persons in the ultimate resort.
The desperate shortages, which occur in all parts of the services for old people, are shortages of people. "Meals on wheels", home helps, and all the rest, are all short of people. Even more, we are short of a sufficient number of people to relieve the loneliness of the old. Visiting, which is so badly needed and so much appreciated by the old people, is itself not an easy thing to do. Every young clergyman learns in the first three weeks after his ordination that visiting is about the most difficult part of his job, and the part of his work in which he can drop the largest number of bricks in the shortest possible time. Sometimes those who go to visit old people might well have gained something from the sort of training which a parish priest can give to his curates. But the good will exists.
There are just two other points which perhaps I might mention to your Lordships and which are related to this subject. The first is that there seems to be a crying need for closer liaison between the voluntary and the statutory elements in the service of old people.
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Both respect each other but, perhaps through shortage of manpower and womanpower, they are not sufficiently closely in touch with each other in many cases. The pilot research project which was carried out by the Birmingham Council of Churches, the Report of which has been published under the title of Responsibility in the Welfare State, shows by a great deal of practical inquiry how difficult it is to create a really effective liaison between voluntary and statutory elements in any part of social welfare, not from any lack of goodwill or good intention, but sometimes because the facilities are not there.
Perhaps both centrally and locally a good deal could be done to make sure that those who want to help can find the old people who need their help, and can help at the points and with the skills which are most needed. For instance, one finds youth clubs doing odd jobs of great importance for old people, like a little house-decorating, going round visiting, or weeding the garden—work of very great importance to the young and of no less importance to the old whom they serve. Other youth clubs hear of this and they think what a very good idea it is, but they have the utmost difficulty in finding any old people to practice on, because the liaison does not exist to put those who want to help in touch with those who need the help.
I believe that here is something that, without any great degree of administrative control, might be made much more effective than it is at the present time. In saying that, I should not wish to appear in any way critical of the services which the local authorities give and of their desire to co-operate with the voluntary services. It is sometimes due just to a lack of someone whose business it is.
Along with that goes another problem which old people experience, and that is, in a sense, the multiplicity of those who can help them. The old people do not know to whom to turn. It is the borough for this; it is the county council for that; it may be the National Assistance; or they may be going to the wrong place. They are not very mobile, if they are mobile at all, and something of the kind of service which the W.V.S. supplies so well seems to be particularly needed to assist the old people to get

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the help which they require. But, my Lords, this is essentially a personal problem for the old people.
The Lord Mayor of London is in process of trying, with the help of the mayors and lord mayors of the boroughs in the country, to make this Christmas, as he calls it, very specially an old people's Christmas, in which the younger generation bring something of the family life to old people, particularly those who are lonely. That is a splendid thing, but it would be a disaster if on January 1 we forgot all about old people again.
One can only hope that, as a result of the thinking, the action and, perhaps, the publicity which may spring from a debate such as this, more volunteers may be forthcoming, and more people may accept the challenge to be volunteers, to assist all that the medical and other services can provide, in making sure that as many old people as possible are happily independent for as long as they can be.
4.17 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH:My Lord, to me falls the extreme privilege of telling the right reverend Prelate, on behalf of the House, how deeply we have appreciated his speech, and especially of saying how thrilled those of us who are keen on this particular subject are to have him speak with so much authority and so much deep understanding of things which, of necessity, cannot be under his immediate jurisdiction. From my own point of view, having heard the right reverend Prelate in other places, I feel that we shall be very fortunate if we have the opportunity of hearing him again and again, even if that removes him a little from his diocese.
I feel there is a very great deal that has been written in the newspapers and said in speeches about the care of old people, which is not absolutely fair. The amount of work which is being done for old people hi this country to-day is greater than it has ever been before, and I believe out-distances anything which is being done anywhere else in the world. But I think that a great deal more must be done, and I think that in examining how those things are to be done there is one thing which perhaps comes well from me, because I am an
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old person myself, and that is that old people do not like to be termed as "old people". This generic grouping of everybody who is over a certain age level can be hurtful to some of the people who come within that group. Although as yet I am ready to give as good as I get, I am sure that the moment I feel incapacitated I shall feel it extremely strongly myself.
I am quite sure that old people want to remain in their own homes, and there, fore I should like to address myself to a different aspect from the one which was taken by the first two speakers in as much as they spoke mostly on the hospital angle. I should like to speak from the point of view of the old persons living in their own homes, and I should like to do so as someone who has done a good deal of work with human beings, which has made me absolutely convinced that domiciliary care is the thing we must look to on a long-term basis. I think we ought to do this, rather than consider the institutionalisation of the individual, although, of course, it is going to be necessary to have redress in the way of homes or places where nursing can be given, in addition, naturally, to the extra beds which we should like to see in hospitals. I feel that this is one of the most important things we can consider. I should like to see domiciliary care made as perfect as possible, so that we can achieve the maximum results with the least dislocation to the individual we are trying to serve.
I believe that old people of to-day require services on a modern basis, not on a charitable, patronage basis, and I think that the statutory aid of to-day means care by many people in addition to the professionals. To my mind it is necessary to have a subtle and intelligent integration of voluntary services and statutory aid; and I would disagree with the right reverend Prelate in thinking that the most necessary thing to-day is extra volunteers. I think the volunteers are there if one calls for them in the right way, but I think that finance and the opportunity to serve are both very necessary assets if you are going to use the volunteer to the full extent.
I think that we must admit that the one who has the ultimate responsibility is the statutory body which has to accept

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the difficult case; it has the hardest job of all, and I am quite certain that this debate would be of little value if we were not able to put into practical words what we should like to see the responsible people doing as a result of the debate. Those of us who are involved on a national basis know that the shortage to-day is for homes where old people, destitute or with an income, can have nursing, care and attention because they are too frail, either mentally or physically, to be cared for in their own homes. Anyone who, like myself, has endless requests for help knows how sad it is not to be able to answer the people who write to one as to where they can get relief for their problem or where they can get admission for the patient.
My plea to-day would be for more accommodation for the really elderly who need some form of skilled care because of their mental or physical state. But I feel it is tremendously necessary, if we are going to get help for old people, to see that help comes in a shape in which it can be useful to the younger ones. However devoted a daughter, a granddaughter, a son, a niece or a sister may be, there comes a time when, for mental or physical reasons, residential care must be available for certain people. To-day the inadequacy of the provision is very evident to those of us who get letters from people about their mothers, their mothers-in-law or their fathers who have to be looked after in their homes while, at the same time, the writers are trying to bring up a young family. Often the three generations suffer, and again and again a breach comes between husband and wife and between parents and children because the house is too small, the situation is not possible for nursing, or the old persons themselves present too great a difficulty.
In the past, it was generally accepted that the sick and the handicapped could go to a hospital and that the lonely would be far better off in a home. That theory survived until the 'fifties. Then the realisation came that men and women are happier and maintain their strength and their health much better if they continue in their own homes with such services as are necessary available to them. From this has developed a special series of
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efforts such as housing, domiciliary care and all sorts and kinds of other services for the elderly. It is within this cadre of services that the "meals on wheels" service, which is at present being debated in another place, has come into day-to-day acceptance as a necessity for those who cannot arrange for their own feeding. The figure for the "meals on wheels" service, which was debated in this House not very long ago, has once more gone up, and, although national figures are not available, I know from the point of view of my own organisation that we are now delivering meals at the rate of three million a year. More could be done if more backing were available in the way of finance, the tools with which to do the job and the premises in which to do it.
Like everybody else, I should like to pay my first tribute to the district nurse. I think that the district nurse is a most wonderful woman who can be called upon to do any job in the country, and her work for the old people on the domiciliary basis is completely indescribable. The district nurse obviously works through the doctor. And the district nurse, the doctor, the health visitor, the home help and the "meals on wheels" service together provide very valuable props to those who wish to remain in their own homes as long as ever it is possible. But all these services are in short supply in regard to the trained people who are operating them, and local authorities are not always willing to incur the expenditure necessary to provide more home helps and more "meals on wheels". Where home helps are used imaginatively, they can go in the morning and in the evening, and the old person is in this way kept ambulant, and they have already been shown to be a tremendous strength to the community.
During the 'sixties there was much more realisation that people living in their own homes do not need constant care and attention but need only the props I have just mentioned, which can be provided through the Health Service. In addition, as the right reverend Prelate and others have mentioned, there are the other things that help so much to keep interest, and therefore health. Occupations and interests which can be supplied by those who wish to help and are ready to assist exist all over the country. The

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necessity to invoke these depends on the personality of the liaison officer, or the person who is going to link statutory aid to voluntary services; and, as the right reverend Prelate has mentioned, this is a delicate but nevertheless a very necessary function for them to perform.
From the voluntary angle, I have had the experience of working with the biggest single organisation in the whole of the world operating for old people, and from this experience I have gained a vast amount of knowledge about what old people need and what old people like. A great deal is done in the way of clubs for the able-bodied and for ambulant old people, which keeps them well. My own organisation is responsible for some 2,000 of these, and people of good will and understanding run these clubs and do endless things in the way of providing occupations, interests, hobbies and diversions, as well as friendships, holidays and all the things that are necessary. But the people we are all worried about are those who are a little frail but nevertheless are very often ambulant. Clubs with special interests and special facilities are run, but more—much more—attention needs to be paid both by the statutory services and by the voluntary services to the sick and handicapped in their own homes. They do not need to be institutionalised, but they need not only nursing but general care and friendship. which means the extension of good neighbourliness so that the little jobs can be done for them and they do not feel alone.
Under Part III of the National Assistance Act—which, as my noble friend Lord Taylor said, covers care and attention—a superb piece of work has been done throughout the whole of Great Britain, and this has not been an easy task to carry through. National organisations have done a great deal, but I should like to state quite categorically that the great credit for accomplishment must go to the local authorities. They have achieved a most remarkable total throughout the whole of the country; and if you travel, as I do, up and down, North, South, East and West, you cannot but marvel at what has been achieved in the time to transform yesterday into to-morrow.
What I should like to see is all the existing services interlaced so that co-operation results in the team working
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really together. Where teams work together they work well with the hospital geriatrician and his assistants, with the almoner, the medical officer of health and his staff, the health visitors, the home nurses, the home help organiser and the voluntary services. In those places where the team works as a whole, it is possible to get so much more comfort to those who require it. But co-operation is specially needed between the hospital and the local authority. Within the local authority area the different departments of the local authority co-operate well together, but distance and different municipal boundaries are apt to make a dislocation in handling machinery, and too often co-operation between hospital and local authority health and welfare services is not as good as it could be. This is partly because of ignorance and partly through lack of information being passed from one person to the other.
On the everlasting problem of finance, there is the fact that one lot of finance stems from the national purse and the other from the local. This is a very serious and a very difficult thing, and it is something which must be recognised by all those who are working in this field.
In some areas where the co-operation is good, volunteers are asked, very often at a moment's notice, to get the home ready when a sick, old person who lives alone is to come out of hospital. In this case the almoner rings up the voluntary service and asks that the room or house be prepared and aired, a fire put on, and that a lot of help be given during the first few days immediately following the day when the old person comes out of hospital. The number of places where this service is used is not as many as it should be, and unfortunately, when it is not used, it means that the nurse does this work when she is needed for much more important work in true nursing, instead of doing what could be termed domestic household jobs.
"Meals on wheels" are delivered to old people at the request of just the same authorities as I mentioned in the team. An example of co-operation is the way in which it is arranged that old persons coming out of hospital can have their home prepared for them, and have

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a home help on the days when "meals on wheels" are not delivered, and in consequence can be sure of a hot meal each day of the week. Another great avenue of service through "meals on wheels" is that it means that someone calls regularly at the house and can report at once to the authorities if all is not well. This is also the advantage of what we all hope to see become a real fact—namely, an organised visiting scheme. Volunteers are not anxious, indeed are not capable, to take on the jobs of those people who have trained professionally; but unless a home help, district nurse, or doctor—all people highly skilled and in short supply—is used to best advantage, we shall not be giving the maximum service to the old people themselves.
I think we must face the fact that we shall never have enough staff, whether at local authority or at hospital level, to do all the jobs which have to be done, and many of us feel that much work, such as visiting, ought to be done on the basis of good neighbourliness by religious bodies, voluntary organisations and individuals, whether they live in the vicinity or not. Too often I find people pontificate, blaming and parcelling out to others the opprobrium which, perhaps, they ought to take upon themselves. What should be done, I am quite convinced, is that each community should undertake to do, both professionally and voluntarily, the things which are required within the community, never losing sight of the fact that neither professionals nor volunteers can take the place of the family. There are many people available who could do this work because of their experience of life and also because of their readiness to help; and if only they could he called upon to do this, I am sure that they would answer the call.
I feel that freedom of living, of decision and of action, is strengthened to a great degree by providing domiciliary care for people, instead of institutionalising them. I would rather anything happened than that we started thinking of putting the elderly into homes. I would rather that old people had slightly less scientific care given to them, and that they could live their own life in their own way, than that
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they have to live away from the things they love. Surely it is not beyond our capacity to have in this country, on a local basis, sufficient places for those who cannot remain in their own homes, but to have such places more on the basis of attention and care in a practical way, rather than imitation hospitals, with rules and regulations and all the things which are necessary in a hospital but which are not necessary in a home-from-home which exists merely to give extra care and kindly nursing help.
It is time that we faced this problem more courageously. I beg that we do not imitate those nations which are more flamboyant than we are, but which are not, I believe, our equals in this field. Can we not have an understanding of what the outlook of human beings really is? Do we need to be so bemused by the little triumphs of science in a vast world of suffering that we pay too much tribute to rules and regulations and standards and not enough to the human beings we are trying to serve? The shortage of a place to which a person, whether destitute or with an income, can go to have ordinary care and nursing attention is very great, and the absence of such a home is a real tragedy. It always seems to turn on the question of standards and diplomas. The keynote is always the same—shortage of trained staff. But if old people are in their own homes, life moves on steadily to its close, and the end is viewed with dignity and with courage, without feeling that it is necessary to have a clinical atmosphere and a required standard of assistance against the final moment.
The people I talk with and the places I visit make me more and more confident that man is not doing a service to man if, by his scientific discoveries, he sets himself to extend the breathing period of a man's life when, in fact, that man is no longer "alive"; and although I must make it clear that I speak only for myself, I would plead that it is better to make life peaceful, as the human machine runs down, than to use artificial means to back up scientific discoveries. After years and years of work with old people, I would beg that everything be done which is at all possible to let them live their lives out in their own homes; that a sufficient number of places be available for those who need some continuous

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skill in their care and that the end may be allowed to come peacefully, rather than that it should be a clinical extension of a painful period. If emotionalism were got rid of and a real feeling were to ride supreme, it should be possible to give real support to those who are approaching the last stage of their journey. And because the men and women of this land are worthy of their country, I feel we should endeavour to supply the ways to strengthen their courage and uphold their dignity in the shape they would wish.
4.37 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I should like to offer my humble tribute to the right reverend Prelate for a remarkable maiden speech which, I am sure, will be very helpful to your Lordships in considering this problem. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has done great service in raising the question, because it is a very important problem and one which is going to get larger and larger. Modern science has succeeded—I was going to say admirably, but I am not quite sure that that is the right word—in prolonging life, but it has not succeeded so far in prolonging vitality (I am not sure that that is the technical word). There is an increasing number of elderly who are going downhill, but going down so slowly that they cannot die. It is for these that the nation has to find some solution.
I venture to think, although I have no statistics on the subject, that the average age of noble Lords in this House is higher than the average age of those in another place, and so it is only appropriate that the start and the prod on behalf of the old should come from here. Much of the ground has been covered by previous speakers, but there are one or two points which I should like to raise. In the rural areas, there are in many villages many houses quite unsuitable for old people to hang on to in their old age. The houses are bad, but they hate to be turned out of them in order that the houses can be improved. However, they are keeping young couples out of those houses.
It has always struck me that there is an obvious solution to this problem. In every village there are now many council houses, but it has rarely occurred to the councils concerned to think that, when
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they put up, say, two council houses, they could put up something for the elderly in between. If, when each pair of council houses is erected, another building on ground floor only was put between them, comprising a bed-sitting room, a kitchen and a bathroom, an elderly person or an elderly couple could continue there. It is an admirable feature of country life that neighbours will look after the old and then they do not feel in any sense isolated or dependent.
I have had the advantage of a conversation on the subject with an admirable local general practitioner, who is a man not only of wide experience but also of a very warm heart. He tells me that neighbourly sentiment towards the elderly is as strong as it ever was, but family sentiment is not what it was. The younger generation no longer take it as a matter of course and as a happy duty to look after their parents in their old age, and there is a certain reluctance on the part of parents to inflict themselves on the younger generation. Something needs to be done about that, and if these (for want of a better word) maisonettes could be provided, they would go a considerable way towards a solution in rural areas.
One aspect which has not been touched on in this debate so far is that of the elderly of the professional classes. There are many pensioners on an old-scale pension which has depreciated. In that connection, I would mention the Army pensions after the First World War, which were reduced. There are many widows of pensioners who find themselves in straitened circumstances. There are public servants of both sexes who have spent their lives doing admirable work and in their old age find themselves unable, because they have very limited means, to "make a do of it". Despite what the noble Baroness said on institutionalisation, I think that many of these people are better and happier in homes of some sort.
There are a good many such homes already. My noble friend Lord Mackintosh of Halifax, to whom I was speaking this morning, is appealing for the Methodist Homes for the Elderly. Many professional bodies, including the clergy and doctors, run homes for the elderly or give assistance to them. There is an

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extraordinary demand for voluntary homes. These homes have many advantages. Old people need some help, someone to come in and see to things every day. That can be done with a good deal less labour if the units are of a certain size. If 100 elderly people want some assistance every day in their own homes, the number of man-hours or woman-hours required to look after them is considerable, whereas if there is a unit of about 50, much less labour is required—something in the proportion of 25 for running an establishment of 50 to 75 persons—and it is a good deal easier to get.
I have to do with one such home (for want of a better word) and when I go into it, I am often reminded of the hexameter of Virgil:
"Tempora mutantur, nos et mutantur in illis."
My Latin pronounciation is out-of-date, so may I render it this way?:
" Times do change hut who would ever have thought we should finish up like this."
No, my Lords, it is not a matter of laughter; it is very sad. I think that we must do all we can to help these people.
One of the major problems is finance. Many of these people can afford to make a contribution which covers housekeeping, but the renting or purchase of buildings and their maintenance takes a great deal of doing. The institution with which I am concerned, and a number of others, have had enormous help from charitable trusts, but, as an instance of our difficulties, a few months ago, we had an excellent opportunity of extending by buying a freehold nearby at a figure in the neighbourhood of £80,000. A quick look round showed us that a number of charitable trusts would help quite a bit, so we made a bid for it and bought it. But how were we to raise the rest? Just at that moment, the "squeeze" came, and although we have been very fortunate in getting the money we needed, it has been a matter of great difficulty and, in these times, of considerable expense. I think that the Government could help the elderly enormously if, for recognised bodies such as the one I have described, there was some ready source of finance, either charitable or at a reasonable rate. That is all I have to say.
4.47 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, I should like to begin by adding my welcome to the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London. I do so with all the more pleasure because I found myself agreeing with nearly everything that he said. My noble friend Lord Amulree, who sits beside me on this Bench, formally drew
"the attention of Her Majesty's Government to deficiencies in the arrangements for the care of the elderly, both sick and infirm;"
But I am glad that he did not limit himself to considering things which should be done for the sick and infirm, and I was particularly glad when he emphasised housing and "meals on wheels". For even those who are not sick or infirm, housing and meals are needed. My noble friend did not limit himself to the formal words of his Motion and I shall not limit myself either.
Old people all over the country although they may not now be sick or infirm, are living in conditions which will undoubtedly lead to sickness or infirmity. In dealing with sickness and infirmity, prevention is infinitely better than cure, and prevention, no less than cure, means understanding the causes. We all know pretty well the main course of the trouble with old people today. It is, first, the growth in their number. Whether it is their fault or that of the doctors that they go on living in such numbers I will not say, but more than anything else this growth puts before us the vast deficiency in housing all over the country. That has to be tackled somehow. Then there is the second cause of inflation, destroying savings and making assistance rather than pensions seem indispensable. Then there is the disappearance of what used to be called domestic service, and what is now called home help. That is altering enormously the life of old people and the possibility of their having comfortable lives, and is one of the problems of the old which cannot be exaggerated. Those three things that I have mentioned are common to all old people.
There is one other that is common to old people in Britain, and it is that they are not confined to one part but are to be found all over Britain. Some help for dealing with old people is needed everywhere, though it is not by any means the same help that is required everywhere,

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and still less the same help for all old people, because the actual needs of old people differ greatly, just as the action needed to help them differs.
I had the good fortune of realising how great is the work done when about a month ago I paid a visit to Belfast in Ulster to learn what they were doing about old people. I was enormously impressed with what I saw there. I think that if every town in the country could do as much good for old people as Belfast does—not necessarily the same things—where very happy circumstances surround them, and there is agreement between all the interested people in the city, the solution to the problem of old people would take a great step forward. I realise, of course from talking to the chairman of the body that provides institutions—perhaps 30 or 40—for old people who are sick, that there are some people who need recurrent nursing. You cannot put them in ordinary small homes, and you do not want to fill up the hospitals with such people. In Belfast they have several homes, each for 30 or 40 people, and the moment they need full nursing care they can get it rapidly without putting an end to the work of the hospitals. That, I thought, was an excellent institution. From what I heard, I did not think it necessary to visit them, but I went to see some houses that have been established within the last year for housing old people who had really nothing wrong with them except loneliness.
I welcome the emphasis put on loneliness by the right reverend Prelate, because this is one of the main troubles of old people: loneliness coming perhaps through their having no children or careless children, or the loss of a wife or friend, so that in effect they have no home. That loneliness may easily lead to infirmity and to much worse. It so happens that I am concerned with the Abbeyfield Society mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, and I am glad to say (I hope this may also please the noble Earl who spoke last) that this Society wishes to be able to cover everywhere where its work is needed. It is worked by local committees. In Belfast there is a most vigorous Abbeyfield Society. I went to see what they were doing, and I saw three homes for lonely people with nothing wrong with them except loneliness. But loneliness is a
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horrible thing for old people. In Belfast they were in homes established within a year, completely furnished, and good homes in every possible way. There, for some fortunate reason they seem to have much more money to spend on this than, say, in Oxford, the city in which I live; and also let me say that I am sure the houses in Belfast do not cost as much as do the houses in Oxford.
In Belfast, as I say, there were these three homes; there are two more on the way, and they are going to spread them all over Ulster. I had a meeting with all the representatives of the neighbouring towns which were going to do exactly the same thing. They provide homes for people, limited in number to four or five or four to six, because if the number goes beyond that they may become something like small institutions. These homes provide a separate room for each person without any furniture, unless they ask for it. They can bring their own furniture and be surrounded by their own possessions. They have the feeling of privacy when they want it, but they can call on somebody else and get companionship if they want it. They have lighting, heating, food, home help and occupation—all these things are thought of for them. I will not go into the finance of it, but will only say that if they cannot pay themselves we find the National Assistance Board very sympathetic indeed when they know that these people are being put into good and not bad conditions. I was deeply moved by what I saw there.
I saw, among other people, an old man of 84—much older than I am—who had fought against the Boers in 1899, had gone on being a soldier and had lived very happily indeed with his wife. They had no children, but his wife looked after him until she died about a year and a half ago. Think what happens to an old soldier whose wife dies and he has no one to look after him. What happened was that he went into an Abbeyfield home. There are four old ladies there, and I think the four old ladies and the housekeeper between them compete as to who shall best look after the old man. I am making a plea for old men; they want to be helped by old women, although there are relatively few of them. After a married life without children the death of your wife is a

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terrible break unless there are other children or friends who come to the rescue.
I want to urge upon your Lordships that the unhappiness of old people to-day—and there is plenty of it—is a disgrace to our affluent society. The only question is: Who is going to wipe this disgrace from our British record; and by doing what? It cannot he done by any one body. The Government must obviously be greatly concerned with housing generally. The old people have made the housing shortage. You cannot cure the housing problem by leaving them without homes. You have to build more homes and it is no good building them for anybody. Somehow you have to get a priority for the old people, and you have to fit the homes to old people. I am an old person, and I know I could not live anywhere and everywhere with perfect happiness as I live in Oxford to-day. There are some advantages, even in Oxford. The Government should seek every co-operation from the local authorities and any voluntary organisation. I put housing as the first charge upon the Government, whatever it is.
I do not want to talk about inflation, but, of course, the Government, the employers and the trade unions among them could combine to halt the further destruction of the value of money, because inflation makes saving for old age seem nonsense; and it is nonsense for many people. I have always believed that happiness for the citizens of this country should come partly from the State, partly from voluntary organisations, partly from people helping others and partly from people helping themselves. I was glad to note one particular society on my visit to Belfast. Let me say at once that the last thing I would suggest is that this is the only possible society; there are many excellent societies working for old people.
It so happens that we had invented for us a few years ago a particularly good idea as to what solitary old people, not in ill health, needed in order to live and to be saved from ill health. Although we do not normally put a nurse into an Abbeyfield home, there is no chance of an old man or old woman in an Abbey-field home falling ill and not seeing a doctor until it is too late to be cured.
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That is one of the common evils of old people. It may well be that as the numbers grow some kind of help (not full nursing) for people when they are beginning to be ill is a thing we ought to develop to prevent their illness from going further.
That is all I have to say, except how thankful I am that this House, concerned so deeply with social problems, has once again called attention to the unhappiness of old age and to the need for joint action to end it. I think I may say that practically every speaker, in one way or another, referred to both those points and supported joint action to end unhappiness and to prevent the trouble that we have to-day from leading to something worse in the shape of illness and misery. Let me return to my thesis: that prevention of infirmity is better than cure. In order to get prevention, we have to deal with the problem of old people as a whole. If the Government, the local authorities and the various voluntary organisations, without any jealousy or quarrelling one with another, will take this debate to heart and do together all they can as a result of this debate, then I think we may say that the House of Lords has once more done a great service to Britain.
5.6 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, we have all listened to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, make his plea for the aged and lonely. If he will forgive my saying so, I think it was a poignant speech, and when his voice goes out to the old and lonely at least I can assure him that they will derive some comfort in knowing that he, whose name is known all over the country, has spoken on their behalf. I must admit that I cannot understand why he says that women should look after men, and not men look after women, but we will not cross swords on that.
LORD BEVERIDGE: Because women can, and do, look after men, and men only make a mess of trying to look after women.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I must confess that we women like looking after men. But I cannot offer my services to the noble Lord, because I have a very nice man to look after, and the noble

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Lord will realise that I have not time to look after both.
LORD BEVERIDGE: I have two nice women and four children and stepchildren, all looking after me.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: The noble Lord makes me suspect that he is a polygamist. However, we did not think that at this stage of our lives we should be crossing swords on the question of feminism.
The noble Lord has emphasised the point that the matter we are discussing to-day, the needs of the aged and infirm, is not spoken about enough in either House of Parliament. Indeed, what has happened to-day is that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has focused attention on the needs of a very large group in the community which does not possess a pressure group in either House of Parliament. I would say that in the last few years their voices have been heard more often, for reasons which the noble Lord will realise. There are in this country to-day more than 2 million people aged 75 and over whose needs cannot be ignored. My noble friend Lord Taylor talked about the physiological condition of the aged. I observed that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, tended to talk about the middle classes when he talked about domestic servants. He will realise that home helps help the classes who never had domestic servants in their lives before.
I would say that the real tragedy of old age, in all income groups, lies in the fact that, as a rule, physical deterioration precedes mental degeneration. Consequently, there is a growing aged population, physically incapable of conducting a normal life but sufficiently agile mentally to suffer profoundly from the apparent desertion of relatives and friends, and from the frustration and inadequacy which dependence on others instils. In my opinion, that is the real tragedy of old age. Only if this important aspect of ageing is kept in mind can plans be made to meet the real needs of the aged and infirm.
It is not always recognised that privacy is very important to an old person although he or she is physically enfeebled. The description by Dickens of the workhouse of the 19th century is
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deplorable to our modern way of thinking. Then masses of people of all kinds were put into large rooms and just left. The importance of privacy is that to the aged poor the only status symbol remaining is a humble home, with its simple belongings, and it is a tragedy to be deprived of that state in one's few remaining years. Therefore I would say that the present need is for more accommodation for those who are anxious to remain independent but who need some supervision.
I have arrived at precisely the same analysis as the noble Lord, my noble friend, Lord Beveridge. He is quite right, of course, in his decision that a room of one's own is what is needed generally in old age for the reasons I have given. He has described buildings which he has seen. Here I would remind noble Lords of the unit opened at Mansfield this year, which would seem to meet this need. There, there are double and single bed-sitting rooms provided in bungalow units, each providing accommodation for ten residents with a housekeeper in charge. There is a housekeeper, my Lord Beveridge, a woman.
LORD BEVERIDGE: Of course.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Furthermore, the residents have been allowed to bring their own furniture, which is a humane and wise provision. Now, if all housing authorities provided adequately equipped bed-sitting rooms in buildings where some supervision could be exercised, this would meet the need of many aged people desperately clinging to their independence, and at the same time, of course, release large numbers of flats for young people.
When you are old there is a curious psychological desire to get back to the womb, to get warmth, to get comfort, to get privacy. And that psychological desire is translated into a yearning for a place of one's own, small and cosy. Wonderful flats have sometimes been shown, with a bedroom, sitting room, kitchen and bathroom. But the aged want to be kept warm, they want to sleep in the room they have heated all day with their bodies and their small amount of fuel. These are the things which the housing authorities should understand.
LORD BEVERIDGE: You are describing me.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: That is a great compliment from the noble Lord.
The joint circular which I think has been issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Health and local authorities was an admirable document. Despite this circular, which has taken many civil servants many months and years, I have no doubt, to write, unfortunately there is no guarantee that the excellent services will be used by those in greatest need, for this simple reason: there is no register of the aged. That is why we occasionally read of tragic cases of men or women dying in a room, an old man or woman dying alone without companions and days elapsing before that tragic discovery is made. Therefore, I want to urge those in authority that there should be some system of notification in order to ensure that the large number of aged living alone are adequately cared for. Furthermore, this would facilitate co-ordination of the services and so prevent overlapping and consequent waste of effort.
I have heard the noble lady, Baroness Swanborough, who has devoted so much of her life to the question of voluntary services, and I am second to none in praising the home help, the meals service, the health visitor. They are indeed deserving of the highest praise, as is also, of course, the district nurse. Yet I would say this, and I say it very gently: that there is a tendency for each to be concerned solely with their own contribution. A large number of people living alone on retirement pensions and National Assistance try, uncomplainingly, to pay for their fuel, food and light—their rent is paid for. But they are quite unable to meet the expense of new bedding, clothes, and perhaps a new chair, because one regards that as capital expenditure. I have had occasion to visit a number of blind old ladies living alone and I have been surprised to discover that their pressing need was the renewal of some of these articles, none of which could be categorised as luxuries.
When I was Minister of National Insurance—and the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge knows a great deal about
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National Insurance—I recall that the National Assistance Board was prepared to make discretionary allowances to meet these large items, and I was not aware that the policy had been changed. I presume there is—I would point this out to the noble Lady—a lack of coordination. I am glad to see she agrees with me. But whereas these excellent people go into a room to see an aged person, none of them would say: "Could I turn back your bed and see your sheets or your blankets?". Indeed, some of them might regard it as an impertinence. Only if you go into these rooms and establish friendly relationships can this be done. Yet all over the country in this cold winter there are these people who are so grateful for the "meals on wheels," home help, and the other services as individuals, and who do not like to say. "May we have something more?". Yet the machinery is there; the National Assistance Board, unless it has changed its policy, will be quite prepared to make discretionary allowances for the capital items.
The noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, discussed clubs. I have met welfare workers who claimed that no old person need be lonely in their areas as there were many clubs which catered for the aged. This showed a lamentable lack of knowledge of psychology. A person who has shown no aptitude for social mixing during his young days cannot change his inadequate personality in old age; consequently he suffers from loneliness and neglect. The lonely often need individual help, and to try to compel them to attend a club is only to add to their misery. I would remind noble Lords of that valuable Report, the Younghusband Report, which I hope everybody has read. It stressed the need for more social workers and hoped that the social needs of the aged would take an equal place with their health needs. The noble Lady, I think, rather decried the scientists, which probably included the medical profession, but I am sure she is with me when I say—
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, in connection with science I was merely talking about the expectation of life after a person has stopped living. I would never decry either doctors or scientists.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I am tempted to digress, because what the noble Lady has said was quite startling and quite amazing. If she says the expectation of life should not be increased, at what stage does she say science should stop helping individuals? Because I would remind her that the expectation of life in India, I think, is 32 years.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, what I said, though perhaps I said it badly, was that I was sad to see that people were kept breathing when they were no longer alive, by which I meant a person who was unconscious being kept artificially alive by the authorities although that person had no chance of coming back into normal life again.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I am very glad I have given the noble Baroness an opportunity to explain herself, because that was not quite clear when she spoke. If she means that, she is of course limiting her view to a very small number of people who are already semi-conscious. I was under the impression that she was almost in favour of euthenasia. I would say this to her—I hope she will agree with this, and this came out of the Younghusband Report: that if voluntary workers give regular time to the work, they should have the opportunity of training which will equip them to do the job competently. A knowledge of psychology is a great help to these voluntary workers.
Now I want to say something about the aged sick. There is, of course, a tendency in the world of medicine to regard chronic sickness as of little academic interest. I think my noble friend Lord Taylor described the wards of the chronic sick which were nursed by the Irish and by Commonwealth doctors. I think the medical profession is the finest in the world, but I believe it is quite clear to your Lordships why that is. Those doctors who can get others to do this work, which they regard as less interesting than nursing the acute cases, of course will get them. I would say this: as the expectation of life is longer, the medical profession must reorientate, and the aged sick must be regarded as patients who should be given the treatment to which they are entitled.
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Let us come to home nursing. Although I attach tremendous importance to the district nurse, I would say that the first essential is to get a home help. I think the noble Baroness said that there are plenty of voluntary workers but I should not say that there are; there are not enough home helps because they are not available. To be a home help to an incompetent person is not necessarily a congenial job. Unfortunately, society is so short-sighted that it underpays these invaluable women. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Newton, will convey that to his right honourable friend in another place. A consistently mean policy is pursued in the payment of women in all the work allied to medicine. That even includes the home help who is so important in the nursing of the aged. In consequence, of course, there is a universal shortage. I have a Motion on the Order Paper and I hope that when the House resumes I shall have an opportunity to develop this subject. It seems to me that only when the situation becomes really dangerous are the authorities prepared to increase the rates of pay. This is a most short-sighted policy, because it is always cheaper to keep a patient at home than to send him or her into hospital. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, mentioned that the average cost of a bed in a hospital is £40 a week. Yet the local authorities and the central authorities haggle over 6d. an hour for a home help.
In many big hospitals in large congested areas there is no geriatric clinic. The geriatric clinic which we have heard about to-day—and I say this in the best possible sense—is one of the show pieces of London. But there are hospitals on the periphery of this "Great Wen" of London serving large areas without a geriatric clinic. I am thinking of the North Middlesex Hospital, where I served on the Committee for seven years, serving Tottenham, Edmonton, Wood Green—great congested areas—and there is no geriatric clinic.
LORD STONHAM: There is no geriatric clinic in my area.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: This is due to lack of central direction and again a short-sighted policy, because the services given in a geriatric clinic may

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help to keep the patient mobile. Assistance in the first stages of infirmity is of paramount importance. Therefore, my last plea is this: that the maximum publicity should be given to the available services and it should be remembered that unobtrusiveness in this field is not a virtue. If any one of the noble Lords listening today had an old relative or a poor friend and wanted to set the machinery in motion, he would probably look through the telephone directory and say, "What number do I ring?" Nobody yet has realised how important it is at least to devise a comprehensive term which will cover those services, so that anybody in need can 'phone a key worker. For this reason I welcome very much the debate today, because it gives us the opportunity of voicing the needs of the most patient, and often most deserving, in the community, the aged and the infirm.
5.25 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, it has become a commonplace that on subjects dealing with the social services your Lordships' House always speaks with the greatest authority, but I must confess that in this debate, for which we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, I have never previously listened to a discussion which has shown such width and depth of experience and knowledge, and, indeed, of feeling. I am sure that this discussion must be of considerable benefit to the people that we desire to serve. I think that is how it should be, because, after all, your Lordships' House is the only place in the whole world where elderly people are encouraged and allowed to make their full contribution. Indeed, most of us before starting on this discussion ought to have declared an interest. Therefore, it is right that we should speak not only with the knowledge gained from work in hospitals or voluntary organisations but from the fact that we have actually felt these things, or at least that they are going to affect us very soon.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what he calls "very soon", because I am wondering whether I ought to declare an interest when I come to speak.
LORD STONHAM: I did not quite catch what the noble Lord said. Did he say something about "his cup of tea", or was he suggesting that what I was going to say was not worth listening to and he was going to have a cup of tea?
LORD NEWTON: I wondered whether the noble Lord would tell me how long we were to wait to receive the services about which he was talking, so that I may know whether to declare my interest when I come to reply.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I think that is a matter for the noble Lord's own conscience and his birth certificate. I must leave that to him. I do not particularly want to labour this point. A number of speakers, including my noble friend Lady Swanborough, have mentioned that there has been an enormous and welcome increase in the services for old people, and I think that is right. But in my view the improvements are entirely incommensurate with the need. We have to remember that fifty years ago there were some 2¾ million elderly people in the country, which was 7 per cent. of the population; to-day there are 7¾ million, which is 15 per cent. of the whole nation. No one can pretend that the volume of the services has been stepped up to such an extent that they are adequate.
I feel that the time is ripe, and particularly that it should be done in your Lordships' House, to attempt to place on the Statute Book a Charter for the Aged. I know that my noble friend quarrelled with the use of the term "aged" or "elderly". I wish there were some other expression, because we all know how much it cheers us up when somebody says, "You are looking very well, and younger than ever". You have to use a genetic term. You just cannot refer to these people as "autumn leaves" or something like that; you have to use the words "aged" or "old people" or "elderly". Certainly it is time that this experienced one-sixth of the nation, who still have so much to contribute, were treated otherwise than as passengers—and non-paying and undeserving passengers at that. If the Government cannot find time for the coordinating measure which I think has been recommended by most noble Lords who have spoken, I hope it will be

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possible before long for us to introduce it into your Lordships' House as a private measure.
Last February the Minister of Health declared:
"The local authority clement in the National Health Service is unduly overlooked and disregarded."
That is not only too true, but is, I think, the reason for most of the deficiencies in our service to the elderly. There is much that we can be proud of, but, as the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London mentioned in what I regarded as a most welcome speech, the agencies by which they are administered are far too numerous and indeterminate. There is duplication and even competition between them. The aged are often passed from one person to another in their efforts to obtain assistance. Indeed, the cunning few may secure relief from several sources, but the majority remain in need, because they are too proud to ask for help or just do not know where to go. I think that the present set-up is enough to bewilder the most resolute.
Think of the list of statutory authorities who have to deal with the aged. The Ministry of Pensions looks after their pensions; the National Assistance Board gives supplementary pensions and allowances for food, fuel, rent, clothing and so on; the Regional Hospital Boards provide hospital care and specialist medical services. The local health authorities find accommodation, and county and county borough councils provide nursing, health visitor and domestic help services. They may make arrangements for the prevention, care and after-care of illness, and they may provide residential accommodation. Fifth, we get the district and borough councils who also have power to make special housing and hostel provision for old people; and they can, and do, contribute to voluntary organisations which provide recreation or meals, or provide, maintain and equip buildings, and contribute to the expenses of societies having social objects.
Those are five different kinds of statutory authority, the good ones often wastefully overlapping and the bad ones neglecting their opportunities. In addition, there are the splendid voluntary organisations, large and small. The
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services they render are so varied and so vast that it is impossible either to list them or to estimate their total of services. I submit that though the services of the voluntary organisations ace vast, their volume in many areas is not very great and certainly never sufficient to meet the need.
As my noble friend Lady Summerskill made clear—this is a point which I should like to develop—the great and glaring need is for one responsible authority or person in each area, known or respected by the old people, to whom they can turn for any kind of advice or help. I do not think any of us wants a regimented service—that would be alien to the nature of what is needed—but, in my opinion, the responsibilities of the statutory authorities should be reviewed so that overlapping is eliminated. I think that where county or district authorities have the same powers, the sole authority for such powers in connection with the aged ought to be the district authority, because they are so much smaller and so much closer, and in many cases they really know the people intimately—a matter really necessary in regard to old people.
If it is argued by the Minister that a particular service could not be provided by a single district, then two or more districts should have the power to get together to provide that service. But the second essential is to make one person responsible. However highly we regard the National Assistance Board, the Regional Hospital Board, the Ministry of Pensions or the county councils, not one of them could possibly take on overall responsibility. In my view, that must rest with the district, in the person of the medical officer of health. He is the only person, because already he administers many of the services and his department already has the confidence of the old people. He also, by his status, has the confidence of Government Departments, local authorities and voluntary organisations. Indeed, I think the voluntary organisations would be more likely to accept leadership from the medical officer of health of the district or borough than any other official. I think, then, that he would be in a position to knit the services together in a comprehensive whole,

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without any essential interference with existing organisations. We should get an integrated service for the aged, more efficient, relatively less costly, and, above all, one which neglects no old person in need of help.
It may be argued that progressive medical officers for good local authorities already, to some extent, fulfil this co-ordinating function. I know that they do. But their powers are insufficient, and, in any case, the present system creates grave variations in the quality of the services provided for the old people in different parts of the country. In my opinion it is necessary to place on the medical officer of health the statutory responsibility for the care of the old people in his district. As my noble friend Lady Summerskill suggested, his first duty should be to compile and maintain a register of all aged people likely, in his opinion, to require or desire assistance of any kind. After all, the first requisite for the planning of any service is information. How can you plan properly the services for old people if you do not know how many there are, how many want assistance or what kind of assistance they want?
Therefore a register is essential. Some authorities keep one. Shoreditch, one of the two boroughs in London which I represented until a few years ago, has an old people's register. It contains between 5,000 and 6,000 names out of a population of 46,000. Those are aged people actually in need of some form of help or care. That is maintained and kept up-to-date by the tactful devotion of the staff of the medical officer. But, as my noble friend suggested, their work would be much easier and much more comprehensive if the Ministry of National Insurance and other Government Departments were required to furnish to the medical officer of health details of elderly persons residing in his area. If this were done there would be no more sad stories of old people dying neglected or living friendless, uncared for, or alone.
With this new agency the medical officer would be able to set up the most valued service we could provide for the elderly, that of enabling them to live on in their own home. I know that there has been a tendency for one or two noble
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Lords to disagree with what my noble friend Lady Swanborough said about the vital need of helping people to live in their own homes as long as possible. The noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, I think suggested that they are much better in institutions. I should be quite prepared in some cases to think that they would be cleaner or better fed and warmer, but I would dispute with him to the last moment that they would be happier. It is the old people themselves who are really the best judges of that. As my noble friend said, if they like to sleep in the same room where they eat, and if they like to have their own warm "fug", if they are happy, that does not matter at all. It is they who decide whether they are happy and comfortable. They are the only ones who can.
Of course, as has been said, the first essential is adequate housing. The extraordinary thing is that, although the general housing shortage is so acute, with old people it is more a case of over-accommodation than under-accommodation, as the recent survey of 140,000 people over 80 years of age showed. Nearly 70 per cent. of those people over 80 years of age living alone had three or more rooms to themselves, and less than 10 per cent. had one room. The noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, made a suggestion on this point. He suggested building a little house or a bungalow in between two houses. I hope he also meant putting another flat on top, because that would otherwise add to the rather grave shortage of building land.
But I strongly support the view—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, will mention this when he comes to reply—that in new estates at least 5, 6 or 7 per cent. of houses or flats should be devoted specifically to the needs of old people. They should not be in an old peoples' corner, but should be distributed throughout the estates, so that they are part of the community. Also, would the noble Lord deal with this question of the over-housing of old people and say whether the provision of special accommodation for the elderly would not help to release that surplus accommodation, which is so much more than they need, for young people with families? I think that that is a matter which really needs attention.

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Would the noble Lord, in replying, also deal with the fact that no fewer than 300 local housing authorities have yet to build their first special dwelling for old people? They have not built a single one, and it is quite disgraceful. We need a determined drive from the right honourable gentleman, Dr. Hill, in this matter. We must also ensure that the subsidy arrangements are satisfactory and enable the local authorities to build and supply houses for rent which old people can afford.
My Lords, as quickly as possible I should like to mention, in support of this important matter of keeping old people in their homes as long as possible, the domiciliary services, which I think must be under the direct control of the medical officer of health of the district or borough. Home helps have been mentioned, but even now they are only one-tenth of the number of the total domestic staffs in our hospitals. Grateful as we are for them, there is only a microscopic number of home helps up and down the country. Some elderly people can have a home help every day of the week, but others can have one only once a fortnight—which is better than nothing, but not very much better.
I submit that there is a need for a specialised home help service for the elderly, based on frequent, though short, visits, and with a wider range of services; not only housework, but shopping, companionship, and help with washing and dressing the old people. I should also like to see the medical officer of health empowered to pay small sums to neighbours—even though the neighbours may be "poor old things" themselves—who can come in and make a cup of tea, help to get a meal, and occasionally clear up the rooms when no voluntary help is available. Of course, they should also be in a position to supply baths, either static or mobile, with the assistance of a nurse or an attendant where necessary. A personal laundry service is also necessary if some old people are going to be kept in their own homes in a state of decency.
Meals, of course, are very important. The other borough which I represented, Finsbury, has recently started the domiciliary supply of frozen meals, which can be obtained commercially in bulk. The
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experiment has been going on for a few months and it is expanding. A full meal is contained in three envelopes which keep for 36 hours; therefore, they only have to deliver three times a week. By the benevolent "wangle" of forming a welfare committee, they are able to make a grant, and supply for one shilling to the old people a meal that costs three shillings.
Of course, there are many other invaluable services provided by those district councils which have a proper regard for their responsibilities. I will list a few of the services which are being provided by some authorities, and I should like to know how general these services are for old people. There is a domiciliary library service; a fortnight's holiday by the sea and numerous day outings; social visitors and nurse visitors—not merely health visitors—paid for by the borough councils. Old people get nutritional supplements at a cheap rate; domiciliary chiropody services; S.O.S. cards which old people can put in their windows in case of emergency, if they need help; there is a hairdresser and barber service and a mending service which is provided especially for the men, who are less nimble with a needle and cotton; and there is the redecoration of accommodation to cheer up old people when they cannot get the work done by their landlords.
My Lords, all these things are being done now by some local authorities which I could mention; but I could equally mention other local authorities who are doing almost none of these things. It cannot, therefore, be argued that they have not the power to do these things, but it can be argued that they have the power to avoid doing them. That is my case: that these permissive powers should be made mandatory. We should then get a better service for aged people and its quality would be improved all over the country. For example, there is, in the Borough of Finsbury, a most valuable, happy and flourishing old people's employment scheme for about 150 old people. They have several sessions a week. It is very happy, with an atmosphere like a club, and they get paid for what is done. As the noble Lord, Lord Luke, knows, that was done by the courage and determination of individuals, including the medical

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officer of health, and supported by voluntary organisations, and also, indeed, by the local authority. It is a complete and wonderful success. There is no reason whatever why it should not be copied successfully all over the country, which would be a great boon for old people.
Therefore I plead with the Government to give consideration to bringing in a measure which will end the uncertainty as to whether certain services can be provided or not, who is allowed to pay for them, and whether or not they will qualify for a grant. If these services are permissive, then let us have them all over the country and let us remove the uncertainty. I think that is the least that we should ask for. Then a wider range of powers and complete statutory overall responsibility should be given to the medical officer of health. By this means the back sliding authorities could be brought into line and there would be great improvements. This would cost more money and the Treasury would presumably have to make the main contribution, although not the whole of it by any means. I think that the local authorities should pay a substantial part. If the administration is to be local, then some of the financial responsibility should be local, too, which would make for better control and management.
I think that there will be savings through the elimination of overlapping, if this scheme is carried out. If, for example, the medical officer of health had a putative allocation of 30 to 50 beds in a geriatric hospital, I am sure that a better, truer use would be made of them and that there would be greater regard for proper priorities. If that were done there would be much better use of beds than there is under the present system.
But, my Lords, whether it costs more or not, the primary consideration is that we must fulfil our obligations to our older citizens who have borne their burdens and who are entitled, in their declining years, to the best we can provide. Unlike the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, I am not able to quote an ancient Latin phrase, but I think it is true that the Constitution of ancient Athens, which was even earlier, placed an obligation
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on children to nurture and protect their parents. I should have thought that that obligation should apply to our society to-day. But even when any of us forget that obligation, it devolves on to the State. I think they should honour where we forget. My last word to the Minister is this: he cannot pretend, after this debate, that the means to an efficient and sufficient service are not known. The only question that is in doubt is whether the Government have the will to provide it.
5.51 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SHEFFIELD: My Lords, I find myself in very great sympathy with all that the last speaker has said, but at two points he left me feeling a little sceptical. I doubt very much whether you can get rid of the irresponsibility of any action by local authorities without trespassing on their responsibility to do their jobs. It depends on them a good deal nowadays whether one gets a good day-school or an indifferent day-school, or whether one gets good medical treatment or not very good medical treatment; and, while I think it is the duty of the Government and the nation to see that, so far as possible, the services are extended equally right through the country, I do not think you can push that too hard without removing from the local authority their responsibility for doing good—and sometimes for not doing good.
The other thing which I was not entirely convinced about in what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, was whether the medical officer of health in a local authority is the best person to assume this over-arching responsibility. To-day, the medical officer of health, in his department of local government, has a great deal on his plate and has very exacting professional duties. He also, more and more, gets involved in questions of hygiene and sanitation, not to mention clean air; and I should question whether he could carry this additional burden very well or whether it might not be better to put it on to the social care department, which I believe is going to be an increasingly responsible department in local government.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will the right reverend Prelate allow me to

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interrupt? So far as concerns those local medical officers of health that I know, who are friends of mine, not only do they think that they are competent and able to do it without much of an increase in their departments but, as he has so rightly said, they are already doing many of these things. So why transfer those functions to yet another department when, by adding a little more to the existing ones, they can carry them out? Then, I am afraid I did not explain myself properly: I want to add to the responsibilities of the district authorities, not take away from them.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SHEFFIELD: To continue my argument about the medical officers of health a little further, I think a good deal has been said in the course of this debate which makes the point that it is important not to associate the care of the ageing population too much with ill-health as such. That is the basis for my asking: why put this matter under the medical officer of health rather than under the social care department? However, I think the subject wants very careful consideration.
May I come back to my own thesis? I think we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for making us exercise our minds once again on this very important part of our nation's life. I believe, for a variety of reasons, that it would not be an unfair judgment to make of a family or of a community to take the way in which it really cared for its old people. It almost seems to me that there are five parts of this business of caring for the old people. First, they must have the means of subsistence, and I confess that here I am a little bothered by the fact that over 1,300,000 pensioners have to apply for National Assistance. I think that is about the right figure. It is a large figure; and it is not quite right that such an extra anxiety should be placed on old age pensioners.
The second thing they need, as has been said again and again this afternoon, is adequate places in which to live. That raises a wide range of subjects, but I should like to take just two points. I believe that one of the valuable things in our community life, by and large, is the sense of responsibility of families
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for their old folk. Some of the most significant social statistics and studies recently have shown the quite outstanding care which a family will take—and by a family I do not mean just the parents and the children; I mean almost the clan—for their old people. That is one of the reasons why, for example, on the new housing estates which are being built in big cities like the one in which I live, during the first few years after the estate has been built there is a staggering amount of mobility. One substantial reason for this extraordinary mobility is the determined attempt by the members of a family, in which I include not just parents and children but grandparents and aunts and uncles, to get together again. As one moves one unit inside a larger family unit into a new house in a new area, the inevitable result is that parents and the next generation are separated by several miles, and the ingenuity exercised by family after family to get into proximity is remarkable. It bears witness, I think to a very valuable, stabilising element in our social life.
I only wish—although I can see the great difficulty in doing this—that local authorities, when building new housing estates, and so on, and when thinking who was going to have the priority to move into them, would not just consider the family, meaning the parents and their small children, but realise how important in the holding together of the community is the larger family unit, and how much, at any rate temporarily, is lost when it is broken up. But I realise that that is a difficult thing for a local authority to do.
The other point which has been made and which I am sure is very important is that when we build our new estates and our great big blocks of flats and all the rest of it there should be provision to an adequate degree of the kind to which the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was referring—one single room, possibly, for old people. But, as the last speaker also said, it is very important they should not be down a cul-de-sac or by themselves, because as one gets older oneself one realises that how much youthful spirit and youthful mind one has left depends on contact with the younger generation. If you were to put all the old people on an estate down a cul-de-sac and leave them

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there they would all age with incredible rapidity, at great loss to themselves and also to the younger people. That has happened, because very frequently I have been taken to a housing estate, and it has been said to me. "Look what a nice little corner we have arranged for our elderly people", and the poor things, of course, are not as happy as they might be. There it all is.
This ties in with the next point I want to raise, which again is so important and has been so well emphasised, that in the care of old people companionship and friendship are of tremendous importance, as the right reverend Prelate said so well earlier on. Here, I think, is great scope for co-ordination between the skilled social worker, be he statutory or voluntary, and the unskilled person of good will. Some of the help which elderly people in the community need requires, I think, a good deal of psychological understanding, and all the rest of it, for which one has to look to a trained social worker. But I think that if a trained social worker in any given area has a group of semi-skilled or unskilled people co-operating with him, together they can do an immense amount of good. Because this problem of loneliness is a very difficult one to solve, and while sometimes the lonely old person needs that skill, often he also needs the friendship of someone who is kind and sensible, who can just gossip with him, and things of that kind.
I do not think we have gone nearly far enough in this business of co-operation between the skilled craftsmanship of the social worker and harnessed inexpert good will which is latent in the community. Personally, I think that the churches themselves might get busy on this. We have a kind of organisation concerned with this question in the country, and other Christian communities are operating with us also. There are many organisations for various age groups attached to most churches, and some of them do not get very much further than drinking cups of tea and listening to teachers' speeches. I think they might be much better employed if they were persuaded to look outwards, to see where the lonely people of the community are with whom they can try to be "matey". I think there is very great scope in our local life for more of
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this kind of thing. Also, I think it is rather regrettable that these organisations, and so on, are not in sufficiently close touch with the trained social worker, who is, of course, doing quite a splendid pastoral job up and down the country to-day, and will continue to go on doing so.
I think that what is very important for old people is that they should be occupied. So often I think they suffer at the hands of younger people of good will who assume that occupations are not what they want, whereas they are. I think that what keeps many old people young is that they are tremendously occupied by the younger generation, their families, and so on. I see no reason why an old person who in his or her younger days had taken a vital part in the life of the community could not at least continue to take an interest in the life of the community after that person's working days are done. But all this business of care for the old and keeping them happily occupied is very important, because I am sure that when one ceases to be occupied, one will tend to brood about one's health.
Then we come on to the immediate point of the noble Lord's Motion, the care of the sick and the infirm. I wish that he could have developed a little more fully for my amateur mind his distinction between departments and units for the sick and infirm in the community. One is very uneasy about the real state of many of the homes and hospitals where old people are being treated under crowded conditions, with inadequate nursing service, and all the rest of it. It is good that he should pinpoint certain places where these difficulties have been overcome. But if you were to go up and down the length of the land and go inside some of the ex-workhouses which are still used to-day to house sick or infirm old people, I think you would be rather horrified. I know a good many of them, and while one admires the way in which the vocational staff try to overcome the inadequacies of the building, I do not think that we as a nation should be satisfied with these buildings.
Three weeks ago I had the privilege of being present when Her Royal Highness Princess Royal opened a new geriatric hospital—I am not sure whether

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it was a "department" or a "unit"—on the outskirts of Barnsley. It was a quite lovely place, admirably done, nicely furnished, full of light and colour—everything one could want. I compared it with other places designed to do the same work which were not so very far from it, and the contrast really was staggering. While one realises what has been done since the Health Act was passed to improve our hospitals and hospital services, and that in this improvement of our hospitals our old folk who are being cared for have benefited to some extent, I think we ought, in fairness to the older generation, to make a very big effort radically to improve a lot of hospitals and homes where old people are sometimes living under very crowded and not very beautiful conditions.
So that, in the last resort, undoubtedly this question depends more than anything else on personal and social relationships. We are all very susceptible to our physical environment, and I think that some of the terribly gloomy buildings we have, which must be very difficult to work in, are of quite a low standard for a community which sets out to care for its old folk. So while we welcome, and wish to pray about, all that has been done to improve conditions over the last seventeen years, I think that this end of our medical service—I am not talking so much about the service of people as about the buildings in which the service is rendered—is still much behind any kind of satisfactory standard. Therefore, I am glad that a member of the medical profession, who has this so much at heart, should have brought this subject up for our consideration.
6.10 p.m.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, to whom we are indebted for putting down this Motion, and most of the other speakers in the debate this afternoon, I can claim no special knowledge or experience in this field. But I do not think that many Members of your Lordships' House have reached my age—perhaps, from what has been said earlier, I should declare an interest in the debate—without having some personal experience of the problems which have been covered in the range of the debate.
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One thing that has struck me particularly is the number of speakers who have emphasised the problem of accommodation for the elderly. That is well put in this year's Annual Report of the National Old People's Welfare Council, which says:
"The difficulty of finding a suitable place in which to live is one of the greatest problems confronting the older person to-day. For various reasons, many are forced to live at the top of houses, which necessitates carrying coal and sometimes water up long flights of stairs. Often toilet facilities are on another floor."
It has come out in the course of the debate that for people so circumstanced one of the most important contributions that can be made to their welfare is the provision of residential homes of one type or another.
I know that these can be provided both by local authorities and by voluntary associations. My noble friend Lord Stonham referred to the fact that 300 local authorities have not yet built a single house for old people. Some few authorities have provided a certain amount of accommodation by conversion. The point that I want to put before your Lordships this afternoon is the backwardness of local authorities in the support which they may give to voluntary associations in this field. I think I can illustrate it best by telling your Lordships of the experience of a housing association, with which I am connected, which was set up for the purpose of finding a large house and converting it into flatlets for old people, either for one or two persons, with kitchen accommodation and adequate provision of bathrooms, and with a housekeeper who would be available to give help in time of sickness but who would not be a matron or nurse in the hospital sense.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, referred to the high cost of suitable houses for such a purpose in Oxford. I tell him that the cost is even higher for a suitable house in the London area, and it is much more difficult to find one. Having spent a long time in finding a suitable house, the association then applied to the local authority for the 90 per cent. mortgage which they may give. But this is permissive. My noble friend Lord Stonham has said that many of the permissive powers of local

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authorities should be reconsidered and perhaps made mandatory. In this case, the local authority refused the 90 per cent. mortgage. The amount which could have been raised by an ordinary building society mortgage left such a big gap that the resources of the housing association could not meet it.
After another long search another suitable house was found, but again the local authority refused the 90 per cent. mortgage. This time, however, this rather small housing association made the necessary effort, got loans at a low rate of interest, and was able to meet the gap between the building society mortgage and the cost of buying the house. There was still the question of conversion. Again it is optional whether the local authority will give a 40 per cent. conversion grant. Then, when the place is open, it is again optional for the local authority to give any grant aid.
In this respect, I suggest that local authorities are being very short-sighted, because for them this is a very inexpensive method of dealing with a problem which properly lies on their shoulders. I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply if he would bring to the attention of his right honourable friend the possibility of putting a little pressure on local authorities or at any rate of drawing their attention again to the fact that they have these powers and that, if they use them wisely, they will not only be helping the elderly but will also be making that help available in the most inexpensive manner possible for the community.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I should be delighted to pass that on. I would also say that a great deal of encouragement has been given already, but there may well be a case from giving more.
LORD ARCHIBALD: I thank the noble Lord. If he wishes it, I shall be happy to give him particulars of the two cases I have quoted. There is only one further point to which I wish to refer. I do not think that the need for provision for those who may generally, and I hope not unkindly, be referred to as the old and mentally frail has been stressed in the course of the debate. They could very well be cared for in the type of residential accommodation
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I have been describing. But it is not really the kind of work which should be undertaken by voluntary organisations. The National Old People's Welfare Council says specifically:
"Residential accommodation for the mentally frail is a need which has hardly yet begun to be tackled. A few local authorities have plans for homes reserved for this type of resident, though none has yet been opened. Certain voluntary organisations are considering special homes for the mentally frail in addition to the three now open. Voluntary societies generally are not, however, recommended to start new homes for the mentally or physically frail."
If it is not a suitable operation for voluntary organisatons—and I think that the Council are right—it certainly is a suitable operation for statutory organisations. The burden of looking after the mentally frail is often much too great for even the best of families to be able to carry. It is the sort of burden which can produce such family strains and stresses that it may even go to the length of producing what we hear of in regard to delinquency—namely, the broken home. That is something that should be avoided at all costs. If local authorities would set up with sufficient, but not lavish, staff the type of residential accommodation that is needed for the mentally frail, I would again suggest that this would be a very economical use of money, because it would not only mean in many cases, as I have said on the one side, the removal of stress and strain from the family, but also, on the other side, make it possible to look after the mentally frail without requiring them to be hospitalised. Instead of being in hospital at a cost of £35 to £40 a week, they could be accommodated in that type of residential home at a mere fraction of that cost. I would again ask the noble Lord who is to reply if he will particularly draw the attention of his right honourable friend to the need for this type of residential accommodation for the mentally frail, and even for the physically frail, who are not so seriously ill that they require hospitalisation.
6.22 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords. I should like to support the special plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Archibald, for the old who are mentally frail, and also to join him and others of your Lordships in a tribute to the noble Lord who initiated this grim-sounding debate with so much charm.

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He made reference to the famous social reformer, Chadwick. I think that what most of us remember about Chadwick is the famous statement that:
"England wants to be clean, but not to be cleaned by Chadwick".
I suppose one could adapt that by saying: "England wants to be well, but if she must be ill she would like to be treated by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, assisted by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and any other doctors who form this ever-growing medical lobby in this Upper Chamber to-day".
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, called my attention to the presence earlier today of large numbers of young people in the Gallery, and that, I think, is interesting and encouraging. There is no doubt that the young people are anxious to do more for the old providing they can find a method of doing it. Some of your Lordships may have seen an article by Sir Harold Nicholson (not the last one, in which he said that he hated a certain political Party; that does not arise) in the Observer, in which he was referring to the young and their awkardness in some ways, when he said that they were very kind and attentive to old people like himself. Of course, Sir Harold Nicholson has special charms which may not be possessed by all the elderly sick and infirm, and they may not all receive this same attention. But I think the right reverend Prelate who has just addressed us so powerfully, and the other right reverend Prelate whose maiden speech was such a great success, would both say this—and it was touched on by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London—that the young of today in youth clubs are showing a distinct interest in service to the old. That ought to be very much encouraged.
I am bound to say, however, that noble Lords and Ladies who have taken part in the debate to-day would not claim extreme youth as their main qualification for speaking. Some of them have been doctors and others bishops, and some have frankly spoken as old people. I think the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, described himself as old; and I do not think anyone would be insulting him if they agreed with him that he is quite old, as I think he must be around the 80
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mark; and even by the standards of your Lordships' House he must be regarded as a thoroughly mature person. I am only sorry that the noble Lord is not with us now, because I owe him so much in so many ways.
But I cannot agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, when she describes herself as old. A person is really as old as he is thought to be by those who meet him. I met a man the other day when one of those rather embarrassing discussions was going on in which people were guessing one another's ages; and this particular man, who lacked tact it seemed to me, looked at me and said: "I do not know your age, but you must be much younger than you appear to be". That, I thought, was not the kind of conciliatory remark that should be made. If the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, really claims to be old, all I can say is that she must be much older than she appears to be. I do not accept her as old in any sense at all. She made a poignant speech, and I side with her tremendously (particularly as some of the scientists, though not all, have left) if she says that science has a great contribution to make to the social services. But sheer humanity has a contribution to make which nothing else can equal.
The question of who are the old has been running through our minds, and this may make it all the harder for the noble Lord who is to reply—and I apologise to him if I have to leave before the end of his remarks. The school led by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, seem to hold that a man is old at 50, because he began by saying that we were entering a gerentocracy as we were now being led by men of 50 and over. The noble Lord, I am sure, is under 50, but I suppose that 50 is within his sight. Those of us who are in their fifties do not necessarily accept that account of old age. It is, as I suggested earlier, a somewhat relevant matter. I remember attending a dinner given here to that wonderful public servant the late Tom Jones, on his eightieth birthdray. The Lady Astor made a speech in which she said she had visited Bernard Shaw that afternoon—he at that time, I think, was not far short of 90—and he had asked why a dinner was being given to Tom Jones on that particular day. Lady Astor said:

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"Because he is celebrating his eightieth birthday"; and Bernard Shaw snorted with contempt, and said: "Eighty! Why, he's a mere boy". That is one view of old age.
I think we are primarily concerned today with the sick and infirm among the elderly. I say that because, although various speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, have pointed out that you cannot single out one group in the old and separate them from the others, yet if we were discussing the old as a whole we should surely have been much more concerned with the active contribution that old people can make. We have, on the whole, attended to-day to the categories mentioned in the Motion—namely, the people who are, generally speaking, incapable of rendering much physical service, though they may contribute much of moral and spiritual value. If we were discussing old people as a whole, we should surely wish to discuss the far greater opportunities that might be provided for people when they retire to add to their existing achievements. But that, perhaps, does not arise so much to-day.
I should like to say one or two words (I hope not to be long, because all those who have spoken so far have much more knowledge of this subject than I) from the point of view of the National Old People's Welfare Council, because that is the kind of body which is doing work of exceptional value. They are a coordinating body linking together the six Government Departments concerned with the care of old people and some 50 national voluntary organisations which are wholly or partly concerned with helping the old. The Council is a national focal point for information and advice and acts as headquarters for all the 1,650 local old people's welfare committees, plus county and regional committees. I think that in considering the work done for the old, whether by the Government or by particular bodies, we should not pass over the unique contribution that is being made by this body. I hope that the Minister will, at least, pay his own tribute to them, because I know how highly valued by the Government this work is.
If we think of these 1,650 local old people's welfare committees, we must, I
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think, realise that they are not only effecting co-ordination, but have been instrumental in initiating or providing on a co-operative basis a variety of voluntary services: for example, organised voluntary visiting, social clubs, day centres for the infirm and lunch clubs. Of course, there are the "meals on wheels" (mainly carried out by the W.V.S., but sometimes, I understand, on a cooperative basis through this Committee; the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, confirms that), workshops, laundry services, flatlet schemes, residential homes, boarding out schemes and a variety of other personal services. Some of them have been touched upon in various ways during to-day's debate.
I should like to make one point which is certainly very much in their minds, and which seems to me of great importance. It was implicit, I think, in something said by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. There are certainly all sorts of ways in which the local authorities can grant aid voluntary organisations. It is the considered view of the National Old People's Welfare Council that far too few local authorities are using their powers in this way. I am not talking of the services provided by the local authorities of which we have heard a good deal, some of it good, and some not so good, but of the powers which they have to grant-aid voluntary bodies.
I am quite sure that the National Old People's Welfare Council are quite right in saying that a much more imaginative use of these powers by the local authorities could make a tremendous difference to the development of the service, and particularly the domiciliary service, provided by the voluntary organisations. These would supplement the work being done by the local authorities. I will not pursue that point now, but I hope the Minister, even if he cannot add anything today, will draw the attention of his colleagues to this important question (not, of course, raised for the first time by me now, but raised throughout the day in various forms) of the increased assistance that might be given by local authorities to the voluntary bodies.
I suppose the theme that has been pressed most strongly—not to the exclusion of others, but most strongly of all

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to-day—has been the shortage of accommodation and, in particular, of housing. We have been given a strong lead from various quarters, from the noble Baroness, the noble Lords, Lord Beveridge and Lord Taylor, and others, but this stress on the need for better housing is something with which I have no doubt the Minister will deal at length when he replies. I do not want to run over that ground again, although the point could not be repeated too often.
I would rather say just one word on a point that has not come up so much to-day but which must not be altogether overlooked, and that is the question of financial security of the old, including the old who are sick and infirm. It was touched upon by the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Sheffield, in distinguishing the five categories. I remember that when I was more active on behalf of the old than I am now (I am afraid, to my shame, that I have become mixed up in so many other things), as a city councillor in Oxford before the war, I was engaged in pressing for the increase of the old age pension, which was then extremely low, by 10s. I was discussing this question with, as he seemed to me then, an elderly cabman. I do not know how old he was, but he was an old age pensioner and he drove a cab. He told me that in his earlier days he had been a close friend of Lord Nuffield, as he had become—Billy Morris, as he had been—who had tried to persuade him to go into the motor business with him. This cabman had replied, "No, thank you. You will never beat the horses." Of course, he was proved wrong. Lord Nuffield made a great fortune and is one of the greatest business men in the world, and this elderly cabman was still driving a cab. I asked him whether he regretted that Lord Nuffield had got so far ahead. He said, "No. I am told he does not enjoy very good health. I have three excellent meals a day and sometimes more, and I can drink several pints of beer. I am afraid my poor old friend is not able to do that, but I must say I should like an extra 10s." I think it is that minimum of finance which makes the difference to everybody, however simple their tastes.
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I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, is not here, because I wanted to say something that was intended to be complimentary to him but might be regarded as heretical in his absence—I am not quite sure. Perhaps the noble Lady, Baroness Wootton of Abinger (since she has assumed a position on the Liberal Benches) might undertake the task of speaking from that point of view. As I see it, the Beveridge principle of 1942 was threefold. I am thinking of the principle of the pension to be eventually achieved by the old. As I see it, it was a threefold aim or principle. The subsistence benefit was first then there was to be an element of insurance involved, and then there was to be the absence of a means test. Its benefit was to be given as of right, without your having to prove that you were more or less destitute. I do not want to strike too much of a Party note, but we remain a political House, and I would submit that the first principle, that the pensions should eventually reach subsistence, has been rejected by the Conservatives. I do not think they claim to be trying to achieve subsistence through pensions now. The Minister will be able to correct me if I am doing him an injustice, but that seems to be so.
As I understand it, for the last seven years or so our present Government have claimed that the State pension should provide only a kind of basic minimum, and that individuals should be expected to obtain additional income to the pension in order to arrive at subsistence. That is how we understand the change, and it seems to me a departure from the general principle. The general principle is not sacred, and the Government may have ideas which are better. I think they are worse, but it seems that a change has clearly occurred.
On a point mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, those without additional incomes have had to turn to National Assistance, which was originally intended to be a sort of emergency measure to cope with a few thousand. But people have had to turn to National Assistance in very large numbers. My figures are that at the end of last year there were 1,265,000 who were receiving National Assistance—that is, one in four retirement pensioners. The right reverend Prelate said 1,300,000, so there is not much between us. His figures

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may be up to date, while mine refer to the end of last year. Let us say that 14 million of the retirement pensioners, that is one in four, are now receiving National Assistance. So the attempt to provide subsistence pensions seems to have been abandoned, and if so it is something we heartily deplore. The Labour Party have advanced beyond the general principle in respect of the subsistence idea. I hope that no one will say that we have retreated from it in the way noble Lords opposite have. We have advanced beyond it. The noble Lord laughs. I suppose he is laughing at something, but at the moment it is very hard to know what.
LORD NEWTON: I merely observed, "Well!"
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: If the noble Lord will restrain himself, he will place himself in a position perhaps to appreciate the gravity of the failure. But as his knowledge of this whole subject is new to him, he must allow me to put him right on this point. I gather that the point I made just now was something that had not occurred to him. It seemed to need immediate consultation. I must be allowed to inform him of what has really occurred.
The Labour Party wish to go beyond this plan. They do not want to fall below it, which is what the Conservatives appear to be doing. Now where we have gone beyond the Beveridge Plan in our own scheme is that we feel you cannot accept only a purely physical minimum. On the point of inflation, which was stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, himself, I think that everyone, including noble Lords opposite, is anxious in his own way to defeat it. But, quite apart from inflation, we would not say that as society got richer there should be no rise in the minimum of real pensions. We therefore say that subsistence itself should be increased at the same rate as the general prosperity of the country, and in that sense we have gone beyond it.
I am sorry if I was a little testy just now towards the noble Lord, but really there is nothing at all comic in these things when a lot of old people who, if we were returned to power, would greatly benefit, are being seriously damaged under his Government. That is our view of it and I hope the noble Lord will forgive
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me for being testy when so many elderly people in some distress are concerned.
I will now close with a few words which I came across in the editorial of a religious paper last week. It happens to be a paper of my own denomination, but I think these words will appeal to anybody of Christian or humanist faith, anyone with any ethical feelings, and I am sure they will appeal to the noble Lord opposite. An elderly priest, in his 82nd year, was telling the other day of the experiences of old age. He was saying that, as we reached old age—I now quote the editorial:
"… we 'listen for that Voice which could not make itself heard so well in the clamour of the busier years'.
"Now that Voice begins to converse with us in the cool of the evening and the courage of old age is the courage of an exalted vision, a glimpse of reality and the foundations of things. The young are to profit by the interpretation, yielded by the faith of the aged, of the meaning of the universe".
That and other words which we have been offered this afternoon by those that are greatly in contact with the old will remain in the minds of many.
I remember spending a day or two in a religious house some years ago. We used to proceed from the refectory after lunch in a kind of queue and I found myself always walking beside a young priest who was about to set off for San Francisco, where he was going to dedicate himself to religious work. We were always behind a very old, doddery priest, and it became a great nuisance because this old priest moved so slowly that we were always left a long way behind, and by the time we got to the coffee it was cold. We became irritable and I indicated as much to the young priest as we were walking behind this doddery old man; but he turned to me in absolute sincerity and said, A wonderful old man grown old in the service of God". That is how we ought to think of the old. Sometimes they have been great people like Sir Winston Churchill, sometimes they have been people who have made some notable contribution to the world, though of course they may well have been people who were rather futile and would always have been rather futile; but all share this same common humanity given by God and we owe all of them this same reverence. I do feel

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that this debate has been one of the most valuable we have had in this House, and I only hope it will bring about great benefits to the old in future.
6.45 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, who drew attention to the fact that we regularly have in your Lordships' House debates about various aspects of what are generally called the social services. We do, my Lords, and often as not it is my task to reply to them, and I regard myself as being fortunate in having to do so this afternoon, not only because of the importance of the subject introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, but also because of my own personal interest in it, as well as because of the fascinating nature of the speeches we have listened to and their variety and the spirit in which they have been made. There was really very little that I listened to this afternoon with which I disagreed, until that part of the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, when he indulged in a little skirmish into Party politics on the subject of old-age pensions.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, is that going to be the noble Lord's sole reference to that or is he going to deal with the topic?
LORD NEWTON: I think the noble Earl will discover the answer to that as my speech develops.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Will the noble Lord give way? I want to say that I was not skirmishing in the sense he implies, with any Party object; I was really concerned sincerely with the aged.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, what I was going to say later on, but I may as well say it now, is that I did not think that at the end of a long debate on a wide variety of subjects, in which pensions had hardly occurred at all until the end, it would be appropriate for me to start on a Party political debate with the noble Earl on the subject. On another occasion it would be very agreeable because I do not think it would be very difficult to establish that the record of my Party on pensions is better than the record of the noble Earl's own Party. That was really all I was going to say about that.
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We have had this afternoon a notable addition to the ranks of those noble Lords and Ladies who speak in debates of the kind we have been having to-day. I am of course referring to the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of London, and I am sure all of us who heard him were impressed by his call to us to support the appeal of the Lord Mayor of London, not only to make this an old people's Christmas, but to carry further the spirit of the appeal. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, delighted us at the beginning of his speech with a disquisition on the philosophy of old age, and I will not attempt to follow him on that. But I would say that all of us who are at any rate middle-aged—perhaps I can safely say that about myself—and have watched our parents and other relatives grow old and die, understand the importance of combating loneliness and conferring companionship on old people in abundant measure. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will be a regular participant in debates of this kind.
In 1955 there were just over 5 million people aged 65 or more; that is to say, one in nine of the population. In 1960 the number had risen to nearly 5½ million, or one in eight of the population, and of these, as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, said, nearly 2 million were at least 75. It is estimated that in the year 1975 the number of people aged 65 or more will be about 7 million, or one in seven of the population. These figures show, I think, the size of what is sometimes called the problem of old age. But it would be a mistake to conclude that every person who becomes old poses a problem for the social services. As the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, pointed out in his speech, many old people continue to live in their own homes and require no special help apart from the services provided for the whole community. Old age in itself is not necessarily a problem. That has been argued, I think, by many of your Lordships.
I am constantly struck by the ease with which, when one is considering the proper function of the State in caring for the old, one can think and talk as though elderly people do not have children to whom they can look for affection and interest and assistance. But surely it is a serious error to make any

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such unconscious assumption, if it is unconscious. One sometimes hears it said—indeed, my noble friend Lord Fortescue said that he had heard it said, I think by a doctor friend—that it is a characteristic of our Welfare State that when children are grown up they neglect their obligations to their parents. I do not believe that those who make such statements have any evidence to go on. I am not aware that there really is any real evidence one way or the other on that, although possibly we may get some from the Lewisham experiment, about which I will say something later on. I was fortified in this connection to hear the views of the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Sheffield. The point which I am making, that elderly people are not by definition childless, has a bearing on the problem of what may be called ascertainment of the needs of the old, about which I want to speak later.
The State comes into the picture because there are elderly people, particularly the more infirm ones, who need something extra in the way of support—a great deal of care at home; a special house or residential accommodation; or a hospital bed. I do not claim this afternoon—indeed it would be absurd to claim—that all the difficulties attendant upon providing these things have been resolved, or that all the defects in the supporting services have been remedied. Staffing difficulties are obviously a problem in a time of full employment. There are shortages too, varying from area to area, in buildings and in hospital beds for chronic cases. What can fairly be claimed is that the services for the elderly, which are wide in range and scope, are growing and developing all the time. It is the Government's intention not only to keep pace with the increasing numbers of elderly people who need help but also to fill the gaps and the deficiencies as quickly as resources will permit. This, then, will he the theme of my speech, and I could quite easily make a speech of inordinate and intolerable length, as your Lordships will no doubt believe. Indeed my difficulty is not what to say but what not to say.
So I do not propose—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will forgive me—to say anything about private homes
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and private nursing homes; nor will I say anything about the ancillary staffs. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, who referred to that question, is riot in her place, and in any event she is going to give us the opportunity of a debate on that subject as soon as we get back after Christmas. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, made an interesting suggestion. Perhaps I could deal with it now. It was that there ought to be some form of central register compiled, I think he suggested, by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and supplied to the local authorities so that they knew where the old people were with whom they ought to concern themselves.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me? My suggestion was that the statutory responsibility for the compilation of the register should be placed on the medical officer of health for the district or borough, but I asked that Government Departments should be directed to supply the medical officer of health with details of elderly people on their books.
LORD NEWTON: On that latter point, I want to say that it is an interesting suggestion which I think should be looked at. But I believe it would be a difficult one to carry out, because the information possessed by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance is confidential, and I think a great many old people would strongly object to particulars about them being given to local authorities.
I want now to summarise the ways in which the Government consider that services for the elderly should be developed, and I believe that there will be general agreement among your Lordships that the Government's ideas on this matter are right. The aims are: first, to encourage and help the elderly to live in their own homes as long as they can. This is what most of them want to do, a point emphasised time and time again this afternoon, particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough; secondly, to provide special housing (with or without a resident warden) for those who need it; thirdly, to provide residential accommodation suitable to their needs for those who require care beyond that which can be made available in their own homes; fourthly, to provide hospital beds for those requiring treatment

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or prolonged nursing care. Those are the aims, and I feel satisfied, after listening to this debate, that your Lordships would agree with them.
I was glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, laid so much stress on the domiciliary services. In the domiciliary services the lynchpin is the family doctor. It is not always realised how much of the doctor's time is on average spent in the care of his more elderly patients. The most recent survey on this showed that among a representative sample doctors saw their patients who were 65 and over about twice as often as they saw those between 15 and 45. The family doctor has the further responsibility of bringing into action wherever necessary the other services available for elderly patients living at home, and I think that is partly the answer to the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of London, and to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, on the points which they raised about ascertainment of the needs of old people for individual services.
A booklet entitled, Services available to the Aged and Chronic Sick, prepared by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee for the Central Health Service Council and my right honourable friend, has recently been published. It describes the problem of an ageing population and sets out the kind of services which are available to a doctor's older patients from the local health and welfare authorities. Copies of this have been sent to all general practitioners in the National Health Service, to local health and welfare authorities and to housing authorities.
Your Lordships have praised the work of the home nurses. I am glad to say that you all, I think, referred to them as district nurses, which is what I like to do, but I am told that I ought not to. At any rate, I am very glad your Lordships praised them. There is no doubt that they meet an increasing need of the elderly sick who might otherwise have to go into hospital. The number of nurses employed whole and part time has risen from 7,000 in 1948 to 10,000 in 1960. In 1960 over 23 million visits were paid, of which more than half were to patients who were aged 65 or over at the time of the first visit during the year. The increasing proportion of the time of the
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home nursing services devoted to the elderly is shown by the fact that in 1953 the proportion of cases aged 65 and over was only a third of the total number attended.
Many of your Lordships have suggested that the home help service is the mainstay of old people living in their own homes, and I am sure that is so. All local authorities have made provision for it and it is increasingly used for old people. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, talked about a universal shortage of home helps, but the fact is that the number of home helps employed has risen from 11,000 in 1948 to 49,000 in 1960. The number of households helped has now gone up from 139,000 in 1949 to 312,000 in 1960. That seems to me to be quite an appreciable increase.
Both the numbers of elderly helped and the share of home helping devoted to them has risen steadily. During 1960 the elderly and chronic sick represented about 75 per cent. of all those in receipt of help. In 1953 the figure was about 58 per cent. Many old people need only a few hours of help a week to enable them to continue living in their own homes. Nevertheless, the home help is often a friend as well as a helper, and sometimes even, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, the main regular contact with the outside world. Additional special services provided by some authorities include night attendance, to relieve relations who look after the very infirm or confused old people; male helps for old men living alone; early morning or late evening visits to lay fires and help the elderly to dress or undress, and central laundry arrangements to do the washing, especially the bedclothes and personal linen of old people who are suffering from incontinence.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, reminded your Lordships of the importance of chiropody in keeping old people active. Since 1959 most local authorities have, in response to the Government's suggestion, introduced chiropody services which give priority to the elderly, among other special categories; and where an elderly person has difficulty in attending for treatment, transport can he provided, or even a visit to the home can be arranged. I am afraid I have no figures which I can

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give your Lordships as to the extent of this service.
The right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of London, and the noble Earl, Lord Longford, spoke about the voluntary services. They have been expanding, helped by the power of local authorities to contribute to the funds of appropriate organisations. They make a substantial contribution to the care of the elderly by providing personal services, visiting, clubs, recreation, "mealson-wheels", holidays and many other things like that. The number of old people's welfare committees continues to rise. As the noble Earl said, there are over 1,600 of them in England and Wales. They provide a magnificent service in co-ordinating the work of organisations and of individuals, and my right honourable friend hopes that the voluntary services will go on from strength to strength. I am glad to respond to the invitation of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, to pay my tribute to the National Old People's Welfare Council which is, as he explained to us, the central organisation. They do invaluable work and give a great deal of assistance to Government Departments by their co-operation and advice.
May I add a word on "meals-on-wheels"? As your Lordships will know, a Private Member's Bill, promoted by Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith, was read a second time without debate in another place on Friday. That Bill empowers local authorities to provide meals and recreation for old people, either directly or through the agency of voluntary organisations. It also preserves the power of local authorities already contained in Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, to contribute to the funds of voluntary organisations which provide these things. The underlying aims of the Bill have the Government's general support. It would, I think, be improper for me to say more about the Bill at the moment; but if and when it reaches your Lordships' House I shall look forward to doing so.
I should like to turn now to housing schemes especially designed for old people. Most elderly people want, as I and as your Lordships have already said, to lead independent lives in their own homes. There is no doubt that to
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do so gives them the best chance of an active and happy old age. There is therefore a widespread need for small, labour-saving homes in which the elderly can live and look after themselves. The suggestions and advice given in this debate this evening about what these small homes should be like will, I think, be useful to those who have to provide them.
Housing authorities have been given every encouragement to provide homes of this type and they are making great efforts to meet the demand. To help them, a special subsidy of £10 a year for 60 years for one-bedroom dwellings was retained when the general needs subsidy was abolished in 1956. The measure of their effort is shown by the fact that the number of one-bedroom dwellings completed actually rose from 11,000 in 1951 to 27,000 in 1960, a rise from 7 per cent. to 26 per cent. of their total building.
The priority which the Government attach to satisfying this big and expanding demand was re-emphasised in the White Paper Housing in England and Wales, in February of this year, and in a circular issued in March of this year. Under the new subsidy arrangements now in force, local authorities which satisfy the test of financial need in the Housing Act, 1961, will get a much bigger subsidy—£24 for any kind of house, flat or flatlet which they build for old people. Those authorities which do not satisfy the test—which means that they do not lack untapped resources—will still get a subsidy of £8.
A valuable and growing, contribution is also coming from the voluntary organisations. Housing associations can do a great deal to vary the provision made for old people and can bring to the dwellings which they build and manage the personal touch which old people value so highly. Under the 1961 Act the housing associations will get the £24 subsidy for their building for old people.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, might I ask the noble Lord a question on the point of the proof of need? Does it mean that if a local authority can show that there is an acute shortage of special housing for old people in their area, they will get the larger rate of subsidy?
LORD NEWTON: I should not like to answer that "off the cuff". As the noble

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Lord knows, this business is extremely complicated. I will look into it and will let him have an answer as soon as I can. Undoubtedly, housing authorities must provide in adequate numbers a range of different types of dwellings (flats, bungalows, and flatlets): some fully self-contained in which active elderly people, particularly married couples, can be wholly independent; others in which, by grouping the dwellings together, friendly help is obtainable from a nearby warden; others in which, especially for the frail, provision can be made for communal services in addition to a warden.
In recent years more and more emphasis has been placed on careful planning of all dwellings intended for the elderly. I am now about to say what I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, wanted me to say, namely, that they should not be in isolated colonies, but interspersed among other houses, or sited in groups of a manageable size within easy reach of shops and buses. Many local authorities build their small dwellings for old people in the middle of family housing. This enables the elderly people both to be near their families and to be living in a house of their own. That was a point made by one noble Lord. But dwellings for the elderly should also be designed with an eye to safety and convenience. Stairs must be easy to manage; windows and cupboards must be at a convenient height; regular warmth and an even temperature are most important, and central heating, in one form or another, is especially recommended. The Ministry of Housing are preparing for publication a comprehensive booklet on designing for old people.
My Lords, as part of their campaign for encouraging schemes of the kind that I have mentioned, the Ministry of Housing, in co-operation with local authorities, is giving wide publicity to demon-station blocks of flatlets. One such block at Brighton was opened by Mr. Henry Brooke a year ago, and another one at Swansea was opened more recently by Dr. Charles Hill. A scheme of 24 flatlets at Stevenage should be finished next spring; a model of it, and an exhibit showing the special system of construction used were on show at the Building Exhibition in November. I have here,
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and perhaps some of your Lordships saw it, a page from the Daily Telegraph on December 2, which contains some extremely good photographs and descriptions of some of these modern housing schemes for the old. I have the page here if any noble Lord would like to see it.
My Lords, I should now like to consider progress in providing residential accommodation under Part III of the National Assistance Act, or Part III accommodation, a term which some of your Lordships have described as so unfortunate. The number of people accommodated increased from 46,468 in January, 1949, to 84,556 in December, 1960. This includes accommodation in former public assistance institutions, as well as in new homes opened by local authorities since July, 1948, and also accommodation provided on behalf of local authorities in homes run by voluntary organisations. From the end of the war to December 31 last year no fewer than 1,184 modern small homes were opened, of which 207 were in new buildings specially designed for the purpose. Places were provided in these homes for 39,000 residents in need of care, mainly because of old age. Where former institutions have had to be retained, local authorities have done a great deal to improve them by dividing up large dormitories, improving decorations and furniture, and similar means.
Nevertheless, what local authorities have been able to achieve has failed to overtake the demand. Pressure on accommodation is one reason why it has been impossible for all large institutions to be vacated. In some places demand has been so heavy that it has led to overcrowding. A need has been revealed for much more accommodation on the ground floor or on floors served by lifts. And so almost all the new buildings which have been built latterly have been designed for very infirm residents. Lifts have been installed in many existing houses. The ratio of staff to residents has tended to increase because of the greater degree of care needed by the type of resident now in the homes.
In spite of all that has been done there is still a shortage of accommodation for the very infirm. But I must emphasise, my Lords, that the amount of capital investment authorised has been stepped

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up strikingly. In England and Wales the annual level of loan sanctions recommended in the years 1956–57 to 1958–59 for the provision of old people's homes was about £2½ million. By 1960–61 it was £8¼ million—a very large increase indeed. In the current year, it is expected to be even higher, which illustrates the importance attached by the Government to the development of this service, notwithstanding present restrictions on public expenditure. In a circular issued to all local welfare authorities last August, my right honourable friend urged them to proceed with all health and welfare capital projects which could be regarded as essential for providing care in the community. Already he has told them about 200 schemes for which he will be prepared to recommend loan sanctions in the current year, as soon as plans have been cleared.
I will now come to the hospital services. In his circular of October, 1957, the then Minister asked hospital authorities to give high priority to establishing in every hospital centre geriatric departments, under the control of specialist physicians with special interest in the geriatric field. This policy is being pursued. The number of staffed geriatric and chronic sick beds rose from 57,713 in 1957 to 59,183 in 1960. More than 100 geriatric departments under specialist physicians are now provided by hospital authorities in England and Wales. The number of out-patients' clinics for the elderly rose froth 3,900 in 1957 to 6,600 in 1960, and the number of attendances during the same period from 39,200 to 65,900. Quite apart from these attendances, there is a high proportion of old people among the millions who attend eeneral clinics in medicine, surgery and other specialties.
With the coming growth in the proportion of elderly people, it will be necessary to continue making adequate provision to meet the demand for long-stay accommodation. At the same time, with active treatment and with active rehabilitation, more and more patients are being discharged from hospital to their own homes or to welfare accommodation, where they can, if need be, make use of geriatric out-patient facilities. There are certainly places where there is a shortage of geriatric beds, though
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generally speaking the need at present is not for more beds but rather for better facilities and better supporting services. It cannot be denied, too, that some geriatric departments are housed in old and unsuitable buildings. This was explained to us by the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Sheffield. On the other hand, I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, say how much has been done to improve buildings of this type, and how worth while it has been to do it.
The first and, perhaps, the most important step in improving geriatric services in any area is the appointment of a specialist physician who is interested and experienced in the care of old people and is able to devote the necessary time to it. Indeed, it is often not possible for the Regional Hospital Board to decide whether additional hospital beds or staff are needed until a specialist physician has been appointed and has determined the local position in detail. It is hoped that the increasingly close relationship between geriatrics and general medicine will attract more staff into the specialties.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, suggested that it would be a good idea to change the nomenclature from "geriatric units" to "geriatric departments". I would say to him that the relationships between what is now called the geriatric unit and the general hospital are now being considered, and very careful attention will be given to the noble Lord's views. He also asked me about the number of bedfast and house-bound old people. From a survey of the "meals on wheels" service in 1959, it was estimated that there were in England and Wales 1,154,000 people of pensionable age house-bound in their own homes for all or most of the year, in addition to 98,000 also in their own homes who were bedfast. This is 18 per cent. of those of pensionable age.
The noble Lord also talked about the difficulty of discharging patients who, in the opinion of the geriatric specialist, no longer need hospital treatment. I am sure that the noble Lord is well aware of the position, and the obligations on hospitals as set out in paragraph 12 of the circular of 1957. But, my Lords, this is recognised to be a very difficult question and it is being considered. What I

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think it boils down to really is the question of how much nursing these patients need.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, may I just interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? The patients to whom I was referring particularly do not need nursing at all. I quite agree that if they need nursing they must be retained in some kind of hospital, but the ones I was referring to do not need nursing, although they need a certain amount of care and attention.
LORD NEWTON: We may possibly have been disagreeing about the use of words, but, as I understand it, there is no general agreement in the medical profession as to the extent of nursing care which ought to be provided in welfare accommodation by local authorities as opposed to some form of hospital department.
I had intended to say something about the ascertainment of the needs of old people, principally for the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge; but, as time is getting on, I will not do that, although it will mean that I shall not he able to say anything about the Lewisham experiment, which I wanted to do. Perhaps the House will think that I am making the right decision.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, may we ask the noble Lord whether, if we put down a Written Question about the Lewisham experiment, he will perhaps give us a nice long answer in Hansard?
LORD NEWTON: I think that is a very happy suggestion, and I cordially invite the noble Lord to put down such a Question. I hope that I have marshalled sufficient evidence to prove my earlier claim that services for the elderly have been developing steadily and sometimes impressively. It is always easier to point to deficiencies than to achievements, but one of the satisfying things I have found about the debate this afternoon has been the number of your Lordships who were prepared to point to the achievements. It is trite but true that the rate of development of any service must depend on the available resources of investment, manpower and woman-power, and on the competing demands of other needs. As the Guillebaud Committee said:
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"It would be unrealistic to suppose that the deficiencies in the services for the treatment and care of the aged can be made good overnight."
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, spoke very wisely and knowledgeably about the subject of cooperation between voluntary organisations and statutory organisations, on the one hand, and hospital authorities and local authorities, on the other. if the various services do not everywhere work together as well as they ought, this is largely for ordinary, human reasons; it is certainly not for lack of advice. Some people will always find it harder to cooperate than will others, even in political Parties. But the necessity for coordination and co-operation between all those who operate statutory and voluntary services for the old has been the theme of reports and circulars from 1951 up to the present time, and there is evidence that the right attitude is growing.
For the future, we must look, and can look, to hospital and local authorities to work even more closely together so that we may have a more accurate assessment of need—that is one of the things that both the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, asked for—and may make our dispositions accordingly. My Lords, I do not think that there can be any firm national figure of the number of places needed in old people's homes, because this is not a static situation and it turns on so many variable factors—for instance, the proportion of old people in the population; the extent of special housing; the extent of the domiciliary services; the quality of the accommodation provided (because the better it is the greater the demand for it); the extent to which families are able to look after their old relatives, and things like that.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, may I interrupt for just one moment? This brings one back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, was making about letting the medical officer of health have a list of all the old people, which the noble Lord was doubtful about because of invasion of privacy. I have been thinking about that while he has been speaking. I wonder if he would look at it again, because, after all, the medical officer of health gets a list of everybody who has a baby, in order to

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arrange health visiting for them; and if a health visitor calls and is not required, it is perfectly all right. I do not think old people would feel that it was an intrusion that their names should be known as people who were old; and in that way many cases, I feel, would be picked up where perhaps they were not necessarily bad enough to see a doctor and yet were in need of help.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, my advice is that there are large numbers of them who would object to any intrusion into their privacy, but I promised the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that his suggestion would be looked at, and I gladly repeat that promise to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor.
My Lords, may I say finally that I have not sought to deny that there are deficiences to be remedied, and it is for that reason that I am grateful for the points to which your Lordships have drawn attention this afternoon. They will all be carefully considered. We all want to do our best for the old, and I am confident that we shall do so as the ten-year plans of both hospitals and local authorities come to fruition.
7.26 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Newton, for the very long and careful reply that he has made to the debate. Certainly the catalogue of what has been done sounds quite impressive, but I can merely repeat what I said when I began: that things are taking far too long. There is really nothing which he told me this afternoon which I did not know before. In fact, much of what he told me was what I had already said in my speech when I opened this debate. I think one cannot possibly hope for more than that at the present time, but I trust that progress will be pushed along on these points, which are very important
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and which are causing a lot of discomfort to many old people.
Before I withdraw my Motion, I should like to thank all those noble Lords and noble Ladies who have spoken in this debate, and I should like to record my tribute to the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of London, on his maiden speech. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  BRITISH PROPERTY IN CUBA
  BRITISH PROPERTY IN CUBA