OLD AGE AND WIDOWS' PENSIONS [MONEY].

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh)

This Resolution is required in order to provide the necessary authority for the provisions of the Bill which impose a charge on the Exchequer in respect of the scheme. Perhaps it will be for the convenience of HON.MEMBERS if I refer briefly to the provisions of the Resolution. Clause 5 of the Bill makes provision so that insured women and wives of men who are drawing pensions at 65 shall receive a pension from the age of 60. That will mean that extra money will have to be provided by the Exchequer. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton), in his speech on Second Reading said that unless he were corrected he thought he was right in stating that until 1946 the Treasury would be making money out of the change. I have now the opportunity of doing what he asked me to do—to correct his statement if it were wrong. It is wrong. The contribution is being increased by 3d. for women and 2d. for men. In the first two years, as HON.MEMBERS have seen from the Actuary's report, that increase in the contribution will probably cover the amount required. Under Section 14 (3) of the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, definite payments are made from the Exchequer into the Treasury Pensions Account. Payments are not calculated each year but are calculated for definite periods of 10 years on a rising scale. There will be in the Treasury Pensions Account sufficient for the period until 1946 to pay the contributions required from the Treasury for the extra pensions without making any alterations. Alterations will, however, have to be made, if Parliament so decides, in 1946 and for many years afterwards for increased payments to be made into the Treasury Account. But that does not mean that extra money is not required during the period before 1946. The estimate is that, without paying anything further into the Pensions Account, there will be a total deficit of £5,000,000 between now and 1946. After 1946 it is thought that there will have to be an extra provision of £3,000,000 per annum, going up in the following 10 years to £4,000,000, and again after that to £5,000,000. I hope that that will make it clear to the hon. Member for Bishop 1743 Auckland that Part I of the Bill will cost the State a definite sum.

§ Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

The hon. Lady means £5,000,000 for the decennial period, not annually?

§ Miss Horsbrugh

Yes, a sum of £5,000,000 will be required from now till the new period begins in 1946.

Clause 8 (3) of the Bill provides for the granting of supplementations to the pensions of those who can prove that they are in need, that is to say, all drawing the old age pension whether at the age of 60 or 65. It is clear that we can give no accurate forecast of what the amount will be. We know that the local authorities, through the public assistance committees, will be relieved of about £5,000,000, but we realise, as was stated in several speeches on Second Reading, particularly in that of the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White), that many people may come to the Board to ask for supplementations who would not have gone to the public assistance committees. It has been put to the House over and over again that many who were in need and who ought to have supplementations were doing without because they did not wish to go to public assistance committees. Therefore, we realise that the amount required will be considerably more and that more people will be drawn in. No accurate statement can be made about it, therefore. Because we do not know the number who will avail themselves of the supplementation grant we cannot assess the expenditure on administration. If we take the number of people who will be covered by the Board as 300,000 or 400,000, we think a good estimate will be about £750,000. Again we have to make a rather liberal estimate because we are not certain of the amount, but we are determined to estimate for an increased number of people coming to the Board and asking for supplementations.

§ Mr. Woodburn

The hon. Lady says that public assistance committees will be relieved of £5,000,000. Do I take it that the Government have no intention of reducing the amounts received by people who are at present receiving public assistance?

§ Miss Horsbrugh

My right hon. Friend went into that on Second Reading, but I would point out that we believe that more people will come to the Board and that 1744 more will therefore be paid out than at present. Another point that has been put is that a man who is now drawing only the pension for himself because his wife is not 65 may, on the passing of this Bill, draw the pension for his wife as well. That man may be receiving public assistance because he has only the 10s. pension, whereas when the income is £1 he may find he need not ask for a supplementation. That is another reason why we cannot make an exact estimate. Lastly, in Clause 17 arrangement is being made for the pensions of servants of local authorities who will be taken over to serve the Board. They will be able to have a retirement pension from the local authority based on their salary and length of service. The Board will also be able to pension them on their retirement, again according to salary and length of service to the board.

I have given merely an outline of the financial provisions, but I think HON.MEMBERS will agree, whatever their opinions on the Bill, that, while the Government said they hoped during war time to be able to keep the social services up to the present standard and that there would be no necessity to cut the services down, they have gone further, for now, in the midst of war, they are asking the Committee to approve an extra expenditure on the social services and to make a definite improvement in the service of old age pensions. We shall all be proud that it cannot be said that the whole of the extra expenditure of this country is expenditure that is necessary for war and that it has been possible to arrange that some of the extra expenditure will be spent to help the old people of the country.

§ Mr. Rhys Davies

I think we may reasonably congratulate the hon. Lady on the charming way in which she explained this Money Resolution. I noticed, however, that she skated over very thin ice very well indeed. She avoided all that was contentious in the Resolution, and perhaps she will, therefore, forgive me if I bring her down to earth. [Hon. Member: "Ice."] I would not like to skate with her on ice at all. This Money Resolution is necessary because it is the instrument to implement the Bill, which has already secured its Second Reading, and now that we are descending from 1745 general principles to the actual details of the finances of that Measure I may be forgiven, perhaps, if I state in detail why the Labour Opposition is critical of the Government's proposals.

Needless to say, we welcome any extension and increase of pensions, and of course, we welcome also any proposal to reduce the pensionable age. During this stage of the proceedings we shall move an Amendment to show exactly what we mean and we shall take a Division on the point at issue. Before I come to details, however, I would like to say that I doubt very much whether Parliament or society as a whole has faced the consequences of the extension of the average age at death in this country. Three million people over the age of 65 now draw pensions. We are living, on the average, 15 years longer in 1940 than was the case in 1840. Governments have flatly declined to face this ageing of the population, but it is a problem that confronts us in connection with this Motion. Old age is a comparatively new phenomenon in this country, but we have never made up our minds whether to leave the old people to die off or to care for them decently to the end of their lives. That is the burden of my remarks this afternoon.

For the first time, it is proposed to give women a pension at 60 years of age in their own right, provided they are under the National Health Insurance Scheme. Nothing is being done, on the other hand, for women who are in small businesses on their own account. They are still left out. While a figure has been given of the number of women who are being brought into the scheme, a large number have been left out, and I would like whoever is to reply on behalf of the Government to the Debate to tell us what that number is; it will be quite as interesting as that of the number of women who are being brought in. The Government's proposals do nothing to remove one of the worst anomalies of our pension's scheme in respect of women. Where the insured man is, say, 63and his wife is 66, a pension will not be paid under the Bill; the wife must always wait until he is 65. I should have thought that the Minister could have decided to remove that anomaly; those wives are still left out from the provisions of the Bill.

The Government have made great claims for this Bill and no doubt if there is a general election they will expect 1746 much credit for their generosity. I should like to reduce the finances of their proposals to a very simple form. The benefits which are offered do not total more than the cost of one battleship or one day's war expenses for this country alone. That is the financial measure of the Bill, and I say that this is, indeed, a very mean affair. The hon. Lady and her friends stand up here and say: "See what we do in spite of the emergency. We provide this additional sum of money in spite of the vast sums which we are spending on the war." Let me tell them that the old people are asking this question, and I will ask it too: If it is difficult to find this money during a war, how comes it about that it is easy to find £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 a day for war? [HON.MEMBERS: "Is it?"] The question I have put is one which the Government must answer to the old people.

The Government decided that they would not give a flat-rate increase of the old age pension; then proceed by way of granting a supplementation on the basis of need. The introduction of a test of need and grafting it on to this contributory scheme is repugnant to us, and in particular to the old age pensioners. Whatever opinions we may have about a test of need, we object in particular to the principle being grafted on to what is regarded as a contributory pensions scheme. I will tell the hon. Lady why. I suppose that the Government are very much afraid that if they gave 5s. a week increase in the pension the old folk might proceed to a riotous life upon it.

§ The Minister of Health (Mr. Elliot)

We are taking them off public assistance.

§ Mr. Davies

I will come to that point later. The right hon. Gentleman must not get angry with me so early in my speech. He will probably have an opportunity of feeling annoyed before I have finished. I am glad that the hon. Member for Gates head (Mr. Mangy) is here. I listened to his speech the other day, and I regarded it as just a gramophone record for the Government.

Mr. Mangy

It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to put it that way. First-class records are valued very highly.

§ Mr. Davies

I am sorry that it was capable of being bought at all. What I 1747 intended to say was that the hon. Gentleman was echoing what had been said on the Front Bench. He himself may be there one day. [A Hon. Member: "Why not?"] Of course, they may as well put him there as anybody else. The argument of the Government was that if the pension were raised by 5s. a week there would still be some pensioners coming forward for more assistance because that would be too little for them to live upon. But surely that is begging the question.

Mr. Mangy

That is the "Daily Herald" outlook.

§ Mr. Davies

The hon. Gentleman is a good Wesleyan, and he might, therefore, be good enough to listen. Is it not true that the more you raise the pension by a flat-rate increase the smaller will be the number of old age pensioners who will require a supplementation? The hon. Gentleman is an accountant and he should surely realise that. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health will follow me in my next argument. Suppose the Government decided to pay a 5s. flat-rate increase to each pensioner. A man and wife in that case would get 30s. If I know these people at all—and some of my own kith and kin are drawing an old age pension—I would say that the average old couple in this country would prefer the certainty of an old age pension of 30s. with which to maintain themselves, than 35s., 15s. of which is given as an act of grace. The right hon. Gentleman must understand that there is in human beings a characteristic which even a Tory Government cannot suppress; they prefer the possession of a shilling as a matter of right to 2s. as an act of grace. That is the thing which brings out on this side of the Committee our antagonism to a needs test in this Measure.

I will now come to another point. In 1922 I had the honour of moving from this side of the Committee a Motion in favour of granting a widowed mothers' pension. We heard the question then—and we know how familiar it is—Where is the money coming from? The Government of that day said there was no money available for providing a widowed mothers' pension. Unless I am mistaken, the whole of the Tory party voted against my Motion, except, if I remember arightly, 1748 the hon. Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), and I believe she voted with me, thinking that she herself might require a widow's pension one day. Of course, in no circumstances can I ascribe that to the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary. In my rough-and-ready way—I have had no education at all, of course, except that of elementary schooling—I was trying to describe the opposition of the average workman to a means test and to probing into his private affairs. I picked this up casually in my local newspaper: Suicide of man who refused grant by the P.A.C. The man said: I have served my Queen and also our King and now on 7s. 6d. a week there is nothing for the service which I have done. That man served in the last war and presumably in the one before that, and the public assistance committee declined to give him what he thought an adequate sum of money on which to live. I do not want to exaggerate the case but I would say to the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary that if that happened in Germany, Italy or Russia, we would be told about it from the Government benches. We object to this test of needs because it violates in us and in the people that we and the hon. Lady represent something which I have no adequate language to describe, and I will therefore leave it at that.

Let me deal further with this problem of a needs test. The test, of course, is not a new weapon. I call it a weapon because that is a proper description of it. As far as I understand, the test of means has been in existence since the time of Queen Elizabeth but it has never been employed in this country except in cases of destitution until modern times—about 15 or 20 years ago. In my experience this is what has happened. This test of needs has during the last decade come to be applied to schoolchildren sitting for scholarships to secondary schools. It has been applied, if you please, to children with regard to the provision of spectacles by education authorities. Happily this test has broken down in some cases. For some years I was on an education authority, and I remember a report saying that it cost more to collect the value of a pair of spectacles from the parents than the cost of providing them.

1749 We are naturally getting apprehensive and alarmed, although this particular needs test is not our only opposition to this proposal. There is a needs test in respect of pensions for widows and children of men killed in this war; I hardly believe that the same principle applied to the last war, although I am open to correction. The work of the Unemployment Assistance Board is based on a test of needs. Then someone has been clever enough to suggest that workmen's compensation should be paid on the basis of need, and now we have it embodied in this Bill. If this thing is not destroyed root and branch in our social services there is no argument left why wages should not in the end be paid on the basis of need. I believe there was once a system operating in this country under which the working people never received a penny-piece in wages for their work but were kept by the Poor Law just like cattle. Our protest, therefore, is not only against the grafting on of a needs test here, but we are alarmed at the development of this idea in all our social services.

Now, let me come to the situation under this Old Age Pensions Bill. The Government have decided to hand over the application of this test of needs to the Unemployment Assistance Board. They will change the Board's title—very clever, is it not, to change the title of the Board, when it is doing the same job? The right hon. Gentleman praised the Unemployment Assistance Board for its humane treatment of the unemployed. I will give my experience. It is that the Board is humane only within the limits imposed upon it by the Government. I had a case the other day, of a family who had pleaded with the board for another shilling a week, if you please; and then, because I intervened, I suppose, they got that shilling. How they rejoiced over that extra shilling. That, mark you, in the centre of the mightiest and richest Empire in the world. What a rotten state of affairs. The Unemployment Assistance Board is humane, within its limits; and when the right hon. Gentleman brings forth his new regulations this Board will still be humane towards the supplementation of pensions, but only within the financial limits then imposed upon it by the Government. The handing over of 1750 this scheme to the Unemployment Assistance Board does not make it any less objectionable to us.

Let me examine some of the figures as to the administrative expenses. I noticed that the hon. Lady went over them very gently—just gliding over them, as it were. The Unemployment Assistance Board pays away in benefits about £35,000,000 per annum, and its administrative expenses are about £4,500,000. I want HON.MEMBERS to notice the figures that I am about to quote next, with regard to the administration of this new scheme. There are 310,000 new women contributory pensioners coming under the scheme, whose pensions are to be paid without any test of need. The total cost of administration, in merely awarding pensions in their case, is £50,000 a year, or 3s. 3d. per case. When you come, however, to apply the needs test to 350,000 others who are asking for supplementation, the administration cost is £750,000 a year, or 15 times as much—£2 2s. 6d. per case. If the £750,000 set aside for administration were utilised to increase the pensions, it would provide the 350,000 applicants for supplementation with an increased pension of 5s. per week for two months in the year. If it were decided to give them only 2s. 6d. a week extra, it would provide them with that increased pension for over four months in the year. I want to say, without being too biased, that the cost of administering the needs test in this case is too much of a financial burden for the State for the value it gets in return.

I should like to analyse the consequences of this thing a little further. I do not know whether the Committee will agree with me when I say that we must be careful lest, quite unconsciously, we create certain new sections in the community who will be set apart from the rest. In America I was astonished to find that they had reservation camps for Red Indians, in order, forsooth, that those Indians should not poison the blood stream of the others. In Germany, they have concentration camps for politicians who do not agree with the régime. I wonder whether we do not do offence to this nation to which we belong by setting aside, in a concentration of their own, a large number of poor people, who are always to be kept on the very edge of starvation, while 1751 those of us who are able to live better tell them, in effect, "You shall never arise from that state of untouchability to which we have sent you." There are things, after all, of more importance than party politics. One of them is the fact that when a man has worked all his life, has been thrifty, and then finds himself unemployed from the age of 55 to 65, begging for his bread. I do not think that that is good enough for our people.

I am sure I am right in saying that we can divide the old people of this country, in a general way, into two categories; those who have produced wealth and are without pensions, apart from what the State allows; and those who have always been removed from the production of wealth, and are provided with pensions through their employment. Who are the old age pensioners who will require supplementation? They are colliers, textile operatives, dock labourers, agricultural workers and men of that type. Apart from a scheme in South Wales, I know of no attempt on the part of employers in any productive industry to provide a superannuation scheme for their workers; but when you come to banks, insurance companies, the Civil Service, municipal employment, all those occupations which are removed from the actual production of wealth, the employés are nearly all provided with superannuation schemes, in addition sometimes to the schemes which the State provides for them. I have said before that this is one of the most damning indictments against our industrial civilisation. Show me the man who does the hardest, the most necessary, the filthiest, work in the country, and I will show you the man who gets the least remuneration for doing it. Show me a man, on the other hand, removed from hard toil, going to work in his Sunday clothes every day, and I will show you a person who is more generously dealt with by society than the miner or the agricultural worker. This Bill in the main will cover productive workers for whom employers have never made any attempt to provide superannuation of any kind. I think, therefore, we are entitled to protest against the introduction of the means test in regard to them.

There are some clever people in Whitehall, clever civil servants, but the civil 1752 servants after all do what they are told by the Government. Let us see how clever and subtle they are. There is one provision in the Bill to the effect that women, after reaching 60, will not be entitled to sickness or disablement benefit under National Health Insurance. There is therefore a balance released of about £3,000,000 available for somebody, and we have it inserted in the Bill that that sum shall be disposed of as Parliament may decide, thinking all the time that they, the Conservatives, will be Parliament, of course. Does the right hon. Gentleman not know that there are hundreds of thousands of women, sick and incapacitated, under the National Health insurance scheme whom this Bill does not touch at all? Why not allow this £3,000,000 to remain in the funds of the approved societies in order to improve the lot of those women? We shall, however, come to that point later.

It is assumed in these Debates on social insurance schemes that Parliament is imposing an awful burden upon employers by increasing their contributions to this fund. I do not want to be offensive, but I have lived with, and administered, social insurance benefits for about 30 years, and I would like to hear an argument against the proposition which I will now put forward, namely, that the employer in this country is not a penny worse off by the imposition upon him of contributions for the social services. What does he do? Everybody knows that he enters his charges for the social services in his accounts before arriving at his profit and loss, just as if they were materials, wages or any other expenses. Neither the rich who draw their incomes without working nor the employers in this country are a penny worse off by the imposition upon them of these contributions. I am not so sure, in fact, that the total income of the working classes has been increased at all by the introduction of these schemes. What I think has happened is that Parliament has compelled the working classes to make provision for the proverbial rainy day, and that is a good thing in many respects, but it has not made the rich poorer, and, as stated, I am not so sure that it has increased the total volume of income of the working classes either.

Finally, let me say that we shall oppose this imposition of a needs tests upon the old people with all the vigour that we 1753 possess. As it has been customary on these Debates to give quotations dealing with this problem, perhaps I may be forgiven for giving one or two myself. I came across this the other day, and I regard it as very apt to this Debate: Do not wait till life is over. And he's underneath the clover, For he cannot read his tombstone When he's dead. But I will give a better one still. It is a more universal one, belonging to all ages. It was written by Victor Hugo, and what applied in his time applies more and more in our own time and country. But first I hope I may be allowed to repeat what I have said before about the problem of poverty. I do not like poverty among old people to be regarded as a sin to be purged by a means test later, in order to satisfy those who are better off. That is what we are doing. I am very often confronted by Members and supporters of the Government who say to me, "Ah, but our working classes are not as poor as those in Germany or in Russia." But I reply that they are not as well off as they are in Holland, Norway, Denmark, or Sweden either. Poverty is not to be measured as between, say, an Italian workman and a British workman; the measurement of poverty should always be. What is the poverty in a country by comparison with the riches in the same country at the same time? If you put it like that, I am not so sure that the working classes of this country are not as poor as any in the world. I will finish with this quotation from Victor Hugo, which is more appropriate than anything else that I have said: The three problems of my day are the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual might.

§ The Chairman

Sir Percy Harris.

§ Mr. Denman

On a point of Order. What about the Amendment on the Paper?

§ Mr. Rhys Davies

We are moving it later.

§ Mr. Pethick-Lawrence

We are moving it at the end. The object is to enable the Committee to have the widest possible scope. If we moved the Amendment at the beginning, the Debate would be restricted and hon.members would not 1754 have a full opportunity of discussing the whole proposal in all its bearings.

§ Mr. Denman

I suppose this limits the Debate to the subjects mentioned in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d)? I take it that we cannot, for instance, debate the question of a rise in the basic rate, which is nowhere referred to in the Resolution?

§ The Chairman

The hon. Member is certainly right in thinking that the Debate should be confined to what is in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d), because they are the whole of the Resolution. It is constantly the case that Amendments on the Order Paper are not moved until the end of a Debate in order not to restrict the Debate. I feel here a little difficulty to-night, because Members of the Committee will recollect that since the altered procedure under which these Money Resolutions follow the Second Reading we have established, or endeavoured to establish, the Rule that the Debate on the Resolution shall not be a repetition of the Debate on the Second Reading. Consequently, in many cases the Debate on the Resolution is little more than formal and very short. In this case I realise that there are points in the Resolution in regard to money of great importance, and that it would be unreasonable to expect the Committee to do otherwise than debate the Resolution at considerable length. I understand that it is the wish of the Opposition to have the Debate as wide as possible. There is no objection to the Amendment being moved formally at the end, but I would ask the Committee, in their own interests and in order to assist the Chair, to try and avoid discussing anything that there may be in connection with the Bill which is not covered by the Resolution. I would ask them in their speeches to have regard to the terms of the Resolution and to see that their remarks are confined to the Resolution.

§ Mr. Dingle Foot

On the point of Order. I think this is the first time that this point has been raised in this form. Are we to understand that there has been a definite alteration in the rules which govern the Debates on Money Resolutions, and that as a result of the procedure adopted latterly of taking a Money Resolution after the Second Reading, the House is more constricted in Debate on a Money Resolution than it has been heretofore?

§ The Chairman

No, there has certainly been no such alteration in the Rules of the House. It has always been out of order to repeat a Debate which has just taken place. What I said only means that, of necessity, as the Money Resolution comes after the Second Reading, there is possibly a little more restriction on the Debate on the Resolution than if it were taken before. On the other hand, the Debate is a little freer because HON.MEMBERS know what is in the Bill, and that was the object of the alteration. But it is always out of order to repeat a Debate which has just taken place in the House.

§ Sir Percy Harris

I will try to keep within your Ruling, Sir Dennis. For about half a century there has been a struggle on the principle of old age pensions, and I have a very vivid memory of the first round in the battle when the principle was first established. I remember the prophets of disaster talking of demoralising and undermining the self-respect of the mass of the people. Those prophets of woe have been falsified, and we have the satisfaction, some of us on these benches, to be living at a time when we hear Members of the Conservative party loud in their protestations of enthusiasm for the principle of provision by the State for old age. During the last 18 months, however, there have been coming into this House from all over the country petitions, presented at the Bar by Members, from old people in receipt of old age pension, praying this House to increase the rate, on the plea that the increased cost of living has made the sum inadequate. There is no doubt that the tide of public opinion has grown, and so strong has been the feeling that before the outbreak of war the Chancellor of the Exchequer had appointed a Committee to inquire into the whole problem. I do not want to depreciate the value or even the strength of their report, but it was a Departmental Committee, and, with great respect to the distinguished men who composed it, I do not think it is unreasonable to say that it was out of contact with feeling in this country and with public opinion as a whole.

I want to be fair to this scheme. I recognise two steps forward, and I particularly want to pay a tribute to the recognition of the claims of the spinsters.

1756 I would like to take advantage of the opportunity to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary upon her eloquent speech last week on this subject. There is nothing more tragic or pathetic than the women who have to earn their living finding themselves cast aside because of physical defects and because increasing age no longer enables them to carry out their work. Let us be realists. Though there are similar claims among men, the fact remains that when a woman finds herself out of work at 55 or 60 the chance of her getting re-employment is infinitesimal. There are not only the women in the factories in the North and the Midlands, but there is that large army, particularly in London, of women employed in tea houses and refreshment shops, who have been severely hit, and they have had a special claim upon the consideration of this House. I, like the hon. Lady, would like to pay tribute to the leader of this movement who, almost by accident, was thrown into the sphere of political controversy by being brought into direct contact with these women and their special claims, and she is certainly to be congratulated upon having, after a comparatively short struggle, so aroused the conscience of the nation and the sympathy of the Government that special provision has been made in this Bill to meet their claim. I do not want to be ungrateful, for I too recognise that this is a well-merited reform which will give relief and consolation throughout the length and breadth of the land to tens of thousands of women who, without some provision of this kind, would have to face penury and want, with the alternative of relief from the Poor Law.

There is one thing that I hope we maybe able to remedy in the Committee, and that is the cutting off of sickness benefit, which is a particular hardship to women. That is a sacrifice which does much to discount the advantage of the pensions that this Bill provides. I also want to express satisfaction at the inclusion of another class, namely, wives of 60. That is a most satisfactory reform. We must admit that there is something in the Bill that is good; it would give a false impression if I were to sit down without recognising that there are some good things in the Bill. It is perhaps most fortunate to have a woman in the Government, who probably may have been brought into direct contact with some of 1757 these problems and been able to play her part in getting them dealt with in the scheme. But, on the other hand, we as Liberals regret the introduction of the foundation principle of this Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) pointed out that it is something new to introduce the principle of a test, to a contributory scheme. Those of us who supported the principle of insurance always lauded it on the ground that those who received benefits received them as a right, without test or question, on the basis that they had made a contribution out of their own pockets for the benefits that they were to obtain. It is this very foundation of the principle of insurance that has enabled us to defend a very big tax upon the weekly wage of every man and woman.

Now, that principle is to be departed from. The Government are sapping the foundation of the principle of insurance, and we regret the introduction of this new principle into this scheme of insurance. I know that there are many social reformers, some of them I believe among the Members above the Gangway, who always deprecate the insurance system, and would have liked our social services to be administered without any contribution or any system of insurance, but we on the Liberal Benches have always felt that the insurance system is good for the self-respect and independence of the contributors, and, on the whole, I believe it has had the support of the great majority of the people of this country. It may be that the defence for the introduction of this principle is in the circumstances of the war, but whatever it may be, it introduces a dangerous principle into the insurance system. We also regret that a body of irresponsible people outside the control of Parliament are to be brought into the system of old age pensions. The case for taking unemployment outside politics might be arguable, but there can be no case for taking this great social service away from the vigilant scrutiny of elected Members of Parliament, even if it is a good thing to take these old people away from the Poor Law. The Poor Law has its advantages over the Unemployment Assistance Board. It is in direct contact, through the local authorities, with the public. The Poor Law, even in its present form, is subject to public criticism. The people who carry out that work are in contact with the people concerned, and 1758 People with grievances about the amount of relief or the character of the test could, at any rate, through their local authority get their grievances ventilated. But these high-minded people, these Olympians who sit not far from this House, no doubt people anxious to do their duty, are out of contact with the realities of relief and are quite outside the criticism of this House, except for one day a year when their annual report, usually rather belated and coming to light long after the event, is subject to a brief discussion in the House of Commons. If the Government were convinced that the Poor Law, with its traditions of Bumbledom and its evil associations of the past, was distasteful to the people, it was unfortunate that they should resort to the machinery of this Board, which had already been subject to severe criticism. It is a machinery set up to deal, not with people who are asking for benefits for which they have paid through the insurance scheme, but with people who have passed out of control and outside the benefits which the insurance scheme provides. I say, therefore, that while we are glad at the inclusion of these two features in the Bill, particularly the recognition of the claims of the spinsters and the married women of 60, we think that a great opportunity has been let slip. The case has been made to Parliament for increased benefits and allowances to the old people because of the increased cost of living, and it is unfortunate that this new principle is being introduced into the system of old age pensions. When people are getting old there is nothing they resent more than to be told that they have to be dependent upon the good will of their children, their sons and daughters or grandchildren among whom they have lived. I remember the constant struggle in the past when the one thing that working people felt more than anything else was the fact that, when they reached a certain age and were thrown upon the industrial scrap-heap, they had only two alternatives—either to go to the workhouse or to become dependent upon their family and children.

The great struggle for old age pensions was a struggle for the independence of the old people. It was discouraging and disheartening when they knew that they could not save enough to enable them to become independent, and the old age pension gave them just that stimulus and 1759 made them feel that when they got beyond their industrial utility there would be some provision from the State to make them independent of their families and their relations. By introducing the principle of the family household test, the Government, unfortunately, whatever their desire may be and however much their good will, are taking a reactionary step which will be deeply resented by tens of thousands of old people throughout the length and breadth of the country. They will feel that this is a reactionary Measure, and for that reason alone we are justified in voting against this Financial Resolution.

§ Mr. Denman

We are indebted to the procedure adopted by the Labour Opposition for allowing the Debate to range over the Resolution as a whole. I rather anticipated that we should be confined to the Amendments, and I am glad they are enabling us to discuss the Resolution as a whole, including paragraph (a). That enables us to say what, I suppose, is the common feeling of the whole Committee, that this Resolution is not the Resolution of our dreams. It is, clearly, very far from being even a Government Front Bench dream. Nobody can suppose that the old age pensions scheme as ultimately developed will be anything like what is proposed in the Financial Resolution. It seems inevitable—and I believe the whole Committee desires it—that the pension scheme cannot stop growing until you have a system that gives an adequate and proper livelihood to old men and women who have served the community all their working lives. I think it will come to be developed more elaborately than has been suggested in any current proposal. You will have to introduce flexibilities both as to rate and to age in order to meet the needs of modern old folk. The hon. Member who opened this Debate referred truly to the different position of old people in these days from what it was a generation age. Life is much longer, and the health of working-class life is gradually improving. It is true that the stress of modern factory life is probably heavier than it has ever been, but, taken as a whole, elderly people will increasingly become fitter and more able to do, and desirous of doing, light work in the declining years of their working 1760 life. So I think we shall have to have a more flexible system.

This Resolution envisages no more than a step, and the question is whether that step is worth taking. That is a very simple problem. I was surprised that the hon. Gentleman who spoke last seemed to desire to oppose the Resolution as a whole. I notice that even the Labour Opposition have put down their Amendments only to certain paragraphs. I welcome the first paragraph—paragraph (a). We are all glad to see that married women and spinsters will receive the benefits that this Financial Resolution promises, and we can congratulate them upon having convinced the Treasury and Ministers of the excellence of their case. But when we come to paragraph (b), there is an obvious difference of opinion which is quite reasonable and justifiable. I am not sure that the Labour Opposition are really so deep in their opposition to paragraph (b) by itself, as some of their speeches suggest. In previous Debates we have heard that they would have been temporarily satisfied with a 5s. advance. Nobody can suggest that a 15s. pension would have been, in itself, adequate for the needs of all old people. There would still have been need for some additions, and if a 5s. flat rate increase had been granted they would probably have preferred that the addition should come from some other source than the Poor Law.

Whether or not that is their view, it is certainly mine. I do welcome the change for its own sake. If we cannot have a flat-rate increase, I still think the change from Poor Law to Unemployment Assistance Board is an improvement. I know there are those in this House who are never willing to accept a small advance if it does not go far enough to satisfy their ultimate desires, but there are many Members here whose experience leads them to know that social legislation in this country is not something to the stature of which you can generally add cubits. You have to be content with inches, and you find by experience that when you have a few inches added to the height it is easier to add a few inches more. I am always ready to accept some advance that seems to me in the true line of progress. The problem for me in this Bill is whether this paragraph is, in itself, an advance. Surely it does one very big thing. It 1761 kills the principle that underlies our existing old age pension scheme. The present system is not to provide an adequate livelihood for aged people; it is to give a flat sum, not related in any way to the living needs of old people. This Resolution lays down a completely new principle. Let me read the important words: Old age pensioners are entitled to receive supplementary pensions based on their needs. There are subsequent qualifications, but that is enough for my purpose. It is recognising for the first time that the pension, whether it is provided solely by the basic rate, or by supplementary pension as well, shall be adequate for the needs of the old people—

§ Mr. A. Bevan

Every public assistance authority at the moment is compelled to apply that test.

§ Mr. Denman

No, the whole point is that now the pensioners get Poor Law relief. At present the total livelihood is made up of pension and relief. This Resolution lays down the principle that total livelihood shall be made up of pensions. They are entitled to receive supplementary pensions based on their need. We may dislike the present proportion of basic pension and supplementary pension, and we may not approve of the method of testing need, but there is the principle laid down and the practice follows. It will be the Post Office that will pay these pensions. Old people will not go to two different bodies to receive their weekly sums. That principle is a basic principle which must be carried on in future legislation and appear in the old age pensions scheme in the ultimate form to which we expect it to grow. It is the breaking off of the pension scheme from all co-operation with the Poor Law and making pensions stand on their own feet. That is a great advance in principle. We only partially achieve it by this Resolution, I agree, but the principle is laid down as clearly as may be.

There are also practical advantages. First, there will probably be better pensions for more pensioners. On the whole it is likely that the amount will go up and that the number of people receiving these supplementary sums will be larger. Secondly, there will be relief to the ratepayers, and in the poorer areas of this country that relief will be really welcome. The present demand on the rates for old age pensions must hit the poorer areas 1762 more severely than the rich The poorer areas, with their larger number of poorer ratepayers, will be most relieved by this change. These, surely, are solid gains not lightly to be thrown away. When I am asked to accept or reject these benefits, substantial though limited, I say that these proposals, as far as they go, are in the interests of the old people in my constituency and elsewhere, and that, in consequence, I gladly support the Resolution.

§ Mr. Lansbury

I would like first of all to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) and his colleagues who have fought this question. Whatever good is to come out of this Resolution and Bill will come to old age pensioners because of the downright persistency of my hon. Friend and his friends. I think it is doubtful whether we should now be discussing this question had they not been "boys of the bulldog breed" in this respect, as some are in other respects. All the difficulties that arise in dealing with this subject arise because the country has not faced the question of old age and invalidity with the broad comprehensiveness that those who originally asked for old age pensions desired. In 1893 I attended before a Royal Commission on the aged poor. Among the members was the late King Edward, who was then Prince of Wales, and I was asked to give evidence by Mr. Charles Booth, the shipowner, who made investigations into the living conditions of the poor in London. My evidence and his advocacy were for a flat-rate pension for everybody, to start from the point of view of invalidity—not that it should rest entirely on age or that it should be for one class. His idea—and I think that if Mr. George Barnes was here he would agree, that one of the foremost pioneers was Mr. Booth—was that this question of pensions should be introduced, and that rich and poor should pay through the Consolidated Fund to enable both classes to take the pension. We can quite understand that proposition when we think of the discussions that took place on the question of payments to Members. It was then suggested payment should only be paid to those who were too poor to serve in a voluntary manner. But the good sense of Parliament swept that argument away, and my own 1763 view is that this question, and others like it, will never be satisfactorily settled until Parliament brings in a scheme for dealing with people from the point of view of invalidity.

I want to say a word about the lowering of the age for wives of insured men and the granting of pensions to spinsters at the age of 60. The argument for this household means test is that there will be people who will be at work and earning perhaps £2, £3, or £4 per week. Are you quite certain that all spinsters will leave work at 60? Are you quite certain that every workman's wife will not be at work at that age? I mention this because I want to press the point that these anomalies and the attempt to deal with them make very bad practice so far as good law is concerned. In regard to the proposal that the administration is to be taken from the Poor Law and given to the Assistance Board, I can speak from the point of view of one who has administered the means test for a good many years. I want the Committee to believe me that I have never had any difficulty in my own mind or with my friends on the question of the individual's income—that is to say, the income of the man or woman who came before me—but since 1892 there has been nothing in my experience that has caused more bitterness and more disunion in families than the hatred of this household means test.

Some of us do not seem to realise that in a working-class home the young woman and the young man have the idea that some day they too will get married and have a home of their own; and they want to be able to put away the means by which they can get their home together. I would like the Minister of Health, who on many of these questions is far ahead of his party, to face this question; that by forcing a means test, which is purely a Poor Law means test, on to this supplementary pension he is doing something which robs it of all its moral value to the people who will have to take it. Think what you are going to do. There may be a man with a big family, some of them very selfish and perhaps doing well. Some other member of the family may not be doing quite so well, but well enough to take the old father or the father and mother into his home and give them a home. What are 1764 you doing there? You are going to say to that young household, "You have to pay for the maintenance of your father and mother out of your earnings, or partially out of your earnings." You will create a very bad anomaly, and I do not understand how such a thing can be defended. I can understand the old Poor Law argument, which I always felt was very wicked, that you should go for the family wherever they are, but I cannot understand penalising a young man or a young woman who has been good enough to give the old people a home. That seems to me very bad indeed.

Further, I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman does not see that really he is spoiling a piece of social legislation which, if it had been carried out in another way, would have taken old people eligible for pensions right away from the atmosphere of the Poor Law. The right hon. Gentleman knows that until quite lately the Poor Law treated the aged and the infirm more rather than less as if it were a crime to grow old. He knows that this inquisition into the earnings of a family has kept many an old man and woman from the Poor Law and in a state of semi-starvation. I am proud to have lived long enough to see the day when so much is being done for the children and the sick, and for the unemployed. People who are not my age do not realise what the unemployed went through some 30 or 40 years ago. I know, because I lived through it. I pay no tribute to anyone but the workers themselves. They have fought and fought again for it, and in the end we have established our social services and have developed them to what they are now. It seems to me that at this time of day to impose the most hateful thing about the Poor Law on to this scheme is very bad indeed.

I want to say a word about the Assistance Board. I had some experience of the Board, and I must say that those with whom I have to deal in the East of London have done their best to administer the regulations to the best of their ability. But they cannot do it properly, in the case of the unemployed; and look what you are asking them to do for the old people. My friend Mr. James Mallon, of Toynbee Hall, is to be one of the new men. Like myself, he has an income which is quite different from that 1765 of any of the people who will come before him. I do not deny that he has had great experience in the East of London. So have I. Neither he nor I has ever had to live the kind of life that these people are living to-day. I do not think that you can really put yourself in another person's place. The figures in regard to family needs look excellent on paper. That may be an exaggeration. On paper they look passable, and one may think that probably they may be right. A sailor came to my house the other night, a man in one of our big ships which have been out in the war, bringing his mother with him. He came with regard to the means test. There is a sister at home, and that sister will not stay at home because if she does, the Admiralty will not give any allowance to the home. I think that is the height, the depth, the breadth, and the length of meanness. In the case of these old age pensioners the principle and the practice are exactly the same.

I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman between now and further discussions on the Bill to reconsider the whole question. I have listened to the figures two or three times. I do not know how much it would cost, but I am quite certain that the danger which the Chancellor of the Exchequer sees can easily be met. I believe that the man who is at work will not apply. I am certain that the number of people who would do a mean thing like that is quite small. Do not put these old people through this horrible catechism, this cross-examination; do not put them through the degradation of having to allow the Assistance Board to do what the Poor Law guardians did, that is, write to the employer of their children to find out how much their wages are and then assess how much shall be spent on the home for the individual. Make a clean break with the business altogether and treat them as individuals who are in need; and take their word. Let me say something else which experience has taught me. I have done many bad things myself, and so has everybody else. But let me say this, that in all the years I sat as chairman of a relief committee, during all the years I have had to make this beastly inquisition into the conditions of applicants, the number of people who have attempted a swindle is infinitesimal. You are going to spend an amount of money on investigations and on officials, and I do not 1766 believe for a single moment that you would lose anything if you threw yourself on the honesty of these people.

The other day I faced an audience of old people. I said to them that I believed that in these days there is is more respect for aged people than was formerly the case, though sometimes there is a sort of feeling that some of us ought to shuffle off a bit quicker than we do. I know the feeling which I have about that; it is a nasty feeling to think that you have lived too long, that you are in somebody's way, that you are a burden on somebody because your health has failed. When I looked at these old people, some of them as old as I, some of them in the seventies, I asked myself, and I beg the right hon. Gentleman to ask himself, how many of them would really want to swindle the State, how many of them would want to lie and cheat? I was looking at men and women who had borne the burden and heat of the day in industry and who, in my judgment, deserved something better than to be kept on a starvation level with such a pension. They deserve something better than to be left to throw themselves upon the mercy of their children, to become a burden to their children. It is said that the burden on the rates is too heavy and should be taken away. If the burden is too heavy for all the ratepayers, surely it is too heavy a burden for small families to bear. If it is a burden which the whole community of Poplar cannot bear, individual families ought not to be called upon to bear it. Whilst I am glad, very glad, that Bumbledom is getting another blow, whilst I am very glad that either those who at present deal with non-contributory pensioners or the Unemployment Assistance Board are going to do this job, I feel that the whole benefit of what is now being offered is vitiated by the introduction of this terrible principle of the household means test.

§ Colonel Burton

One feels, after listening to the speech of the right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), that nobody, in this House or out of it, would wish that he should shuffle off in any hurry. I have been in this House for many years, and we have always listened with the greatest respect to what he has to say, because we know that he has an intimate knowledge of the things of which he speaks. One feels especially 1767 ready to listen to him because he has grown up along with all this gamut of legislation, which I believe with him to be a very good thing but which is, unfortunately, blotted by this means test. Going about in connection with A.R.P. and other duties which devolve upon us in these unfortunate times, we must be struck with the existence of a tremendous amount of what one might call genteel poverty—people trying to keep up appearances who are in very unfortunate circumstances, trying to exist on what may be called this miserable pension, too proud to go to anybody for further assistance. I am glad indeed that the Government have at long last recognised the claims of the spinsters and that they are to have this pension from the age of 60. Thousands of them are women who during the last war gave up their jobs and took on other jobs in order to allow men to go away to fight, and now, after a quarter of a century of loyal service, they find themselves thrown on the industrial scrap-heap with nothing to look forward to but public assistance or private charity.

To ask women who, not to put it too high, are in the main of genteel birth to try to live on 10s. a week is to ask too much. At least we might have gone this far—having regard to the fact that the cost of living has risen, we might have increased the pensions all round by the amount of the extra cost of living. That would have helped. The means test seems to be one of those things which is abhorrent to us as a nation. I have a letter from a woman whom I know very well, in which she says: My husband died last year. He was in a non-contributory occupation. We had screwed and saved for our old age We had managed to buy our bungalow and had saved a few pounds besides. I am 73 years old. I applied for the pension. A gentleman came to my house, and when I told him what I had he said he thought I was outside the assessment, and I do not get anything at all. That means that this poor woman will have to spend the rest of her capital, perhaps to pawn her house and to break up her home. Finally, when she is destitute we shall give her 10s. a week. If we are going to reduce the nation to paupers, let us say so and have done with it. Let us be straightforward. Last July we had an interesting Debate upon this very question. The Prime Minister said then 1768 that he did not think that 10s. a week was enough for an old person to live on, but the reason the Government had not responded to the claims made was that we were in the middle of a Defence programme which it was impossible for us to abandon or even temporarily to postpone and which was putting upon the country a financial strain which was altogether unexampled. We are under that strain now, and the greater the burden becomes the greater will be the strain on those who are endeavouring to live on the present pension. I have here another letter which reveals a worse state of affairs. The lady says: I see that you are going to discuss the money of the old age pensioners. As many M.Ps. do not have to live on 10s. a week"— Here I should like to say that I think the right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley scored a point when he said that his friend Mallon, who is one of those who will administer this business, does not have to live on 10s. a week and, therefore, is not able to sympathise with these people. We may pity them, but there can only be sympathy where there is a kindred spirit. The letter goes on: —perhaps you will be able to tell me how I am going to manage. My rent is 4s. 9d.. my paraffin stove and lamp in this cold weather cost me 1s. 4d. a week, and I am left with 3s. 11d. for food and clothing. I have been advised to go into an institution, but after a long life of hard and honest work I would rather die. If it had not been for the kindness of the doctor I should have done so. The Prime Minister said that the standard of living of the wealthy has already noticeably declined. When the standard of living so declines all round that we all have to live on 3s. 11d. a week, it seems to me that something will be done. I had hoped that more generosity would be shown in this matter. I had hoped that we should not see this great inquisition into the means of people, this summing-up of the little less or the little more. I had hoped that if there were to be inquiries, we should have some more humane method of getting the assessment than exists at the present time. The "Sunday Express" reported the case of a woman who had applied to the Minister of Pensions because her son, aged 17, had lost his life in a torpedoed vessel. Her son used to send her £1 every fortnight, and helped in other ways. She was refused a pension because her husband was 1769 still alive, although he was unemployed. Call these committees what you like, things seem wrong when we get a case like that. Whether the work is done by the Unemployment Assistance Board or by some benevolent association, so long as we have the same personnel we shall have the same trouble. I would ask that some more kindly arrangement should be made.

I live in a village. Do not let these people have to go before a committee of people who live in their village. The position is bad enough for those who live in a big city. Do not ask these people to discuss their private affairs before their neighbours. Cannot we appoint people of sympathy and kindness who would go to visit the applicants rather than that the applicants should be called up before them? These boards are all very well but they all seem to be tarred with the same brush. I hope that when we get into Committee on this Bill we shall be able to find ways and means of making the path more easy for these old people. The Committee is agreed that the old people must be allowed to live. The one fundamental thing that seems to divide us is the degree of vitality we are going to allow them.

§ Mr. Barr

I count myself happy in following the hon. and gallant Member for Sudbury (Colonel Burton). The least I can do is to congratulate him on the courage, the independence, and the generous spirit with which he has spoken. I too address myself to this Financial Resolution as it bears upon the means test; and, first of all, on the question of thrift. I should like to read a letter on the subject which I have received from a correspondent. The letter, which is dated 1st February, 1940, reads: At the age of 18 years I joined a friendly society and paid into it until 65 years of age—for 47 years. Among other benefits paid for was a superannuation allowance, for which I receive now 7s. weekly. When the means test is applied, I am not likely to get an increase because my wife and I get 10s. a week each as old age pensions, plus 7s. superannuation which I have already paid for; or if I get an increase at all, it will be on a reduced scale, while the ne'er-do-weel will get the maximum benefit. It is interesting to recall that when the non-contributory pensions scheme was introduced in 1908, the main objection of 1770 those who opposed it was on the very ground of its detrimental application to thrift and to approved societies. The Right Hon. Sir Henry Chaplin, who led the opposition, declared that: It was absolutely discouraging to thrift and would be injurious to friendly societies in the noble and great work which had been accomplished by them. If hon.members on the Government side wish to get a condemnation of some of the present proposals of the Government, they will get it by going back and reading what was said by their predecessors. Sir Henry Chaplin and Mr. Harold Cox, in1908. I address myself to the matter next from the point of view of the independence of the pensioner. We speak of moral independence and spiritual independence, but these are based also on a certain material independence. What is that material independence? It is that a man should have something substantial, not needing any supplementation, something he can call his own, the reward for his own industry, deferred payment, if you like, something that he holds in his own right, and which provides him with a home or a share in a home. The Minister of Health and the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to follow me, as no doubt the whole Committee will, if I quote a well-known verse of Robert Burns: To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her; And gather gear by every wile That's justified by honour; Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent. But a person has not that glorious privilege if he has to wait for a supplementation, to be assessed in an inquisition before the Assistance Board; he has not that glorious privilege if he is dependent upon his family who are perhaps themselves also struggling, and if he has no worthy competence of his own to support his needs. I come now to the dignity of the home, and the question how it is affected by the application of a means test. To put it in plain Scots, a man in Scotland wants to have a "hoose o' his ain." In England it is put still more picturesquely—"An Englishman's home is his castle." I think that one of the most eloquent passages in English literature is the comment of Lord Chatham on the maxim of English Law that every man's house is his castle:

1771 The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail—its roof may shake—the wind may blow through it—the storm may enter—the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement. Under this scheme, as now so widely applied, the working man's home is no longer to be his castle. At any rate, it can have no turrets, no pinnacles, no adornments; it must be in the plain pattern fixed by the Assistance Board, it must be according to a uniform pattern of mass construction in the building of homes. It is reminiscent of the miner's rows which my hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan and Eastern (Mr. Woodburn) knows so well, and of which I have known in my own country, where each of the houses is the same as the others, and it would be an offence if one of them had independence enough to rise above the others. Under this system, as now so widely applied, we are to have what two distinguished authors, Disraeli and Kingsley spoke of as "the two nations"—the two cities, in one of which there are to be those to whom no means test applies, and in the other the regimented almoners of the State. The fact of the matter is that instead of giving the working man a castle you are now giving him an almshouse, in a row of almshouses, uniform and regimented.

The excuse that is made is that the finances cannot be found for a flat-rate increase at the present time, but I have taken the trouble to read the Debates in the House on all the schemes that have been introduced from 1908 to the present time, and that is a plea which has been put forward every time. In 1908, it was said by those who led the Opposition. Sir Henry Chaplin declared that the scheme could not possibly be financed under the Free Trade system then existing, and that there must be fiscal reform before it could be financed. It rather looks as if fiscal reform had broken down under the burden—but I do not intend to enter into a controversy on that matter. Sir Henry Chaplin said of the 1908 Bill: The most material objection of all to the Bill was that no indication whatever had been given to the House as to the methods of taxation which would be necessary. Yet, after all those sad prognostications, the Bill went forward. Those who 1772 opposed it were frightened because it was to cost £7,500,000. The scheme withstood all the readjustments that were necessary during the last war, and it proved sufficient for all the expansions that came in 1919 and 1924. Under it the number of pensioners increased from 701,678 on 31st March, 1911, to 1,701,193 on 31st March, 1926; and instead of £7,500,000, the non-contributory pensions now amount to £49,000,000, and vast additional imposts have been made for other social services. There are progress and buoyancy in finance, which expands with human progress, and with every expansion of human need.

I have one other objection to make against this scheme. It is really giving pensions on the cheap. We have not been told what is to be the cost of what is to be given to the spinsters. I have taken no inconsiderable part in that movement. I have addressed large meetings of spinsters in the St. Andrew's Hall in Glasgow; and when this Bill was introduced I took the occasion to write to Miss Florence White, of Bradford, and Miss Gunn, of Glasgow, to congratulate them on their great triumph, and to say that it was very rare in so short a time for a great movement of that sort to come into its own. We do not know what is to be the cost of that part of the scheme, but we do know how small is the cost of that other reform, which also I have always advocated, of allowing a married woman to come into the pension if her husband is 65 when she is 60. We know what that is to cost, because on 14th May, 1936, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury declared that the cost of such a reform would be £3,750,000 only in the first year, and that in 10 years' time it would be £4,750,000. Now, with the added payments that are to be made, it is to be a much smaller contribution than that altogether. Indeed, these concrete proposals are a kind of line of least resistance—the very least that could be done, one might say. I will close my remarks by recalling my days at Glasgow University as a student of philosophy. I should like to read a passage from Aristotle's Ethics, which is in exact contrast to this scheme and this Government. Hon. Members will recall that Aristotle describes all the different kinds of men, but when he comes to his ideal man, the man who does everything magnificently, this is what he says:

1773 His magnificence is suitable expenditure on a great scale, and on great objects. Moreover, he will spend gladly and lavishly, since nice calculation is shabby. And he will think how he can carry out the project most nobly and spendidly, rather than how much it will cost, and how it can be done most cheaply. The Government in this case have calculated how much it will cost, and for how little it can be done, and how it can be carried out most cheaply, instead of doing it, as they should have done it, in Aristotle's words, "most nobly and most splendidly."

§ Mr. Ellis Smith

If I had had the opportunity of speaking during the Second Reading Debate on the Bill, my speech would have consisted of a condemnation of the Bill itself. We are now considering the Money Resolution, and I desire to make an analysis both of the Money Resolution and of the Measure itself. First, I wish to put a question to the Parliamentary Secretary. On Tuesday last, when the Minister of Health was speaking, there was a number of interruptions from HON.MEMBERS on this side which will be found in columns 1213 and 1214 of the Official Report. The object of those interruptions was to ascertain from the Minister what would be the position of our people when they came to apply for supplementation. Our anxiety in this matter is based upon experience of the administration of the Unemployment Assistance Board. Some time ago I asked the Minister of Labour to state in the OFFICIAL REPORT the scales which were being paid in all administrative areas. I was surprised to find—I speak from memory, but I think my memory is accurate—that, taking all the administrative areas, there was a variation in payments, on the average, of 6s. per applicant. We are anxious that that condition of things should not apply in the case of old age pensions.

In our view, a national scale ought to be laid down and placed in the Schedule to the Bill, and the Committee is entitled to know on what ground such a scale is not to be attached to the Bill. Further, I wish to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether it is intended that the scale to be applied shall be at least as good as the best local authority scales at present? The interpretation which we put—I think rightly—on the speech of the Minister last 1774 week was that the Government intended that the maximum scale paid by any local authority should be the minimum scale to be paid by the Assistance Board. I think we are confirmed in that interpretation by a passage in last week's Debate. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) said: If the statement made recently by the Chancellor of the Exchequer means anything it means that the examination having been made once, then for all practical purposes the matter is settled. Hon. Members on this side were surprised at that statement and showed their surprise by certain interruptions, and the hon. Member for East Fife then went on to say: I speak subject to correction and in the presence of the Ministers responsible for the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1940; col. 1268, Vol. 357.] No answer was made to the hon. Member when he placed that interpretation on the Chancellor's statement. We say that the broad interpretation to be placed on that statement is that the maximum which is paid at present by local authorities in supplementation of pensions should be the minimum scale, for purposes of guidance. We also say that it should be placed in a Schedule to the Bill, in order that there shall be no doubt that it is a scale for the guidance and benefit of the Assistance Board in its work throughout the country.

I come now to deal with the means test. Those of us who live among the ordinary people know that the great mass of our people are steady throughout their lives. Now, as a result of being steady, they are to be penalised by this Measure. Most of our people join friendly societies; many of them join trade unions. In my union we pay 2s. a week for friendly society purposes, superannuation purposes and industrial purposes. This means that many of our members pay from the age of 14 to the age of 65 in order that they may have something to assist them in their old age. Because they have thus deprived themselves during the whole of their working lives in order to save up for their old age, they will be penalised by the Bill. In addition—and our people speak bitterly of this—some of them have been paying under National Health Insurance from 1912 onwards. Now, on reaching the age of 65, they find that the maximum pension available for them is 10s. a week. It is true that they can have that pension 1775 supplemented, but they looked upon National Health Insurance as insurance for pensions and for sickness benefit. We see no reason why the minimum scale of pension should not have been increased, instead of forcing people to be subject to the Assistance Board, as they will be if this Resolution and the Bill are passed. The Bill says in effect to our people, "You have been steady all your life, but you ought to have spent your money; you ought not to have prepared for old age." That is the logic of the Bill. The Government say, "Those ideas were all right in the Elizabethan period and even in the Victorian period, but we are now living in the means test period."

Let me give two examples of how this Money Resolution will work. Suppose there is an old couple, one of whom becomes unwell or dies. A son or daughter comes to live with the old father or mother. That is a spirit which ought to be encouraged. That is family life as we understand it, the family life on which our nation has been built up in the past. But the Bill says that in those circumstances the father or mother should be satisfied with 10s.a week. If the sons and daughters say, "Why should we have to keep our father or mother?" then the Bill says that 10s. is not enough and that the supplementary pension is necessary. Those are examples in our everyday experience which could be multiplied many times. We are reinforced in our view of the means test by the opinions expressed at various conferences of public-spirited people held throughout the land under the auspices of all kinds of organisations. For example, at the Church Congress in 1938, Canon Roger Lloyd, of Winchester, during a discussion on the Christian social order, condemned the means test as "wholly damnable. "He said that he believed the voluntary members of public assistance committees did their best to administer it kindly, but, he added, the damnation of the means test was not its administration, but the scheme itself. That is a view, not of people on this side, but of a man who must have examined the effects of the application of this principle, and all public-spirited people, particularly those who live in industrial areas, are bound to come to that conclusion.

1776 Last Thursday the hon. Member for Windsor (Sir A. Somerville) made a reference to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) in relation to the means test. After the personal statement which was made, a number of us on this side felt very uneasy, and I think it essential that at the first available opportunity the facts should be placed on record. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield did, it is true, issue Circular 1069 on 3rd January, 1930. This circular pointed out how far boards of guardians could go in the direction of more generous administration and improved poor relief. The "Manchester Guardian" next day had a leading article which contained the following statement: This circular is a shining example of the way in which conditions can be bettered without legislation. The memorandum indicates a complete change of spirit. It is, therefore, clear that the charge made by the hon. Member for Windsor is false, and it is essential that we should examine the position to see who was responsible for the introduction of the means test. The people who were responsible for suggesting the introduction of a means test in this country were the Federation of British Industries and the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations. If any hon. or right hon. Gentlemen doubt that statement, let them examine the two documents which I have here, published by those two organisations in December, 1931. It is not true to say—whether it is said on the other side of the Committee, or on this side, or anywhere else—that there was any real means test, as it is administered to-day, in operation in this country prior to 1931. Those two organisations were responsible for the suggestion that it should be brought into operation, and it was the National Government of 1931 which applied it.

The reason why we, on this side, are becoming so annoyed and so bitter about this matter is that apparently a step backward is now being taken in regard to it. First it was stated that the means test would be applied only for a limited period. In 1931 it was said that it was being applied only in order to get us out of our financial difficulties. But we have seen it applied more and more ever since, and eventually to all the unemployed who have exhausted their insurance benefit. Then we found it applied to soldiers' dependants. Further, the suggestion is made 1777 that it should apply to workers who are injured through no fault of their own. Now it is to be applied to our old people when they reach the age of 65.

I know that many of my hon. Friends desire to take part in this Debate. I heard it remarked that an all-night sitting would be necessary to-night if all those who desired to speak on this subject were to have the opportunity of doing so. I wish to set the example of being as brief as possible in order that all HON.MEMBERS who wish to do so can express their indignation at these proposals and the effect which they will have on particular localities. Therefore, I want to conclude with these words of John Morley, which, I think, can be applied to this Money Resolution and to the Bill: A small and temporary improvement may really be the worst enemy of a great and permanent improvement. A small reform, if it be not made in reference to some large progressive principle, and with a view to a further extension of its scope, makes it all the more difficult to return to the right line and direction when improvement is again demanded. This applies to the principle of the means test, and, if we are to be true to our own people, we have to vote against it as it is applied at the present time, and has been applied ever since 1931.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir William Allen

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to take part in this Debate. I feel, after having listened to the Prime Minister and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer some time ago, that they are the people who ought to be on the Front Bench hearing the speeches this afternoon. If the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health had her wish I think she would give way at once on the question of the means test. It is, however, a question entirely for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and for the Cabinet, and that is why we should have a Cabinet Minister present this afternoon. The hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) referred to 1931, when there was no means test in this country, but, unfortunately, we in Ireland had had experience of it long before that in connection with the pensions of the Royal Irish Constabulary. These are men who have done noble service for their country and who are subjected to a means test, the like of which has never yet been introduced in this country.

1778 It has been going on for years and years, and every time that I have appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on their behalf it has been without avail.

What is it that we are doing now? We are making regulations for the future. When any of us have cases—perhaps in connection with a soldier's widow's pension—and we bring them to the House or raise them with the Minister of Pensions, the answer is generally, "Oh, we are up against the regulations." The Minister of Pensions was asked a Question this afternoon by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson): 'How long he has had under consideration the application of Mr. F. Williams, an old age pensioner, of 39, Bloomsbury Street, Cheltenham, for an increase in the pension of 10s. a week he is receiving at present for the loss of all his three sons in the Great War; and whether he is now able to announce that the amount of the pension will be restored to the 13s. 4d. a week granted to Mr. Williams in 1932, when his financial position was better than it is now? By a gracious act of the Minister, that sum has been restored from 10s. to 13s. 4d. for the loss of three sons in the Great War. Time after time, on questions affecting regulations, Ministers have told the House that the regulations were passed by the House and that, therefore, they could not get over them. Now we are passing regulations again for the future in regard to these old people. There are old people in Northern Ireland, as in this country, who appeal to their Members of Parliament. Some of them have made little collections during their lifetime, and now, because of that, they are to be penalised. The thing is all wrong. Why cannot we treat these old people fairly and decently? There comes a time in their lives when they cannot plead for themselves, and they have to depend upon the House of Commons to treat them liberally, generously, and magnanimously, but we have a Bill before us which is no credit to the House of Commons. If these old folk are deserving of their little pension of 5s., why not give it to everyone of them without this beastly means test? There is feeling all over the country on this question; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to make up his mind that it will not go down with the people.

The argument has been used again and again that we have not the means and money for pensions. When the Income 1779 Tax was raised from 7d. to 9d., it was said then that the nation was going to rack and ruin. Now we find it is 7s. 6d. in the pound and perhaps, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces his Budget this year he may even ask for a little more than that to pay for the war. I wish that he was here this afternoon so that I, for my part, might raise my voice and use my influence with him in order that these people once and for all may be completely rid of the abomination called the means test. However, I hope the Chancellor will read the Debate which has taken place. I should not like to be on one of the boards or committees to which the pensioners will have to state the amount of their little savings. There are, I am afraid, very few of us on this side of the Committee attending this very important Debate, but I have no doubt that when the Division bell rings there will be some to support the Government who are taxing us and asking us to be subservient on this occasion to their wishes.

I beg the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health to tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the feeling there is in the Committee with regard to the means test and to impress upon him that it is an expression of the feeling of the country as a whole. When a military pension question comes before us, and we write to the Minister of Pensions, we are told that it is against the regulations to pay any more money, but here is an opportunity for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make such regulations as will make it possible to pay, whatever the cost may be. It is up to him to do that. We shall have an opportunity in the next few days to appeal to him to do something more than is now proposed.

§ Mr. W. A. Robinson

I want to thank the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down for his contribution to the Debate. For myself I only trouble the Committee when I feel strongly on a question that is before it, and this is a question on which I feel deeply. I want to prove that definitely and indubitably this means test is a tax on thrift. It is evident that the means test is creeping like paralysis over every benefit inside this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is, I am sure, just the gentleman who would help 1780 along the grave disease of taxing thrift. Take the case in my own Division of a naval pensioner of the last war. He was receiving £2 10s. per week and was helping his widowed mother. He responded to the country's call and lost his life in the "Courageous." The pension from the last war is now saved by the Government and they have told the widowed mother that she can have nothing. Under pressure, I have succeeded in obtaining a promise from the Minister of Pensions of a grant of 4s., but the widow refused to accept it and is still determined to fight and resist this wretched tax on thrift. What is her crime? It is that her sons years ago saved £175 for her. The death of her son in the service of the country does not matter, and she is to have nothing from this wretched Government by way of pension. We can all mention cases of that description. One does not want to be rude or offensive. The Parliamentary Secretary is the last person in the world I can trust in allocating pensions because she has tried to prove for some years now that working-class people do not know how to cook and feed children. She says that if only they knew the value of carrots and cold water they would be better off.

§ Miss Horsbrugh

This subject of carrots has come up again, but may I point out that in every health document that has gone out with regard to the food of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and in instructions for dietary throughout the country, carrots have at last come into their own.

The Temporary Chairman (Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward)

The subject of carrots has been raised, but it is not relevant, and for the rest of the Debate we had better leave it alone.

§ Mr. Robinson

I entirely agree. I want to refer to the important initiation in this Bill of a right which has been recognised by the trade union movement ever since its inception, that is the right of members to take benefits without a means test. I am now 62 and have been in my trade union organisation since I was 18. In my 44 years' experience means were never asked about when we drew a benefit for which we had contributed. A member pays 1s. 4d. a week and when the time comes for him to draw benefit for sickness and unemployment he receives his benefit and no questions are 1781 asked. It is a dangerous venture to apply a means test of any kind to the contributory pensions scheme. I would beg the Minister to have a further chat with the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to its abolition. It is not too late to abolish it. I know the case of a lady of 83 whose husband died many years ago. In the household is a daughter of 51, who had to go out to work in order to keep her mother. There is also a grandson who is working. The old lady is receiving 10s. a week pension and her daughter, instead of going out to work, ought to be at home nursing her. The Unemployment Assistance Board will get busy on this household and this old lady of 83 will be questioned as to how much her daughter and grandson are earning. This old lady produced lads who died as a result of the last war. This means test is mean, nasty and distasteful and should be abolished without delay. For heaven's sake let the Minister at once consult the Chancellor of the Exchequer in an endeavour to remove the grievance we have against the Bill. This may save him from a degradation that the existence in the Bill of a means test will involve.

§ Mr. McGovern

This is the first opportunity I have had of taking part in a Debate on old age pensions, although, in common with Members on every side, I have for many years been active in demanding that justice should be do