Clause 1. — (Extension of right to widows' pensions.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 11 November 1929.

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Photo of Mr John Remer Mr John Remer , Macclesfield

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) upon what I regarded as one of the most sincere and honest speeches that I have heard in this Chamber for a very long time. It is very seldom that I have listened to a speech that has impressed me more; the hon. Member was obviously speaking from the very bottom of his heart on matters which he very well understood. I must say that I have very great misgivings as to where we are going in these questions of pensions. How far is the political game going to be carried in this matter? I made an appeal earlier to-day that an Amendment which I moved should be treated on a non-party basis. Some people may offer pensions at 55, another party may offer them at 45, some one else might say 35, and still some one else might come forward and promise them at birth. There ought to be some kind of analogy in this matter.

If there is one thing that the speech of the hon. Member for Gorbals did, it was to expose to the full the organised hyprocrisy of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who knows quite well that he and his party and various other Gentlement sitting on the Front Bench, some of them Cabinet Ministers, promised at the last General Election all kinds of things which they must have known, being intelligent persons, that they had not the slightest hope of carrying into effect. I have the utmost contempt particularly for the right hon. Gentleman, who knows quite well what the Foreign Secretary promised, what the Prime Minister promised, and what he himself promised, and is now coming along and making what I may call a Conservative speech, the same kind of speech which he knows quite well was made by the late Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and also by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston (Mr. Chamberlain). How can he dare to sit on that bench, with the knowledge in his mind of the promises which he made, and say that he is not going to give all these pensions which he has promised? As far as I am concerned, it will be my intention to vote against "fifty-five" standing part, and I shall vote with my hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby in favour of wiping out the age limit altogether.

If the question of the justice of the Measure be examined, it must be realised that if you are going to look at need, which the Prime Minister mentioned at the last General Election, a woman between the ages of 45 and 50 is in greater difficulties as regards earning her living than a woman between the ages of 55 and 60. Taking the case which I have already mentioned this evening, of the widow of a commercial traveller with nine children—