Orders of the Day — Workmen's Compensation (Supplementary Allowances) Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 30 April 1940.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Gordon Macdonald Mr Gordon Macdonald , Ince

I cannot believe that the Home Secretary feels happy. All the speeches which I have heard except two have been in opposition to this Bill. When the right hon. Gentleman sat down at the end of his speech he seemed quite content, but I feel certain that that contentment will vanish rapidly. I desire to respond to his appeal, and I will confine myself to what this Bill is expected to do and to the question whether it does what it is expected to do. The right hon. Gentleman reminded us many times that this Bill is introduced in war-time and that we cannot expect to receive a Bill introduced in time of war such as we should expect had it been introduced in peace-time. I do not think it is for the Home Secretary to keep on reminding us of that. He has a very large responsibility for having delayed the production of such a Bill in pre-war days. We have been pressing for years for something to be done to improve the position of the injured worker. I was exceedingly pleased with the speech of the hon. Member for Hitchin (Sir A. Wilson), because he has been much criticised for the attitude he has taken on this question in the past. The responsibility for this Bill has been placed on his shoulders to some extent, and he has very wisely repudiated it.

I oppose the supplementation part of this Bill, because it introduces in wartime a drastic change in compensation principles. I am not yet converted to the principle of family allowances; but, even if I were, I should protest against bringing them in by a subterfuge—which is what this Bill seems to do. No doubt, there is something to be said for family allowances, and there is very much to be said against them. The effect of them is not to increase the total wages, but to divide those wages up differently, and to penalise the single man or the man without children, in order to give a little more to the man with children. I do not think that now, in the middle of a war, is the time to introduce such a drastic change in the principles of workmen's compensation. I hope the Home Secretary will not tell us that there will be no anomalies when this Bill is passed. It will create its full share of anomalies. The Royal Commission which is now sitting has been made the excuse, times out of number, for failing to introduce a Bill to deal with compensation. This present Bill is an indication to the Commission of what the Government think about compensation. The Commission will have to report at some time, and they cannot disregard the law of the land when they do so. I consider that a suggestion to them, conveyed in this way, is very unfair; and I think it is also very unfair to use the war as a pretext for such a suggestion. I am quite convinced that when the trade unions were consulted by the right hon. Gentleman they never agreed to such a scheme as this.

When I look at the rates provided for in the Bill, I am staggered. Why did the Government decide on 5s. for a wife and 3s. for a child? Who determined that? The insurance companies? It was not the public assistance committees. They would never agree to 5s. for a wife, or 3s. for a child. If anybody asked me what should be the rate of compensation for an injured worker, I would say that it should be sufficient to enable him to maintain his wife and children decently, and also to enable him to recuperate and return to work. Does this Bill do that? It will be said that it is an improvement on the present position. In so far as it is an improvement for some, I welcome it, but surely the Home Secretary will not suggest that, in laying down these figures of 5s. for a wife and 3s. for a child, he has done what ought to be done for the injured workman. I know a case of a workman who was injured after working for 12 months on short time. His pre-accident earnings were 38s. per week. For that, he worked every day that the pit worked during those 12 months. He is now getting 22s. a week compensation. He has a wife and three children. Under the Bill he would get 36s. but for the fact that that amount is more than seven-eighths of his pre-accident earnings. That man, with a wife and three children, may receive only seven-eighths of his pre- accident earnings of 38s. a week. Does the Home Secretary consider that a Bill which allows such a payment to be made is a good Bill?

The Bill permits the compensation to include an allowance for a wife only if the man was married at the time of his injury. That is very unfair. I know of scores of cases, as other hon. Members do also, of young men who meet with injuries when they are expecting to get married. They are to be told that they cannot participate in the small benefits provided by this Bill, because they were not married at the time they were injured. Why is the benefit allowed in respect of children to end when the children reach the age of 15? Why should the Income Tax payer be more generously treated in this respect than the injured worker? The Home Secretary said that all pre-1924 cases enjoyed the benefits of the Act which was passed in the last war, and, that therefore, they were not to benefit from this Bill. But I can show him a case of a man who was injured before 1924, who has never done a stroke of work since, and never will again, who spends most of his time in bed because of an injury to his back, and who is getting no benefit from that Act. Why should not such a man, who has suffered agony for 17 years, be allowed to benefit under this Bill? If there are men who would be better off under this Bill than they are under previous legislation, will the right hon. Gentleman consider bringing them under the Bill?

We are dealing with a very fine body of people, men who have been injured in serving this country's cause, and I do not see why their children should be treated in a more niggardly way than the children of other people. I have friends in North Wales who are receiving 8s. 6d. a week for each evacuated child in their households. I may be told that the position of the children of the injured worker is different from the position of the children of other fathers. You may agree, but the position of the injured father is entirely different from that of the unemployed father, and the right hon. Gentleman has no right to use that argument. He will find that in many cases these men are anxious to get back into industry, which will need them back to strength and vigour at their job if this war continues. My opposition is not based upon party lines. My sole opposition to the Bill—and I appreciate all the good things in it—is based on the fact that it does not provide for a very deserving class of this country that to which they are entitled.