Orders of the Day — Social Insurance and Allied Services

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 18 February 1943.

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Mr. McNeil:

I should like to join with the hon. and gallant Member for Preston (Captain Cobb) in the hopes with which he concluded his speech. On this side of the House, certainly as far as concerns those who have put their names to the Labour Amendment, we hoped most earnestly that this Debate might take place without controversy and that the Debate might have offered something constructive to the country. The hon. Member seems to think that the responsibility for the controversy rests with tins-side of the House. I will attempt to show that in that he is quite wrong, No one on this side expected miracles, no one expected that the Government, after 10 weeks of consideration, would be able to say their first and last word on this voluminous Report; but the reason for our Amendment, the reason for the anxiety on this side of the House, is that after ten weeks of consideration, after two days of Debate, and after hearing two Cabinet Ministers speak in the Debate, we still have not one unqualified promise from the Government as to their intentions. The hon. and learned Member for North Croydon (Mr. Willink), who made an excellent and constructive speech in discussing the actual framework of administration, said that the Debate would be remembered for the landmark which the Government had set up, and he pointed to the pledges given regarding children's allowances as an example of what he meant.

From a careful reading of the speeches of the Lord President of the Council and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is clear that we have no unqualified promise even about children's allowances. At first it appeared from the Lord President of the Council that this was so. I had better add here that I and many of my colleagues did not feel committed to the figure of 8s. Many of us would say most freely that if the Government intend, as the Lord President suggested, to extend the welfare services, we might consider this a better proposal with a sum of 5s. than a proposal of 8s. without any assurances about children's welfare services. But the Lord President, in summing up, apparently made it plain that even this instalment of the plan, which, as the hon. and learned Member for North Croydon indicated, might stand outside the plan, cannot be implemented until the Government have considered the whole plan. The Chancellor then told us that there is a further qualification, which is that the Government when their survey is completed must still consider the costs of their intentions in relation to the existing financial circumstances. Thus, apparently, the claims that various Government speakers have made that the Government are accepting the principles of the Report are inaccurate and untrue.

The Government still have to tell the House what they mean to do about any one proposal of the Beveridge Report and about the Report as a whole. I would like to observe that in at least three points made, with these qualifications, by the Lord President of the Council, the principles of the Beveridge Report are negated, or at any rate pushed off by the Government. I would like also to refer to one part of the Report which, I accept, quite frankly, as not an essential part in the proposals of the Report, but from which the Government have fled, and that is the proposal relating to industrial assurance. The Lord President and the Chancellor quite properly prefaced their remarks by indulging in great caution about costs and very improperly both of them ran away from this proposal, the only one which, if it would not have put money directly into the Exchequer, would have saved the community a considerable amount. It is a dreadful thing when one sees the big stick of big business being so blatantly effective across the backs of the Administration.

There is no industry in the country for which there is a clearer case for rationalisation. There is no industry where apparently there is greater extravagance. There is no kind of allied aspect of social insurance which could planly be run so economically from a central national machine as this, and without any explanation or any argument, except that the Government already had too much on their slate, and without any apology to the House, this proposal is dumped overboard. Many of us on this side are very suspicious about the inference that we must deduce from that attitude. During this war we have seen the machinery of credit controlled for the purposes of war, and we hoped we were going to see a Government bold enough to declare that they would continue to control this same machinery, and perhaps extend the control, for the purposes of peace, but if the Government are afraid to face up to the Burial Barons, there is not much reason for us to suppose that they will face up to the men who behind the scenes manipulate bank policy, the price of money and the direction and flow of credit and investment in time of peace. I agree, however, that that is not factual and is not native to the discussion.

The Government have claimed that they have accepted the principle of the Report. The Lord President of the Council made it plain that the Government will not accept the principle of a subsistence allowance in connection with any of the pensions or insurance schemes. The essential base of this whole series of propoals is to wipe out want, and if they say they cannot accept subsistence as the criterion, obviously no real attempt is being made to tackle want. I should be dishonest and cheap if I suggested that it was a simple matter. It is not a simple matter. There are difficulties, but they are not insoluble. There are Members on this side who think they know the answer. Even if we are not going so far as to say it can be done by the taxation of land values it must become a very real consideration for the House, with the increasing proportion of houses which will have to be an Exchequer and local government responsibility, if there is not a very strong argument for going the whole way and saying the State should become the only landlord of all domestic residents. Moreover, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Croydon, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and certainly the Lord President, referred to the fluctuating figure of the cost of living and said, "If you are going to attempt to define subsistence, you must relate subsistence to this fluctuating figure," and they said they could not commit themselves to anything but a flat rate for contributions and for scales of benefit. But we have already had a scheme which to some extent varied in relation to the cost of living, and the Minister of Health can tell us, though he had some slight difficulty in the House from Members, particularly on this side, about the Assistance Board scales. They have not worked so badly. There are at least three great industries which vary their wages from month to month. What is the impossibility about variation in response to cost of living fluctuations? That is not a sufficient alibi for running away from this fundamental conception that your scales must be based upon subsistence.

The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Croydon assumes that the interruptions in the Lord President's speech about the status of the voluntary hospitals were not relevant to our consideration. If he meant that doctrinal assumptions should have no place in our considerations, I agree with him, but if he was suggesting that the voluntary hospitals and private practitioners can remain unchanged despite the commitments which the Government have assumed to develop a comprehensive medical service, he is under an obligation to tell the House more about how he would devise this scheme, because the Minister of Health has told us three times, as far as I can read his speech and hear his words, and examine and cross-examine his answers, that there is nothing sacrosanct about any type of institution within the medical framework just now and that, by agreement if possible, with discussion always, a comprehensive service will be made available, and there can be no interest that can stand outside and say, We are immune from any changes that you may make.