Workmen's Compensation Rates

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 May 1952.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Iain Macleod Mr Iain Macleod , Enfield West 12:00, 2 May 1952

I will not follow the point, because it is not one with which we can deal in question and answer and I assume that the hon. Member does not intend to develop it.

The Industrial Injuries Fund, it is true, has a very large surplus indeed. I do not know the exact figure at the moment, but it is £30 million more than it was a year ago and has considerably increased since. On that basis, the money for what we seek to do is there, but it is fair to remember that that Fund was bound to have a surplus in its early years, in the same way as the National Insurance Fund, and would have failed entirely in its object if it had not.

It is also fair to observe that it is already bearing the burden of bringing the pre-1924 cases up to the average of the workmen's compensation figure, and, in addition, it is bearing the unemployability and constant attendance allowances for these men as well. Although I concede that a case can fairly be made in that respect and that the money is there, I believe that there is in fact a better way.

Let me say one word about the possibility of assimilation. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) is in his place. I think that it is fair to say that probably there was nothing nearer his heart in the years when he was Minister of National Insurance than the hope of bringing the workmen's compensation cases into the new scheme. His Parliamentary Secretary, in 1945, said that it was hoped that this would be done. Conversations opened, I think, in 1946, and they went on for a number of years and finally the right hon. Gentleman had to admit defeat.

No one was more bitterly disappointed than he. But we have to face the fact that a man with the great knowledge and the great sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman, with all the resources of his Ministry behind him, and with a firm determination, if this could possibly be done, to see that it would be done, eventually had to say that the administrative difficulties, and, no less, the medical difficulties, were too great.

The right hon. Lady the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill), when she came to the House a year ago with a Bill which has been referred to in relation to workmen's compensation, said this: … I want hon. Members to recognize that assimilation would create a serious administrative problem. To transfer people still on workmen's compensation to the new scheme would involve an examination by a medical board in many thousands of cases. This would put a very heavy burden on the medical manpower of the country which might jeopardise the smooth working of the industrial injuries scheme. Therefore, after the most careful consideration we have decided to leave the Workmen's Compensation Acts untouched so far as they still apply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st February, 1951; Vol. 484, c. 1374.] That was the end of a very honourable and diligent attempt by a series of Ministers, with great sympathy in their hearts, to bring these cases, by assimilation, within the major scheme. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Sylvester) that as a number of years have passed the problem seems to be easier now. In my view it gets more difficult.