National Assistance

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 June 1959.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr John Boyd-Carpenter Mr John Boyd-Carpenter , Kingston upon Thames 12:00, 24 June 1959

If we extend it to all small savings we complete a circle and we return to the question of what is the right total for the capital disregards. That is precisely the way in which the Regulations propose to tackle the problem.

The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) will forgive me—and if he does not, I am sure that the House will—if at this stage I do not seek to resume the agreeable, but not necessarily abbreviated, debates which we had on the National Insurance Bill, now in another place. Suffice it for me to say that, as I understand it, it is not the view of any hon. Member that the whole of the emerging deficit should be borne by the Exchequer. Our discussion upstairs turned much more on the precise proportion which should be borne.

The hon. Member raised a point which is certainly relevant to our discussion of National Assistance when he referred to the possibility of including in the disregards graduated National Insurance benefits to be earned in due course under the National Insurance Bill. It is a fact, as he pointed out, that it has so far been accepted as a principle that National Insurance benefits should not be the subject of a disregard. That was inserted into the provisions in 1948 by his right hon. Friends, and that principle has stood the test of eleven years.

I do not feel called on to express any judgment on that subject tonight for a reason which I think he will appreciate. I take his point that the graduated benefit will in some cases be the equivalent of what will be earned in a private scheme in respect of which there is a disregard, but whatever the merits of the argument in respect of graduated National Insurance benefits, no such benefit can possibly be earned until after 1961. There will be ample time between now and then to consider whether it is right to abandon the principle contained in the 1948 Act of not disregarding National Insurance benefits. There will be plenty of time to consider that in the two years which must elapse before any benefit can be earned under the Bill which is still in another place and is not yet an Act of Parliament.