Finance Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 June 1962.

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Photo of Mr John Eden Mr John Eden , Bournemouth West 12:00, 5 June 1962

I hope that I shall not bore the Committee if, once again, I declare my interest, which I think is quite well known by now, both in education and insurance. But it is the knowledge, as it were, which I have acquired in both those walks of life which leads me to support the principle put forward in the new Clauses. I do not expect my right hon. and learned Friend to accept the detail of what we are asking for, although I should like him to do so. I should be happy and perfectly satisfied if he were to acknowledge that the principle which we put forward in both new Clauses is worthy of support.

We are asking in general terms that the Government should give modest encouragement to those who are attempting to fend for themselves. I recognise straight away that already some eneouragement is given by the State and therefore we are not broaching something which is entirely new. It might be argued that encouragement is given indirectly in the form of grant-aided schools which involve a certain amount of taxpayers' money and that also tax relief on insurance premiums is a direct stimulus to this type of expenditure by individuals.

In supporting the two new Clauses, I am interested only in trying to obtain from my right hon. and learned Friend recognition of the fact that the system of State welfare which we have built over the post-war years has now reached a stage when it should be subjected to overall and close examination. I have said often before that it is time that the structure of the Welfare State should he recast so as to be more nearly suited to the economic circumstances of people today.

I recognise that many hon. Members opposite are opposed to what we are seeking,principally on the old out-of-date basis of class distinction and on what comes out of most of their speeches on subjects of this kind, namely, the envy which they feel lest somebody is getting something better than the majority are receiving. I well recognise that, but I hope that it is not an argument which my right hon. and learned Friend will support.

People are earning greater sums of money today. Incomes are on the increase and people are able to spend money fairly lavishly on consumer goods. This is something which we all welcome. It is something which we have been actively encouraging, but I say that if people are able and willing to spend an increasing proportion of their incomes on television sets and the like they should also be encouraged positively to spend on the education of their children and on the health and security of their families. It is wrong to encourage them to do this through taxation, and this is what the present high rate of taxation is to some extent achieving.

I want to relate more closely the true cost of these services at the consuming end so that in the experience of the parents and the child or of patients in hospital there is a closer understanding of this true cost. I go further in the case of education, because I sense that as people get more and more into a position in which they can exercise freedom of choice they will be wanting to exercise that freedom, above all, in the education of their children. None of us wants to see a completely stereotyped system of education in this country. We want variety in our schools. As individuals, we have differing needs, differing requirements, differing standards of intelligence, differing standards of means and different aspirations. These are the things which a Conservative society should be encouraging to flourish.

I understand the arguments advanced by the Opposition, but I do not understand the arguments of my right hon. Friends if they say that the present structure of the Welfare State is inviolable, that what we have inherited from the past cannot be changed to meet the totally different circumstances of today. I do not wish to penalise children who go to a school where the quality of teaching is not high. This, believe it or not, can happen in State schools as well as in private schools. I do not see why children should be forced to go to one particular school in one area. If a parent feels that his child is not benefiting from the type of education it is receiving, he should feel free and able to take the child from that school and place it in another where it will benefit to a greater extent. Many might be penalised in this respect as a result of the high rate of taxation which parents will be required to pay on top of the fees for the education of their children.

I hope that we shall move away from the present system and, perhaps, follow the advice of Professor Alan Peacock of Edinburgh University, who said that the true object of a Welfare State is to teach people how to do without it. [Laughter.] That is true. Hon. Members may mock and laugh; they seem to think of the Welfare State as a means of reducing everybody to the same standard, of spreading equality like a heavy smear across the country. As I see it, the Welfare State is there to bring sustenance and help to those most in need. When that sustenance and help comes to them from the State, it should be in amounts adequate to meet their requirements, not having been dissipated as the result of the present policy of spreading it in a broad layer over the whole community.

If the true object of the Welfare State is as I have quoted it from the words of Professor Alan Peacock, the object of Government taxation policy is to keep taxation at an extremely low level so as to give people positive encouragement to fend for themselves. This should appeal to my right hon. and learned Friend. Does not he wish to reduce State expenditure? It must be cheaper for him to encourage the development of private schools, to encourage people to contract out of State health and State medicine and to look after themselves through their own financial endeavours. It must be cheaper for him to do this than to go on calling on the taxpayer to continue to finance the steadily increasing burden of State-provided medicine and State-provided schools.

It is time that we recognised the true economic facts of the situation which Conservative policy has made possible and changed the structure of those systems which we have inherited from the Socialist past so that they accorded more closely with the realities of today.