Although the new Clause standing in the name of the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley), entitled "Social Research Unit"—

There shall be established within the Ministry a Unit, to be known as the Social Research Unit, charged with the following duties—

(a) to collate such information relevant to the work of the Ministry as is now available;

(b) to initiate further research into such matters.—

is not selected, it will be in order to discuss that new Clause on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

The purpose of the new Clause which I have put down, and which you, Sir Eric, have been kind enough to say can be discussed on this Question, is to carry out a policy which my hon. Friends and I put in the election manifesto of the Conservative Party. It is to include within the Ministry a social research unit. I offer this piece of policy to the right hon. Lady to strengthen this rather timid little Bill. She need have no fear about adopting Tory measures: all her right hon. and hon. Friends are doing that at the moment.

The right hon. Lady will be aware, of course, that it was the intention of my party to set up a wider health and social security Measure, that we wished to include, in particular, health in a wider Ministry, one which would cover the whole range of social policy and which would, therefore, produce a really concerted social policy. The right hon. Lady said something about this matter in her speech on Second Reading. She will forgive me if I say that she did not answer the criticisms which we have made about the much more limited proposals which she has put forward.

Were these provisions which I am suggesting to be part of a wider proposal for a wider Ministry, it would make better sense, but no doubt we shall find other occasions. If I pursue this subject further I will be ruled out of order, hut it makes good sense, even within the limited provisions of the Bill.

Our case is simply this. Social policy must be considered as a whole, and that cannot be done unless the Government are constantly provided with up-to-date information about society. We live in a society which changes very fast. Over most of the field, full employment and rising earnings have brought relative affluence, but certain groups get left out—this is what the Bill is about—through physical or mental inadequacy or for financial reasons, and especially through the workings of inflation.

It is not a matter of class, as perhaps it once was. Some hon. Gentlemen oppo- site seemed to misunderstand this on Second Reading. There are areas of need in all parts of our society. In the old days, when we were talking about much wider areas of need, there was perhaps nothing which could be done beyond the flat-rate, blanket provisions based on the Beveridge Report. But today we need more delicate machinery to locate those areas of need and to prevent new areas of need developing. At present, the machinery is woefully inadequate.

One simple example of this relates to what has become known as family poverty, the question of how many families with children in households where an income is below National Assistance Board standards. Obviously, this is a key question, as is that of what has been happening in this respect in the last year. On 22nd February last year, in answer to a Written Question, the Minister of Labour said that he thought that there were between 50,000 and 150,000 such families. He thought that the average number of children was probably something over three.

Luckily for him, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that the only figures he had were subject to wide margins of error. Luckily, because only five months later, on 26th July, his hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary gave the figures as being between 150,000 and 200,000 families. Then, on Second Reading, the week before the Recess, the right hon. Lady the Minister said that between 200,000 and 300,000 families were involved.

The right hon. Lady also said that she intended to set up, during the summer, a sample survey into such families. This is not good enough. It is too amateurish for words that we should take so long to find out the basic simple facts about a real area of need in our society. What we believe is needed in the Ministry is a unit which is constantly seeking out need. which would have been looking out for this particular problem, collecting the information well in advance—not waiting for Questions in the House necessarily—knowing the facts and not making an error of the size of that contained in the Answer on 22nd February. Nor should such a unit wait for Ministerial initiatives. It should be constantly in operation, constantly searching, constantly looking out for new areas of need.

As I said, the speed of change in our society makes this more and more urgent. We visualise that such a unit would serve other Ministries than that of the right hon. Lady, that it would receive and collate information from other Ministries than hers. After all, we are no longer in the situation that we were in when Sir William Beveridge, as he was then, wrote his Report on the social services. We have a mass of information now about social matters which was not then available.

Like other hon. Members, no doubt, with a view to discussions on the Bill, I have been rereading the original Beveridge Report. What stands out over and over again in that Report is the limited nature of the evidence on which it was based. Things are quite different today. Today, a mass of research is going on. We contend that the Government are not at present getting the full advantage of this research, that if they were there could not have been in this instance which I have given the ignorance about the extent of the problem and there would not have been such a long delay before something was done to find out more about it. We contend, therefore, that there should be built into the Ministry a social research unit.

I am, of course, aware that there is a certain amount of social research work being done within the whole Government orbit. I understand, for example, that the Central Office of Information does work of this kind. I hope that the Minister will indicate the amount of work that is going on and whether recent rumours that there are to be cuts in the amount of social research work being done are correct.

My hon. Friends and I feel that the unit which I have been describing should be within the right hon. Lady's Ministry, although it would presumably work closely with the Registrar General's Department. I am aware that this is a Ministerial responsibility of her right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, and this brings me back to my original point of the need for a unified Ministry. It is essential that central to the right hon. Lady's Ministerial activities should be a constant source of information.

As I pointed out, we realise that a mass of information is constantly being produced and that universities and others are doing much work in this sphere. However, there will be occasions when such a unit, looking at the information that is published and is available, will discover other areas where work is not being carried out.

It is, therefore, part of the idea I am adducing that the unit should itself be able to undertake or commission research where it is thought necessary; that it should look over the whole sphere and make absolutely sure, as a statutory duty, that the facts are known—and that is why I would like it to be a statutory provision of the Bill—so that the right hon. Lady may provide herself and her colleagues with up-to-date information about social policy. As I explained, this is very much second best to a unified Ministry, but as a first stage it would be a useful start towards getting a really contemporary and active social policy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) made it clear on Second Reading that we welcome the Bill in general for what it seeks to do. However, she made it plain that a major criticism of the Bill is that it is being brought forward before the completion of the Government's comprehensive review of the social services. That review has already taken 18 months and, for all we know, it may be another 18 months before it is completed. Since it is obviously desirable to bring assistance to those who are manifestly in need, the Bill serves a useful, though limited, purpose.

So far, this review has been the Government's excuse for doing nothing about a number of things; the earnings rule for pensioners, bringing help to non-pensioners, widows, and so on—and the Bill could be improved in a number of ways. One such way—and in this sense it could be improved without cutting across the review which is being undertaken; indeed, it might help it—would be for the Minister to accept the new Clause which was spoken to so compellingly and persuasively by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley).

I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but he was going rather wide. I hope that he will not pursue those matters that he has just been saying will be referred to over and over again, because the Bill is limited to setting up a Ministry of Social Security. It would not be in order to discuss matters in relation to the National Health Service and geriatric schemes in the way that the hon. Member was doing.

I accept that entirely, Sir Eric.

What I was about to say was that there are obviously two requirements against the background which I have described. The first is that there should be a wide range of inquiry into every aspect of community life—this is what social security is about—so that we can be sure that the social services of the 1970s, which the new Ministry is designed to administer, really meet the needs of a fast-changing society. There is a great deal of room for the kind of patient and devoted private and university research that has been going on quietly for some time, and which the Government encourage.

Secondly, we must make sure that research is not limited to trying to fit the fact to the theory, which is very often the case with some inquiries, but rather the other way round, so that it is applied objectively in social policy at an earlier stage than at present, and as a means of suggesting policy initiatives to the Minister, with the Minister taking hold of the situation, as it were.

There is an unanswerable case for the kind of organisation suggested in the new Clause in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea. We are building new towns, and new housing estates are going up. Hospitals and clinics are being built which involve intricate and detailed physical planning, often without any element of real sociological study. As a result, we never seem to know in advance—we find out afterwards—what is really needed to produce a truly purposeful and dignified community life.

Therefore, this proposal ought to recommend itself to the Minister and be accepted by her. It would provide her with an instrument to strengthen her hand in every way to ensure—although I know that this is difficult—that she is better informed. It would give great encouragement to all those who are engaged at present in social research and pave the way for social policies designed to meet real needs and thereby build a kinder, more purposeful and more worth-while society.

We have much work to do and I know that both sides of the Committee want to make good progress. Therefore, I shall put my points very shortly. We are very obliged to you, Sir Eric, for allowing us to discuss the new Clause in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

I realise the technical difficulty we are in. There is no form of words that we are seeking to persuade the Minister to accept, because we are technically only talking about the Clause standing part. Nevertheless, I hope very much that when the right hon. Lady the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance replies she will be able to indicate some of her thinking about research in her Department, because without question the proposal for a social research unit is a very helpful one, though it must be said that in the context of this limited Bill its use is very severely restricted and it would have been very much more valuable in the kind of Bill which would have been introduced were the party on this side of the Committee in office.

I want to give three short examples of the sort of problem with which I would hope this research unit would deal. The right hon. Lady is in quite good company. We recognised some years ago that we were badly lacking in research knowledge of future educational requirements, and this was put right some years ago in the Department of Education and Science. There are very good precedents for this in Government Departments. We are surely agreed on both sides of the Committee that the problems with which the Bill inadequately attempts to deal, in part, arise from some of those limited areas of hardship with which we ought to be dealing, and into which we shall go much more fully at later stages in our discussions.

We on this side of the Committee are afraid that the Government machinery is not sufficiently delicate to locate and identify these areas of hardship. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea has, for example, referred to the problem of the disabled. We are fast moving into a world where the skill of the doctor is keeping large numbers of these people not only alive, but usefully alive. I do not want to elaborate this, or to breach the rules of order, in any way, but there are many examples of ways in which people who were never able to do so before are enabled to lead useful lives. Yet such people are very often in real difficulty and poverty. I am not at all satisfied that we have the facilities for identifying them and bringing their plight to the attention of those who can do something about it, and ultimately to this House.

There should be better co-ordination by the right hon. Lady's Ministry of the many excellent research projects which are being carried out by those who are interested in and concerned with the disabled. A fascinating study was recently made of the problem of the fatherless family. I was not entirely convinced, although I recognise the excellence of the work, of the particular claim for the fatherless as such. But this is precisely the sort of field—the problem really of the large family—which ought to be under continuing review, rather than the limited survey the right hon. Lady announced in the Second Reading debate.

This is one of the growing problems of our time because, as we all know, the number of large families is growing. It is one of the consequences of growing affluence. The number of families with six children, for example, is sharply increasing proportionately over the years, and bringing with it social difficulties and sometimes hardship.

Finally, I come to my third example—the problem of addiction to drugs and drink, which is a growing social problem. It often brings social and economic difficulties in its train, particularly to the families of those concerned. Very worthy persons are busily at work on this in certain limited ways, but one finds that there is a wide range of unco-ordinated effort, although I do not wish to be critical of those who are involved, for we depend a great deal on voluntary effort in these and other fields.

Because the modern affluent society has left behind pockets of people of this kind it seems to us on this side of the Committee that we need new machinery for dealing with it, I hope in the constructive way in which this has been put forward. I hope that the right hon. Lady, while not accepting any form of words, for none has been put, will nevertheless feel able to accept the spirit of the new Clause had it been put. I am very grateful to you, Sir Eric, for allowing it to be discussed.

I want to pursue the eloquent pleas made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley). I urge the right hon. Lady at any rate to consider the full thinking that lies behind the new Clause. It is a very innocuous request, and it could not do the Government very much harm if they decided to be generous and couragous and accept it.

Looking through the report of the debate on the Second Reading I was struck by the variety, diversity and number of people who are living below the accepted definition of the poverty line, that is, the National Assistance Board scales. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea mentioned the variation between the various Ministry figures quoted from time to time in HANSARD. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) quoted a Ministry of Labour study which suggested that there were about 7½ million such people—a substantially greater number than that quoted by the Minister of Labour at Question Time in the House. This illustrates the enormous discrepancies between the various figures that are used, and on which we try to work.

I want to tell the right hon. Lady about some of my own efforts to discover something of the numbers involved in the narrow group of incapacitated people to which I referred in my Second Reading speech, namely, the incapacitated housewives. It was purely by acciment that I discovered that they were not eligible for National Assistance. An incapacitated housewife at home is not eligible for any of the social benefits now provided by the State.

I tried to discover how many housewives were living at home in these conditions. After about six months, during which time I had the willing help of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour and the right hon. Lady's own Department, I retired defeated. I asked Questions in the House, and communicated with the various Departments in writing, privately. At the end, however, I was faced with the fact that although these people exist there is no clear picture of the numbers involved within the central administration.

I want to quote the last paragraph of a letter I received from the Ministry of Health, because although it seemed to me that incapacitated people would come into contact with the medical services and that there was, therefore, a glimmer of a beginning of the construction of some index which would give some idea of the numbers involved, this was not the case. The letter says:

"Hospital figures are not available for the categories of people you describe. We could let you know the numbers of patients in geriatric and chronic sick wards, but these of course include many people who are not long-stay patients. We also have some figures for those 'chronic sick' patients who are in the age group 16-60."

So some figures are available in connection with these people, but not many. Yet the people of this country suffer very much from having to deal with the questionaires and the attentions of the Registrar-General, and all over the country there are files galore relating to everything under the sun, from the number of water cisterns in houses and the number of elderly people to the numbers in various age groups and birth groups. Centrally, however, these figures are not available.

Every hon. Member who tries to pursue this matter and obtain information centrally about some narrow aspect, whether it concerns the youth employment service or people who are in need of help from the State, comes up against this block. Centrally, there is an almost complete lack of statistics upon which we can work.

This means that we are driven back on to the private foundations in order to try to discover where need lies. I am sure that all hon. Members agree that some excellent work is sponsored by private foundations all over the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) referred to the work done in universities. We must also remember the work which is undertaken by those who are preparing their theses for doctorates. Very often, after the success of the candidate, these theses end up in the university library, and very seldom see the light of day again. A great deal of enormously valuable information is wasted in this way.

We are standing on the threshold of an age in which our society is becoming much more mobile and much more rapidly changing in its pattern. What we need is an instrument available to the State which can identify and locate these changing patterns in our society, especially developing patterns of poverty, before they become established and formidable and present an almost national problem.

This modest new Clause would provide the right hon. Lady with just this weapon, and I therefore beg her to accept it. It cannot do her any harm, and it might do her some good. It would certainly do a great deal of good to many of our people.

If we had been able to establish this research unit inside the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance it would have been of the greatest help to the right hon. Lady. I do not want to go into the matter in detail, but I am sure that we have all had experience of communicating with a Department on the many problems arising in respect of people who are covered by our social security schemes and receiving an answer from that Department that the matter is the responsibility of another Department.

The right hon. Lady's Department is very good in sending on our letters to the right Departments and seeing that the various problems are examined by them, and we eventually receive answers from those Departments. But if there were a unit which the right hon. Lady herself could use when information came forward from the people handling the various cases it might be possible to make the excellent work which her Department does much more effective.

Reference has been made to the disabled. Under the National Insurance Scheme some are adequately provided for and others are not. Very often we find that although a lot of money and thought goes into the question of the future of these people, the variations in the regulations which operate at local authority level mean that the lives of some of these disabled people are improved while others are made much worse.

Some local authorities take people in strict rotation from their housing waiting lists, on the basis of an examination and of the operation of their own ideas of how certain houses should be allocated. There is, however, great variation in the way in which this problem is dealt with. Some local authorities pay no attention to the need to find ground-floor accommodation for disabled people, or make them wait for a very long time, sometimes in overcrowded conditions, before dealing with them. The help that we give to these people under our national security schemes is not followed up in a way that makes the life of these individuals as fruitful, happy, and free from pain as possible. The Minister must know from her own experience how great is the variation in local government administration.

We believe that it would be of profound advantage if a research unit were available for use at the Minister's discretion. The Minister will know that in some areas a certain type of disability arises from the employment which is most prevalent in the area and that this disability will be quite different from physical disabilities prevailing in other areas. If such a research unit were available, the Minister's position would be made very much stronger and much more realistic.

There are wide variations between the amount of Part III accommodation available in local authority areas. In some areas there is much more accommodation available for those for whom the Minister is responsible under the National Insurance Scheme, because of the democratic processes of the freely elected representatives of the local authority concerned. In other areas the emphasis is in quite another direction. The attitude of a local authority towards the problems of life often depend on the individual crusading spirits within the authority itself. Some authorities have gone very far ahead. The experience and information that the progressive authorities have acquired would be of invaluable use if the Minister could direct a research unit to gather all of it together and set it at work in other local authority areas which perhaps have not had the specialised crusading spirit. This suggestion opens up such a wide vista that one could go on talking about it for hours.

I want now to refer to a problem which caused great distress at one time. It was never satisfactorily settled within the Ministry. I came to be concerned with the case of a young apprentice working on the Tyne—not in my constituency, though he wrote to me. He was working in one of the big shipyards. He had the usual love affair with a very young girl. The apprentice was 17. The girl was 16. They had their first baby before they got married; but they got married. The young apprentice took a very responsible attitude towards the part he had to play in the life of this girl and his child.

It is not often that I leave any stones unturned. I went through the whole range, but, because of the regulations which existed within the National Assisstance Board, although everybody said that that young family was living below the subsistence level, nothing could be done.

This was a very distressing thing to have to say in this great country. The W.V.S. kindly supplied clothes. All sorts of people came forward with their good will in organisation but the fact remained that, although this young apprentice did the right thing and married the girl, because there was no provision under the National Assistance Board procedure for, shall I say, subsidising wages, that family had to live below the subsistence level.

This was one isolated case that came to my notice. I wonder how many such cases there are spread throughout the country. When it was discovered that the boy had married the girl and that they were trying to set up home together, we managed to get them housing through the local authority. I doubt whether the country would agree that it was a good idea that this family, the boy having done the right thing, could not be helped because of some regulation which is no doubt a very good regulation when taken in the overall context of industrial life, but not in the context of the life of an apprentice.

This is the sort of anomaly which a research unit would help to bring to the Minister's attention. I know how deeply and keenly she feels about these matters. We feel that a research unit of this type would strengthen her position. Such a unit would give tremendous impetus and confidence to many organisations which are overwhelmed by the problems which still exist in life and which are always delighted to know that Parliament realises what needs to be done and is making an effort to help them to carry on with their very excellent work.

The Minister may well say that this is a good idea and that she will think about it between now and Report. I hope that she will put it into effect. This suggestion is put forward as a genuine basis for strengthening the power of Parliament and of the Minister to look after the great number of people who need our attention.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) that in her heart the Minister must welcome this proposal. Our arguments are ones that the Minister may use to strengthen any efforts she may make to build up such a research unit in the future. I accept that it would be difficult at this stage of the Bill. I know that the Minister, like us, wishes to ensure not only that we collate all the information which is available at present, but also that we are in a position to forecast future patterns and initiate new researches into what we can do. We all recognise that at present the pace of change is very rapid. We all recognise that society is particularly sophisticated and integrated. It is no good us being behind public opinion in our formulation of social service. We must have the weapons necessary for us to lead public opinion into new patterns.

I hope that the Ministry will think again on the lines of building up a research unit to collate all the information. It would be very valuable if more regional information could be collated. I know that the Yorkshire Council of Social Workers is at present engaged in regional surveys of different problems. This is very good work, but we have nothing with which to compare the results. If the Ministry would initiate such surveys, we could compare the different problems arising in the regions.

To go a step ahead, it would be valuable in international talks to have the results of such surveys, because the cross-fertilisation of ideas is particularly help- ful. When I am trying to compare like with like in other Western countries, I find it difficult to know what this country is doing and where I can find the information. One of the most valuable exports that the country could make is that of new ideas and new techniques of social security, social justice and compassion. We have led the world in the past, and we want to go on doing so in the future.

I hope that people will not ride off on the fact that this has not been done so far. I am sorry that it has not been done before. I took a degree in sociology and, although I am not all that old, it was regarded as something very odd. I was one of very few who took such a degree. There were three of us at the university at that time studying the subject, and everybody thought that we were studying fortune telling. In fact, I suppose we were. We were studying the fortunes of this country. Now the disciplines of social anthropology and sociology are building up in our newer universities, and some very exiciting studies are being undertaken in this field. This is surely the time to build up this research unit.

I stress to the right hon. Lady that we are putting forward this idea to help her in the work that I know she wants to do. I hope that she will do her best to make certain that in the future we can have this sort of unit ranging as widely as possible, collating as much information as possible and helping us to cross-fertilise ideas not only in this country, but in the Western countries as a whole.

We have had a very wide-ranging debate on Clause 1. We have, indeed, touched on Amendments and new Clauses which I hope we shall be discussing later. I do not think that there is much between the attitudes of the Government and of the Opposition on this question of research and the collation of information. What I want to be sure of is that the job is done in the best way possible to help people who need help.

The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) was rather critical of the Government. He spoke of a long delay and referred to this question of the low-wage earner. I must tell him that we on this side of the Committee have known about the low-wage earner in this country not only during the last two years, but for many years. As a back bencher and as an Opposition Front Bench Member I continually spoke on this subject, and since becoming the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, I have been trying to find the best ways and means of dealing with this very serious problem of the low-wage earner, to which we shall come later when considering other Amendments. I do not think that it helped the hon. Member's case when he referred to the long delay by the present Government in dealing with the matter, when we have not been in power for two years, whereas his Government were in power for 13 years.

The Government do not question in any way the importance of collating all the information which bears on social security, to which the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) referred. A number of hon. Members have made excellent speeches, the only one of which I am critical being the speech of the hon. Member for Chelsea. Some hon. Members have referred to the invaluable work that is being done in our universities and by other bodies, such as local authorities, on the problems of the old. All of that work is of the greatest importance. Any Government, and particularly the new Ministry of Social Security, ought to be aware of what is happening and should do as much as possible in collating all the information that is available not only from Government sources but from other sources as well. That, indeed, is the intention of the present Government.

The very fact that we have before us this Bill, which brings together the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the National Assistance Board, is evidence that we are concerned with the subject and will facilitate this bringing together of the information which both sides of the Committee consider to be so important.

Would the right hon. Lady go one step further? I hope she intended to go on to say that the Ministry will not merely collate and interpret what is being done by private investigation, but will initiate research as well. This is, of course, the major point in the proposal which is before the Committee.

I should imagine, having examined the proposed new Clause and having listened to the debate, that there are two angles—the collation, and the research. I am dealing first with the question of collation, and then I intend to deal with research. They are both of great importance.

All the information that is collected and collated will be available for consideration in connection with problems arising in the field of contributory and non-contributory benefits, for which the Ministry will be responsible. Almost all of the suggestions which have been made, with the exception of the example given by the hon. Member for Tynemouth, who spent at least part of her speech dealing with housing, are of the greatest interest and, as I have said, many of the points that have been made are covered by Amendments which I understand will be raised later, concerning the provision of contributory or non-contributory benefits. Having the two Departments under one Ministry will be of great help to us in the collection and collation of information which becomes available.

If I may refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), the need to undertake research into social problems is fully accepted by the Government. We were convinced long before we came into power how scrappy was the research into so many of the social problems, and we are determined that much more research shall be done. I had thought that during my Second Reading speech I made it very clear that we as a Government felt that much more needed to be done in this respect. Indeed, I referred to our present programme of research into social problems.

I do not know whether hon. Members are aware that the report of the inquiry into the financial and other circumstances of retirement pensioners, which took place last year, has just been published. That survey was decided upon by the previous Government. We had been asking for it for a long time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths), who was dissatisfied with the situation, raised the matter on the Adjournment, as a result of which the then Minister, my predecessor, announced that this survey would be undertaken. When hon. Members examine the findings of that survey I think that they will be more and more impressed by the value of research, because it is a piece of social research which will be very helpful to us in the kind of work which we want to do.

On Second Reading, I also referred to he field work in connection with the inquiry into the circumstances of families with two or more children, which will begin this month. This fieldwork will begin on 20th June. Again, this touches on some of what I consider are important Amendments and new Clauses which the Opposition and one of my hon. Friends have on the Notice Paper. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelsea was a bit scathing about the smallness of this survey. We want to get it done quickly. It is amazing what information can be obtained from personal visiting of over 2,000 homes. One hon. Member talked about regional research. The homes which will be visited will cover the length and breadth of the country.

In my Second Reading speech I stressed—and this seems to have been forgotten by the Opposition—that the Commission has a very important part to play in research. I said that I had thought when I began to examine these problems that I would not want anyone in place of the Board. I changed my mind for a number of reasons which I then gave. One of them was the value that I thought that we should get from the Commission in terms of research, a two-way traffic between the Commission and the Minister. Even in the Bill as it is, and on what the Government have already initiated by way of research, we have shown very clearly the importance we attach not only to the collating of information, but also to the initiation of research.

This was the whole point of putting the unit within the Ministry. It would be part of the Minister's responsibilities, and she could have been questioned about it. This is why we put it this way and not as an independent authority outside the Ministry.

If that is so then it seems to me that both sides of the Committee can question the Minister upon whatever she is responsible for. The Minister must be responsible for collating information, whether or not she has a special unit in her Department. She must also be responsible for research and again this means that the Opposition can question her. I want to make it perfectly clear that I and the Government believe that it is the job of the Minister to decide how research should be carried out and to supply priorities in research projects.

The second thing which I stressed in my Second Reading speech was:

"…we intend that the members of the Commission shall cover a wide variety of interests, that they will be a source of advice to the Minister on many social problems, and that, in particular, they will assist the Minister's programme of research into these problems. I think everyone in the House and I am sure most people in the country would agree that research into social problems until fairly recently has been largely neglected. The Commission can be a power house of ideas in this and other fields."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th May, 1966; Vol. 728, c. 339-40.]

As I envisage it, we would have this body of knowledgeable people who will have assistance from the various sections in my Department and will be able to bring with them a great deal of outside knowledge. This is the proper way to achieve the kind of results which I think both sides of the Committee want.

I would like to press the right hon. Lady on that. We accept that the Minister has final responsibility for judging the priorities and for initiating research. Our point is that society is moving very quickly. With great respect to the right hon. Lady, and to all of us here, we do not know what we do not know. We are amateurs and many of her advisers in the Ministry, and in the Commission, are enlightened amateurs, but still amateurs. Our aim is that there should be a scientific unit, under the responsibility of the Minister, which should advise the Minister about research. The unit could give the Minister the details.

The Minister mentioned that although we all knew that there were low-income families we did nothing about it. This was an assumption on our part. It came from our experience. The Minister will know from her term of Government that one has to have the tools to get money from the Treasury. One needs facts and figures and arguments. If we had had this sort of research unit and the number of research workers, had we had the computers to compile the information, we could perhaps have seen this picture sooner and we would have had the ammunition to go to the Treasury and solve this problem.

This is why we are saying to the Minister, "Do not rely upon amateurs, however enlightened and however well intentioned." We do not want to rely upon good intentions. We trust the right hon. Lady's good intentions, but she will not always be at the Ministry and that is why we would have liked it written into the Bill that there should be a responsibility upon the Ministry to have a scientific unit giving the finest possible technical advice.

What the hon. Lady is now saying is that if this scientific unit had been in existence some years ago we should have had the information and we might have moved on the subject of the low-wage earner. Without such a scientific unit we have taken the initiative, in conjunction with certain advice, in making this survey. Apart from the survey, we have done a great deal of steady work.

The Opposition are under a misapprehension. They think that the setting up of a small group of people in the Ministry will solve almost all the problems. I do not accept that for a minute. The joining of these two Departments will bring a great deal of information to us. The Commission will also bring a great deal of help and advice to us. It will be for the Minister to decide the priorities. I am sure that that is the right way to deal with the matter.

I stress that we have every intention of providing adequately within the Ministry for the collection and analysis of information bearing on future policy. The Government attach the very greatest importance to research into the circumstances and problems of those who receive benefit, whether contributory or non-contributory. It is because of that that I said at the beginning that there is little between the two sides of the Committee. I warn the Opposition that the mere setting up of this kind of body would not solve the problem. We must have, within the Ministry and the Government, the will and the desire to tackle these problems, and I think that we have shown that we have that will and desire.

The Minister has said that there is a little difference between the two sides of the Committee. There are, however, some differences.

The right hon. Lady seems to think that the present machinery of her Ministry has proved adequate in the past for this task and will prove adequate in the future. She thinks that there is no necessity for a professional, skilled research unit in her Ministry. This is where the difference between the two sides of the Committee lies. We do not wish to take away her responsibility; we want to increase it. We want to increase the width of responsibility of the Ministry of Social Security. I wish that the right hon. Lady had gone further and had said that she would have in her Ministry really skilled people to deal with these matters. Then we should have been able to agree with her much more.

I have tried to stress my belief in the importance of collating information and of research. Of course, we shall have skilled people within the Ministry to do this job.

The right hon. Lady has gone much further than she went in her original remarks. I am very glad about that.

I am sorry that the Minister did not like my speech. I liked much of her speech. However, I did not like it when she turned to us, as so many of her hen. Friends have done, and said, "Why did you do nothing about this?" Both sides of the Committee appreciate that we have got to the stage in the development of our social security policy in which the emphasis is changing because our society is changing. To look back to the past when a great deal was achieved is wrong. What the country wants, and what the Committee wants, is to look forward to the future, and on this I am sure we all agree.

We all recognise that this is one of the most important Clauses in the Bill. It is the heart of the Bill. It s the Clause which unifies the two Ministries and gives the Minister the wider responsibility about which we have been talking.

On Second Reading, the right hon. Lady said that under the Clause four things would happen. It would help to co-ordinate policy. Secondly it would help the unification which would ensure that people getting contributory benefits would get all the necessary help in getting non-contributory benefits. Thirdly, the new Ministry would develop a new and comprehensive service to the public so that inquiries over the whole range of social security benefits could be dealt with at one point of contact. Fourthly, it would end the sharp distinction between contributory and non-contributory benefits and, therefore, would do a great deal to remove the present stigma.

The Minister has said in this Chamber that the idea of merging the two Ministries was conceived 11 years ago. If the right hon. Lady and her right hon. and hon. Friends thought of this 11 years ago, they constitute 11 of the most barren years of political talk. Once we start thinking of co-ordinating social security policy so that we have a really comprehensive service we are driven inescapably to the conclusion—and everything said this afternoon drives us to this conclusion—that this is a very much wider field than the mere payment of benefits and pensions.

We have been talking about changes in our society—the changing needs and changing patterns. We are not looking back to the pre-1939 years when there was poverty, unemployment and misery. We are looking forward to the future when we have full employment, high wages, and good pension schemes. People of good will on both sides of the Committee are determined that real financial security will be built up. The problem will be less and less one of benefits and of giving financial aid. Of course, financial aid is tremendously important; but it is the easiest part of the problem. If the need is financial aid, the problem is comparatively simple; we can give the benefit and meet the problem.

In dealing with the problems of National Assistance and pensioners, we shall need, not the doctrine of uniformity. much though the right hon. Lady and her colleagues love this doctrine, but the doctrine of the flexible giving of help where it is needed most and of giving care as well as cash. Very often, an hour's help in the house is far more valuable than an extra £2. Very often a visit from the health visitor, the proper type of grouped accommodation with a warden, the proper type of welfare service, such as meals-on-wheels, meets, not only the financial need, but the desperate loneliness and feeling of insecurity and fear which people have. It meets the insecurity which we are trying to conquer.

In setting up this new Ministry, the Minister and her right hon. Friends have missed a most valuable opportunity. She has taken this step forward and we wish her well in all her work. We have been talking about research which would help her in her work. Much of this matter is the responsibility of the Minister of Health. Much of it could be done with the help of the local health authorities—the local medical officer of health, and so on. So much of the help is given by the voluntary services. These come not so much under her jurisdiction, but under the Ministry of Health. There is the wonderful work done by the W.V.S. and by all the voluntary workers. If we are talking about co-ordination and a comprehensive service, we must bring more of this care into our thinking.

The Bill is a disappointment to us because it has missed this opportunity. Not only that, but there is the question of taking away the stigma of National Assistance and of charity.

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but the Clause deals only with the transfer of functions. It is not appropriate, on this Clause, to have a Second Reading debate on the Bill.

We had a very short Second Reading debate, Sir Eric, and in describing the Clause—although I do not wish in any way to go out of order—the Minister said that the purpose of merging the two Departments was to give a comprehensive, co-ordinated service and to get rid of the stigma of National Assistance by bringing it under the umbrella of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. I was merely developing that argument—and I certainly will not go any further than you wish, Sir Eric—to say that, although the Bill will do much of what the right hon. Lady wishes to do, we have our reservations that it will not achieve all that she hopes.

Merely by changing the name, which is how most people will see it, we are not doing all that much. We hope that the change in the name will achieve the purpose, but very often a new name soon gets the old attributes of stigma attached to it. I know that

"…a rose,

By any other name would smell as sweet",

but it could be that something else by any other name might stink as much That is the reason for our great hesitation.

If the Minister had been able to go wider and take in a field which embraces the voluntary services, she would have achieved her hopes much more quickly and powerfully. As we all find in our constituency work, the people whom we are trying to help do not mind taking the help from the lady who comes round to do chiropody, from the health visitor or the meals-on-wheels service; they do not regard that so much as charity as National Assistance.

If we could have gone wider, we would have got rid of this stigma, because we would have embraced the whole field of security. We would have built up good neighbourliness, which is surely what we are trying to do. We are trying to tell these people that we are giving them this added help because we want as a society to be good neighbours to them, because we care for them and because we feel as a community that we have a debt to them. These are older people who very often are frightened, lonely and ill-informed. They accept this much more if they can have it in the context of all that they can think of as good neighbourliness.

But there is more to it even than that. We are very short of money for these purposes. The Minister quite rightly can take credit for giving extra benefit in the Bill, and we are all grateful for it, but she must known from her fights with the Treasury how difficult it is to get more money, particularly at this time, how difficult it is to get the extra staff who are needed and how difficult it is to increase expenditure. The right hon. Lady is fighting all the time in the Cabinet against other people with high priorities for her share of the cake.

People whom we use in this work are, or should be, expensive people because they are highly trained. The people working in National Assistance are highly trained and dedicated. We want more of them. We want more welfare workers and more social workers. The great danger is that we are not using our resources as economically as we could. We do not have the co-ordination that the right hon. Lady has talked about. We do not have a comprehensive system. Very often there is overlapping and we are not using our resources or our manpower to the best possible effect.

I suggest to the Minister that, good though this amalgamation is, it really is not good enough, because it will not do the things that we all want to do. The right hon. Lady says that we must have a social strategy to plot the course ahead and vision for the future. To do this we must have a wider conception of our whole responsibility.

Let us get away simply from thinking of this as a financial problem. It is not only financial. The Bill will be on the Statute Book for many years; it will he a long time before we have another Bill of this nature. In the future, it will be far more a question of preventing trouble happening. We have all heard the proverb that

"for want of a nail the shoe was lost;"

Very often, for the loss of a few pounds' worth of some sort of care, a whole family has broken down. Very often the family breaks down because the mother is a bad manager or is inadequate. Very often an old person has to go into a home, costing the community a great amount of money, because she has not been able to cope and things have gone beyond the stage where she can be brought back into her own home. I say "she", but very often it is "he", also.

If, as the Minister says, we are looking for unification and a comprehensive service, if she is looking for the one point of contact where everybody can get the social security and justice that we need, if we are looking to get away from the stigma which, unfortunately, was attached to the old National Assistance, we have lost a great opportunity here, because we should have gone a good deal further than merely putting the Ministry of Pensions and National Assistance together. We should have brought in the Ministry of Health.

Having worked in the Home Office and in the children's department—I say this purely personally, without committing anybody else—I wish that the children's department could come into this, too, because that is where so much preventative work could be done. We are sorry that we could not have gone further. We shall continue to press the Minister to widen the scope so that we have far greater vision for the future and so that we get all these problems coming under one umbrella and one responsibility with one strategy for the future.

As the Clause deals with the transfer of functions and liabilities consequent upon the dissolution of the Ministry of Pensions and the National Assistance Board it would seem appropriate to raise a small point, which is touched upon in the Financial Memorandum, as a consequence of the transfer of responsibilities from the local authorities.

The Memorandum points out that the local authorities will lose £1 million in a full year and it goes on to state that

"The resultant increase in net expenditure will lead to some increase in the general Exchequer support to local authorities."

That is quite good news, but it has caused a little perturbation in one local authority which I have consulted and I think that the position should be spelt out in a little more detail. I wonder whether, when the Minister replies, she will say something about this.

The local authorities are already having to find an additional £9 million a year. There is their 25 per cent. share of the cost of rent rebate schemes, and ratepayers should not have to bear any additional burden. It does not look as though they will have to, but I would like to know whether the local authority associations were consulted about this and are happy about it and whether it has been taken into account in the new scheme for local authority grants which, I believe, the House is shortly to discuss.

The hon. Lady the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) has once again stressed her disappointment that the new Ministry will cover the work only of the present Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and of the National Assistance Board. Her right hon. and hon. Friends wish to see the Ministry of Health taken in, also.

My first reaction to that is, what a very unwieldy Ministry we would have. I am sure that if hon. Members opposite give serious thought to all the work for which the Ministry of Health is responsible, apart from that mentioned by the hon. Lady today, and to all the work for which the new Ministry of Social Security will be responsible, they would realise that it might not be such a good thing after all.

I am sorry that the hon. Lady again repeated what she said on Second Reading. Then, scarcely anybody else made the same charge. This time I took down her words. She said that merely by changing the name we are not doing very much. I am sure that she has examined the Bill, and if she were less prejudiced about it she would realise that we have done a good deal more than change the name.

I was speaking on this very narrow point. I congratulated the right hon. Lady on the increased benefits, but on this point we are simply changing the name. We are not going much further than that and we are not bringing in any new functions.

Presumably, the hon. Lady thinks that if we brought in the Ministry of Health it would be all right. She has not realised the other changes. The 9s. allowance is not merely a money change. It is to ensure that we take care of many of the things which she has stressed. My mother lived until she was 86, and in the village in which I live I am surrounded by old people, and I therefore recognise that although money is important—and we ought not to belittle its importance—there are other things of great importance, too.

One of the tragedies which comes to old people, particularly those who live to what is called a ripe old age, is loneliness, because so many of their erstwhile friends have died before them. Loneliness can be a very great problem for these people and sometimes may cause tragedy among them. There are other matters of great importance—which I will deal with on the next Amendment—apart from financial aid to old people. The fact that we have not made a huge, unwieldy Ministry by bringing in the Ministry of Health does not mean that we shall not attend to these things.

May I return to the 9s. allowance which will be paid to the old, the long-term chronic sick and widows? One of the reasons—although not the only reason—is to give the old people a stable income.

I hesitate to interrupt the Minister, but on this Clause we are dealing only with the transfer of functions. It might be more convenient to the Committee if the points which she is mentioning were dealt with on Amendments.

I am simply replying to points developed to a great extent by the hon. Lady. As she has developed them, surely it is important that within the context of the Clause I should indicate what we hope to achieve. Not so many visits will be paid to those people who are getting the 9s. a week, but the officers who go will have more time to do the kind of welfare job which I and the Government want them to do—not only to find out the financial needs of the old people but also to find out what are the welfare needs.

Despite what the hon. Lady said, it is not a question of duplicating services. These officers will contact—as do the National Assistance Board officers in the time available to them at present—local authorities and voluntary organisations in the area. The provisions which we have made in the Bill—I will deal with many more of them on the coming Amendments —will ensure that more time is available for what I consider the important welfare work which we want the old people to have, the problem families to have, and many others to have who need this assistance. This can be done under the new set-up of the Ministry of Social Security.

The hon. Lady is making a very important point when she says that these officers will be able to contact the local authorities. Will they have any power or authority? If they make representations on certain aspects to local authorities and the local authorities do not respond, where do they go from there?

The officers will follow up the case. No one can force a local authority to do these things, but in some areas local authorities provide many services about which old people know nothing, just as voluntary organisations provide many services about which old people do not know. We hope to help them to use the services which are provided, and also I hope to show local authorities which are not providing them the need to provide such services. I believe that the follow-up of the officers will prove of the greatest help.

I have said how much we welcome the step forward which we are taking and how much we welcome the right hon. Lady's Ministry. I am not putting forward carping criticism. But what the right hon. Lady said bore out my argument that if these welfare visitors had not a divided responsibility but were working under the umbrella of one Ministry, their work would be much easier and the whole system much more satisfactory.

Is the hon. Lady suggesting that the work done by the health visitors of local authorities ought to be clone by a central body?

If the Ministries of Health, Pensions and National Insurance were all one Ministry, this work would be coordinated to give comprehensive, overall responsibility. The right hon. Lady said that this Ministry would be too unwieldy. I had some responsibility in the last Administration in the Home Office where there were a number of departments, with Ministers of State looking after departments under the general supervision of the Secretary of State.

This works remarkably well. It means that we have highly responsible Ministers, with status, prestige and responsibility in the House, working in their own departments but constantly in touch with each other and co-ordinating their work. They have rooms next door to each other; they do not have to go to a different Ministry, which may be over the road or even on the other side of London. This provides the cross-fertilisation of ideas and responsibility which can arise at the level of Minister of State.

This need not be a cumbersome Ministry. I accept that it would be a very responsible Ministry. The right hon. Lady may call this criticism, but I call it putting forward constructive ideas. We want to see social security made into something which is good neighbourliness. I do not wish it to go out from the House of Commons—I am sure that it will not—that I think that changing the name will do no good at all. We all hope that it will achieve what we went to achieve, but we have to be realistic. We know that only changing the name is not going very far.

We believe that by having this more comprehensive service, and bringing in the voluntary workers about whom the right hon. Lady talked, we can create that. feeling of good neighbourliness which would go a little further to remove much of the suspicion and doubt which unfortunately still surrounds so much of the wonderful work being done at present. The right hon. Lady knows from her own mother and I know from my elderly relatives how much these old people trust and even love those who make these visits to them.

I beg to move, in page 3. line 10, at the end to insert:

(3) So far as is practicable, the officers and servants of the Commission shall have a duty to seek out those who are, or are likely to be, in need of help, whether by means of cash benefits or by means of either the health and welfare services provided under the National Health Service Acts or the welfare services provided under section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948.

This is the nub of the argument—that we want to bring in the welfare services. We all recognise that the first step of applying for assistance is the most difficult step of all. We have heard recently about the number of people who still have not applied for assistance in spite of all the publicity which has been given. I heard this information on my car radio as I was driving to my constituency, and, if my memory serves me, many of these people still would not apply for help.

This is why we wish to remove the onus of applying for help from the persons who are in need. I know that the right hon. Lady will say that this is the intention and that welfare inspectors will go out and, as I accept, will have more time to spend in persuading people to apply for assistance and in building up confidence in their minds. But it is important to write into the Bill, as we wrote into the Children and Young Persons Act, 1963, an onus of responsibility "so far as is practicable"—these words are important—upon the Commission to go out and find those people who are in need. We cannot stress too much that many people are reluctant to take the first step, and it will be difficult to persuade them to do so.

But, as I said on Second Reading, many of these people are already on retirement pension and, with the added time and facilities we are to have under the more streamlined administration under the Bill, we should be able to build up a register of those who are on retirement pension. Building up the register will be the most difficult task, but once it has been done it will be comparatively simple to keep the register up to date and to ensure that those people are visited regularly and that their needs are known to the Commission.

Many of these people are at present in receipt of care, whether it is care from the health authorities or care from the voluntary welfare authorities. I use the words "comparatively simple" knowing how difficult in fact the problem is, but it would be a comparatively simple operation, by contact with these organisations, to find out through these channels those who are in need.

The psychological effect of putting the onus on the State would do a tremendous amount to make these people feel that this was something which the community as a whole wanted them to have. We are trying to persuade people that they must make use of all these facilities which are theirs as of right. That is why it is important that we should write into the Bill not just that it is our hope or intention, but that it is our responsibility as far as is humanly possible to find these people and to persuade them to use the facilities provided by the State for them.

I wish to support the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike). I pay tribute to the work which the National Assistance Board does in the detection of need and also the work done by local authorities and the voluntary bodies such as the W.V.S. and all those others who assist the Board to detect need. I hope that the right hon. Lady will feel that the Amendment is exactly in line with what she envisages as being the work of the new Commission. If she feels that it should be the job of the Commission to seek out those in need, I hope that she will see no difficulty about accepting the Amendment.

No one could possibly claim that the present work of detection is adequate, however good it is. We all know of the tragic examples when need is discovered because someone, by chance, finds the milk bottles piling up outside a house or flat. That still occurs in all too many cases. I was struck, as no doubt other hon. Members were, by the Report in The Times on the 6th June in which the Chief Constable of Leeds reported in his annual report that in Leeds in one year no fewer than 101 people had been found dead and 48 ill or injured. Those few figures from one city conclusively prove that there is still much more to be done in the detection of need.

When more than 1 million old people are living alone and when the number is likely to increase now that the phenomenon of the three-generation family is out and the days when grandmother, mother and daughter lived as one family have gone, probably for good, and when the building of one-bedroomed bungalows proves that we feel that if people want to live alone, it is a good thing for them to do so, the need for detection constantly increases.

I am not saying that the new Commission can do this unaided. It will need to work in close co-operation with the health and welfare authorities, the W.V.S. meals-on-wheels service, war pensions officers and a whole variety of other people. But the Commission will be the body with the basic information available. The new Ministry will be in contact with everybody in receipt of benefits—National Insurance benefits, supplementary benefits, war pensions, and so on—and will be in the best position to take on this responsibility. It will be able to do a great deal by having a register of old people in each part of the country. That will make detection easier. That is another good reason for putting this responsibility on the new Commission.

Another which will appeal to the right hon. Lady is something which she stressed again and again on Second Reading. She said that if it could be avoided we did not want to have people applying for benefit, but that we should take the help to them. Putting this statutory responsibility on the Commission is absolutely in line with the spirit of her speech and the Bill itself.

There is another consideration which has worried me in connection with the Clause and the Bill as a whole. The intention is to cut individual inquiries to a minimum. I see no objection to that, but disadvantages may arise from it. For example, the right hon. Lady told us on Second Reading that it was intended in future to review the needs of those getting benefits every year rather than every six months as previously. While I appreciate the advantages of cutting to a minimum the individual inquiries which may be made about resources, this means that those getting benefits will be visited by the officers of the new Commission only every 12 months instead of every six. There are dangers in cutting the regular visits by half, in that needs may not be as effectively detected because of the longer lapses between visits.

My hon. Friend the Member for Melton mentioned the many examples in the last Annual Report on War Pensions. In every such report there is constantly stressed the advantage of regular visits. I need not quote all the examples, for hon. Members will have seen them, but a sentence which is equally valuable in this connection is that which appeared in the 1964 Report and which read:

"Regular visiting sometimes reveals needs which would not ordinarily come to light."

If we have found that valuable for war pensioners, it would be equally valuable for those getting the new supplementary benefits.

For all those reasons it is highly desirable to put this clear duty on the Commission to seek out those who are in need in exactly the same sort of way as present arrangements allow for regular visits to war pensioners.

The Amendment is rather woolly. I do not know whether it is put forward for propaganda purposes, or to draw attention to some need. However, we have to be more practical. No one has claimed that the new set-up will revolutionise the services which will be available.

On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend said that the new Ministry would be taking measures to ensure that as soon as possible on retirement or on subsequent widowhood every pensioner would be made fully aware of the supplementary pension scheme and either made a claim or gave a definite indication that he did not want to claim. The impression which I have gained is that it will only be among retirement pensioners and those subsequently widowed that this kind of searching out will go on. I would assume that they would also apply to just straightforward cases of widowhood, and, indeed, other cases in which there is need.

The Amendment talks in terms of cash needs and needs of the welfare services. I think that this is the crux of the dilemma of which we must all of us be aware. To search out people to give them a cash benefit is a relatively simple thing; I do not think there is any difficulty about that because, as I understand from the Minister, any applicant for any pension would be chased up or followed up to ensure that he would know what he can apply for, and if he is not applying for it there must be good reasons for that. It is when we get to the welfare side that we seem to run into difficulties.

Does the Amendment suggest, for example, that if somebody comes into the local office and indicates a change in family circumstances—that a child has gone to an approved school, for example, or that one or another of a hundred and one things which can happen to children has happened—there should automatically be some kind of welfare officer in the department to take follow-up action for these essential services? Or if there is a claim for guardian allowance, is there automatic follow-up to see whether the guardian needs some kind of professional advice? This does not seem to me to have been made clear by those who are supporting the Amendment.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) doubted the practicality of the Amendment. I should like to assure him that in putting it down we were guided not by theory or by a desire for innovation, but by a growing body of experience which shows that improvement in income is only a part—an important part, but only a part—of the requirements of many of our elderly, long-term sick and handicapped citizens.

If the hon. Member is in touch with his constituents, as I am sure he is, he will know that the numbers of the elderly will rise sharply in the next two decades. He will know too that the problem we face is not primarily financial, but physical and moral. The problem will not be solved by adding a few shillings to the pension. Is is essentially how to provide a satisfactory, worth-while, dignified environment for literally millions of our fellow citizens who feel isolated in our modern industrial society.

This, of course, raises questions as to what sort of society we should be seeking to build, what kind of support the community is prepared to give to the increasing number of people who survive well beyond the limits of working life. Supplementing the incomes of many of the elderly is important, but it will not by itself provide them with the specialised housing which they need, the extra care which they require in their own homes, the hospital treatment they are unable to get; nor will it, as the Minister herself testified only a short time ago, enable them to overcome loneliness, or to master a crippling disability.

While it is true that 94 per cent. of our old people are living in private households—only 6 per cent. are living in the care of hospitals and institutions—this does not mean—we know does not mean—that they are all living a comfortable independent existence. Far from it.

I referred earlier this afternoon to the valuable survey "The Aged in the Welfare State", conducted by Peter Townsmd and Dorothy Wedderburn. I think that the Committee would like to be reminded of what the survey revealed. About 250,000, or 4 per cent., of those aged 65 or over, depend on local authority home help services; but 330,000 feel the need for help with house work, and nearly another 270,000 say they do not feel the need but have difficulty with housework. Fewer than 70,000 have at least one meal a week delivered by the mobile meals service and nearly another 350,000 would like to have this service. Over 400,000 have regular chiropody treatment through a free or subsidised voluntary or local authority service, but another 670,000 feel the need for someone to attend to their feet regularly.

The survey revealed that over 200,000 have severe difficulties in hearing, but have never had an aural examination, or have not had one in the last five years. Over 300,000 have severe difficulty in seeing, but have never had an examination of the eyes, or have not had such to examination in the last five years. Only 30,000 to 40,000 are in sheltered housing with some community or warden services, but it seems likely from the survey that at least 300,000 or about 5 per cent. require houses of this kind.

Townsend and Wedderburn confirmed what a good many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee already knew, that many of those receiving certain services, particularly hearing aids, home help and meals services, are not getting all the help they really require from these services. They need help more frequently, and the services need to be greatly extended in scope and variety. They also confirmed that the existing services are poorly co-ordinated. This is one of the discoveries we made when I was at the Ministry of Health, when we launched the local authority health and welfare long-term plan. When the local authorities' long-term plans were submitted and examined we saw for the first time just how wide was the disparity in the provisions they were making.

Permit me to say, in passing, that it is more than likely that even if we secured effective co-ordination of our health and welfare services we should probably be faced with absolute shortages of staff. buildings and equipment, due to the fact that under every Government we have simply not been devoting a sufficiently large proportion of our national resources to them. I readily concede that. I think, however, that if the present Government—and this is the answer to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Provan—had taken our advice and created a larger Ministry embracing the health and welfare services as well as social security it would have been possible at least to have tackled the whole problem comprehensively, to have measured the need, and to have decided upon proper priorities.

I concede that our Amendment is second best. But it seeks to put upon officers of the Commission a more positive duty than is envisaged in the wording of the Clause. I should like to give a practical example of how it might help in regard to a problem which the Bill simply does not face. Last month, Dr. Benians, the consultant geriatrician of the Southend group of hospitals, which serves my constituency, was reported as saying that he had only two-fifths of the hospital beds he needed for the elderly, and the number of aged persons needing hospital care would increase faster than the increase planned in beds.

Dr. Benians spoke movingly about the loneliness of old folk who drifted into South-East Essex, mainly from London, who lived alone and had no one to help them. He said:

"The position of these people is desperate indeed. When they get ill we can't help them, and the fact that we can't help them is a major disgrace."

He went on to say that one of the biggest problems facing those trying to help the elderly was not knowing where the elderly were. A large number of them they know nothing about at all. The Ministry of Pensions knew where they were, but he understood that they would not say. They should. We have the right to know these things.

Dr. Benians is quite correct. I have served in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, and I know that one reason for the Ministry not being able to provide the information is that, under the Official Secrets Act, it cannot divulge particulars of that kind. I think that the Minister will confirm too that another difficulty is that, even if it were decided to provide the information, the local offices of the Ministry keep their records alphabetically and not by district. Even the Records Branch at Newcastle keeps its files under the National Insurance numbers.

Under the Bill, the Commission would have no power to provide local authorities with the information which Dr. Benians suggests is so necessary. I am not saying that the information should be provided in this way. Here may I make a suggestion. I understand that, under their new pay award, family doctors will get extra payment for treating the elderly. It will be the task of local executive councils to compile area lists showing the general practitioners' patients aged 65 and over and to keep those lists up to date on an annual basis. The process has already been started by the executive councils, and it involves noting each patient's date of birth on his or her medical register card. It seems to me that that provides a nucleus of the register which my hon. Friend said is so essential and for which every social welfare worker is calling. May I ask whether the Minister has discussed this with her colleague, the Minister of Health?

Our Amendment would put a duty on the Commission to find a solution to the problem. It is clear that the duty ought to be put upon someone and that the Minister ought to make a decision about it.

One question which is relevant to what the hon. Member for Provan was saying is: what will the Commission's officers do in situations where it is plain that there is not just a need for supplementary pension or allowance? I agree the officers of the National Assistance Board act with speed and humanity, and we all pay tribute to them for the work which they have done in the past and no doubt will continue to do in the future. But what will happen when they see that there is a need for some help, where there are no relatives nearby to give assistance, where there are no meals-on-wheels and no friendly visiting?

It is quite true that in the National Assistance Act, the Board is instructed to exercise its functions

"in such manner as shall best promote the welfare of persons affected by the exercise thereof."

No doubt that requirement is continued. However, National Assistance Board officers tell me that in obvious cases of need they already get in touch with the local authority, and act at once, as the right hon. Lady said earlier. But they also tell me that this is often unsatisfactory, for two reasons. First, there is sometimes great difficulty in deciding at what point other help is needed. After all, that is a job for a trained social worker.

I support the Amendment because I have had quite a lot of experience of dealing with people who are in need. What worries me is that when people come to my office all that I can do is put them in touch with the Assistance Board as it has been in the past and try to put the case before the Board. For this reason I support the Amendment, because I think we should try to strengthen our knowledge of where these people are instead of having them come to Members' offices in the way they do now.

The National Assistance Board in my area has been exceptionally helpful and kind, but when I write to say that there has been a change in someone's circumstances I am often told that it does not know that but now that it has the information it will be pleased to do such-and-such a thing. I wonder whether, if there are to be fewer visits in future, as I understand there may be, it will be possible to write to families periodically asking whether there has been a change of circumstances, because such changes are not always notified.

During the war we were very successful, especially in blitzed cities, in having a central information centre to which people would go and report where they were living. I wonder whether, in order to be able to search out these people in the way we are suggesting, it will be possible for the Ministry to ask the local authorities to put up a notice inviting people to give information or help about those who are in need. Perhaps neighbours could provide this information, and in this way the officers of the Commission or other voluntary organisations could find out who was in need.

Not long ago I had a party at my house for social workers in the area. I was astonished to find that a number of people whom I did not think it was necessary to introduce did not know one another even though they had been in contact on the telephone for many years. I think that these officers should contact other branches and organisations to get this knowledge about those who need help.

I believe that the right hon. Lady really wants her officers to be social workers, and I should like, therefore, to refer to the Younghusband Report which, in paragraph 22 on page 7, says:

"The purpose of social work is to help individuals or families with various problems, and to overcome or lessen these so that they may achieve a better personal, family, or social adjustment. The function of social workers is to assess the extent of these problems. to give appropriate help, and to offer a supporting relationship"—

this is very important—

"when this is required to give people confidence to overcome difficulties."

I should like the right hon. Lady to tell us how many of these officers she has in her Ministry, what type of case load she thinks they will have in future, and, if they are already overworked, how she envisages them carrying out their duties in future if we are to have them as social workers, understanding the people with whom they are dealing. I was a little worried when I saw that there were to be fewer visits in future. I think that these visits are all-important. Sometimes the visiting officer is the only person an individual sees for months, and one thing that should not be cut is the number of visits.

I should like to refer again to the Younghusband Report with regard to the duties of the National Assistance Board because, when talking about visits, it says that these are beneficial, and adds in paragraph 1011:

"These provide a striking illustration of the inter-relationship between this statutory service and the health and welfare services."

The connection between those services is a great asset, and in paragraph 1012 the Report says:

"These elderly people, many of whom are also blind or otherwise handicapped, are visited periodically by the Board's officers."

It would be a great pity if these visits were cut down in any way.

One other question which has not been referred to so far is that of the Board being allowed to pay the rent of people who are in receipt of assistance. All too often I find that rent is given for this purpose, but that, regrettably, it is not paid, and the Younghusband Report says in paragraph 1014:

"Families with rent arrears receiving rent allowances from the Board are another case in point. The practice, advocated by the Housing Management Sub-Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee, of local authority housing officers notifying default to the Board at an early stage can often prevent ultimate eviction…"

I hope that the right hon. Lady will stress this point to her officers in the future, because I have several times suggested in this House that when there are arrears it might be better to pay the rent direct to the housing authority concerned. It is a terrible temptation when someone is given £3 or more for rent, and there is a family to bring up, to spend the money rather than pay it as rent, with the result that he or she faces the possibility of eviction.

This applies particularly to local authority houses, but it would be advantageous if the landlord of a private house could be protected before the outstanding rent reached such a figure that it could never be repaid. I think that if someone misses paying rent for a fortnight inquiries should be made by the housing manager or the private individual to the Board, because once the rent has been missed for two weeks it is difficult to catch up. There is generally a reason for not paying the rent. It may be because of sickness, or because whoever pays the rent is not a very good payer, and if inquiries were made at an early stage, I think that it would prevent a number of evictions.

We have talked a lot about elderly people, but quite a lot of the money goes to women who have been deserted by their husbands, and to unmarried mothers. I hope that they will be specially helped in the future, because these are the people whom we ought to seek out before their children are taken into care by a local authority. These are the people who need support. I hope that the officers concerned will keep in touch with the courts because, generally, the courts know when a wife has been deserted, because she goes there to claim maintenance. If a woman has been divorced the courts have knowledge of it, and it would be of great help if these officers kept in touch with the courts to find out where these people are living. Later on I shall have a suggestion to make about what we can do to help deserted wives.

I support the Amendment, and I hope that the right hon. Lady will accept it. If it were left to me, I would go even further and take out the words "so far as is practicable", and say:

"The officers and servants of the Commission shall have a duty to seek out those who are, or are likely to be, in need",

and so on, because they should have that duty if they are to be proper social workers and make the new Ministry work as we want it to. It is very difficult for a woman who has been deserted to have to spend hours in an office trying to get help. The officers should have a duty to go out and help those in need.

If the right hon. Lady is not prepared to accept the Amendment, I hope that she will consider a compromise which will give her officers some greater status so that they can bring their knowledge and interest to the notice of the individuals concerned.

In discussing this Amendment, we are coming close to the heart of the purpose of the social services. Important as is the whole need for more research into all the areas and types of poverty and hardship, we come to the real problem only when we consider the question of seeking out and dealing with individual cases. It is, after all, in dealing with the ordinary person in difficulty or hardship that the social services are in their proper sphere.

That is why I feel that the formation of this much wider Ministry will enable it to deal much more effectively with cases of poverty and hardship. There is a great danger here that what it will deal with—perhaps more effectively—is only those cases of hardship and poverty with which it is already in contact. The real need is to discover more cases with which, at the moment, the social services are not in contact.

This was the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown). Although he seemed to question this Amendment, many of his arguments supported it. This is precisely what the Amendment is intended to do—not only to deal more effectively with the cases which exist, but to try to find other spheres and other individual cases which need help. Not only must our fight against poverty and hardship be waged on a wider front, which is probably what the Bill will enable, but we must also go more deeply into and be better able to detect individual cases as they arise.

This is not such a difficult problem in practical terms as the hon. Member for Provan made out. After all, the Ministry of Pensions and the officers of the new Ministry could do a great deal more work and make more progress through the efforts of those already engaged in this work. Mention has been made this afternoon of the work which could be done by those engaged in the health services. This is particularly true locally—through general practitioners, district nurses and local health visitors. This is one of the reasons why many of us on this side regret that the Ministry of Health is not being co-ordinated into the new Ministry of Social Security.

Mention has been made of how much more use can be made of other voluntary organisations in this respect—the W.V.S. and the Red Cross are examples—and also of the courts and probation officers. Officers of the new Ministry could do much more in seeking out and finding those in need through the efforts of those involved in work with young people. One of the particular areas of poverty and hardship mentioned in the Second Reading debate and again this afternoon is that of the low wage-earner, particularly with a large family.

I know that one of the real problems of these people is that very often they are in no form of direct contact with the statutory welfare services as they are at present. That is why I believe that those who work in the Ministry of Pensions and in the new Ministry could achieve a great deal more if more work was done and more contact made with those already working on these problems. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what work is done by her officers through schools. Teachers in schools are in a unique position to know what is happening in the whole life and background of their pupils.

The other sphere which is important and very neglected is that of youth organisations. I say this with feeling because I have been involved in youth work over the past 12 years. I and those with whom I have been concerned know that we can go to the National Assistance Board and the Ministry of Pensions to put them in touch with a particular case, but how rarely the contact happens the other way round—regular contact and liaison between officers of the Ministry and youth organisations, who are in contact at ground level with the places where poverty and hardship occur.

I say this in no sense of criticism of the officers of the Ministry—I have the utmost admiration for their work, particularly for that of the officers of the National Assistance Board—but simply in many cases because they do not tend to do so. This is a positive field where much more liaison and good work could be done. If the Amendment is accepted, I do not necessarily envisage that the officers of the Ministry, in seeking out cases of poverty and hardship, will make immediate contact with individual cases. However, by their being in regular contact with those already in the field—youth leaders, school teachers or others —our welfare services could become much more effective.

Until we do this, we will not make full use of all the sources of effort in this wide and varied work. Only when we do this will we get to the root of the problem. That is why I believe that the Amendment is particularly important.

Whatever the fate of the Amendment, we have had an interesting and informative discussion. I am sure that all those concerned with the work of the right hon. Lady's Ministry will be grateful for the various informed points which have been put forward. I hope that the Amendment will be accepted, but whether it is or not we have opened up in our discussions tremendously wide opportunities for advance into the areas of making life happier, more just and more efficient for those who come within the orbit of the right hon. Lady's Ministry.

I apologise for having had to depart from the Committee before I heard the right hon. Lady's reply to a previous debate in which I intervened. I had another engagement and I therefore did not hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) on this Amendment, so she may have made this point unknown to me.

We have spent a long time discussing the problem of contacting people who might be helped if the whole of the services available was brought to their notice. The right hon. Lady has said quite clearly on many occasions recently that her Ministry has arrived at a figure of between 250,000 and 270,000 people who ought to be drawing National Assistance or, as it will be under this Bill, supplementary benefit. Therefore, that figure is available.

I should be very interested to hear whether the right hon. Lady can tell the Committee who has been responsible for finding out these cases and how this figure has been reached. I am certain that the information which she has given to the House is correct, but I want to know, if these figures were already available, whether it is now possible, as is suggested in the Amendment, for these people to be linked up in a co-ordinated and proper sense. It would be fascinating to the Committee to hear who made these inquiries, how they are being scheduled, what action, if any, has been taken. and what is the breadth and width of the problem of this very large group of people.

Most hon. Members who have supported the Amendment have spoken from experience, and I will do the same. I have regular consultations in my constituency with the sort of people the Amendment is designed to help and, over the years, I have gained experience not only of the Problems that they face but of the problems which are faced by those who try to persuade them to go to the National Assistance Board, as it has been known. I have always found that by speaking to these people over a period of time and after explaining the rights which they have I am able finally to ask, "If I ask the National Assistance Board to choose a delightful and charming officer to visit you at your home, will you allow me to put your name forward?" That technique has never failed. I am referring in the main to the elderly who are in what is known as the small fixed income groups. I am glad to report that the Board has indeed always chosen a charming, delightful and acceptable officer to interview the individuals concerned. I believe that in at least 90 per cent. of these cases it has been found that the people were due for assistance from the Board.

If one wishes to get at the heart of this matter one must realise that the people who need persuading to go to the Board are those who are not aware of, or who cannot understand, our modern approach to life and Parliament's view of the help and assistance which they should receive. Many of them, through no fault of their own, have found it difficult to meet the ever rising costs of life and to understand the latest developments in our modern social services.

It is often difficult to explain to people who have never been in touch with the developing national social services the idea that those who are more fortunate than they are would like to see something done for the less fortunate who have served their country well. The latter point should be emphasised, because there are masses of people who are entitled to draw on the State's social services and who have served their country well over the years. These people are particularly entitled to receive help, but we must realise that many of them take a different view. In the past they have had to accept all sorts of things which I and my generation regarded as a normal process of life. The new ways must be explained to them and, while we all appreciate the latest proposals of the Minister, it will not be easy to persuade those with problems who prefer not to accept anything from the State to accept the help to which they are entitled.

I suspect that although a large number of people have allowed themselves to be questioned in the Minister's inquiries and have given the details of the sort of lives they lead, there remains a large number of people who are as close as clams and who will never disclose some of the extremely difficult circumstances under which they live. I would, therefore, be grateful if the right hon. Lady would explain how her inquiries were conducted and how those investigated were chosen; whether the names were obtained from local authorities, voluntary organisations or through the courts. And since a number of people must have been involved in carrying out these wide investigations, this corps of people might form the nucleus of the sort of body proposed in the Amendment.

I rise to support the Amendment. First, may I say how excellent I and other hon. Members have found those who were employed by the National Assistance Board and who will now go into the Commission referred to in the Bill. Where cases were drawn to their attention—very often by a Member of Parliament—they accepted promptly, courteously, efficiently and fairly.

There are many bodies, some of which have been enumerated in detail during the debate, who have had brought to their attention or knew of cases that should receive the attention and assistance of the National Assistance Board. There are also many people who are aware of the benefits that they can obtain but who, for reasons sometimes of pride—false pride, if I may say so—and sometimes of fear of being asked too many questions, which they are not in fact asked, decline or refuse to get in touch with the Board or its officials.

It is necessary, therefore, that the onus should be put on the new Commission to seek out these people and to see whether its assistance is required. If one looks at the Bill—I shall not discuss the merits or demerits of future Clauses to be considered, if for no other reason than that I should be out of order—one sees in Clause 6:

"The requirements to be taken into account for the purposes of this Act include any requirement for—

(a) appliances or services in respect of which charges are for the time being authorised by or under the National Health Service Act 1951 or the National Health Service Act 1952;"

and the rather extraordinary Clause 7:

"Where it appears to the Commission reasonable in all the circumstances they may determine that benefit shall be paid to a person by way of a single payment to meet an exceptional need."

That is certainly a very wide Clause.

Will the possible beneficiaries who may be able to take advantage of these Clauses be aware, unless it is pointed out by somebody employed by the Commission who is in a position to to assist them, of what are the initial benefits given by the Bill? It cannot be left to future beneficiaries to make application and if necessary to refer the members of the Commission to the Clauses which we shall discuss later in the course of the debates in this Committee.

Therefore, there are at least two sound reasons why this Amendment should be accepted so that the Commission will have a duty to seek out, through means which it must easily have at its disposal, those with whom it should discuss their troubles and problems and give those people the benefit and assistance to which they are entitled. I ask the Minister to accept the Amendment.

I am in broad sympathy with the objects of the Amendment, but I think that it is a little too vague. First, I cannot see how the officers and servants of the Commission will carry out the duty which the Amendment seeks to impose upon them. We are told that their first duty is personal calls. There is also the duty of research. A third duty which has not been mentioned is that of publicity, which is very important. In fact the Minister has undertaken that officers in her Department will have a duty to co-ordinate research over its length and breadth. If that is indeed a commitment from the right hon. Lady there is no reason why we should press the Amendment.

I do not think that the officers of the Commission could carry out the duty of personal calls in the way in which it has been set out. I hope that there will also be within the Department officers with a duty to publicise the services which the whole Department offers. When I speak of publicity I do not mean only those little notices which can be lost on the vast notice boards in every post office. The services should be publicised in a proper professional and commercial manner.

The duty which the Amendment seeks to impose on the officers and servants of the Commission cannot be carried out in the case of the health and welfare proposals, unless these services are also brought under one Department. Proposals have been put forward for coordinating all the various functions, even those of the Ministry of Health, in one Department. There is a case for far greater co-ordination of house-to-house visiting, local welfare services, child welfare services, the medical services and many of the voluntary organisations which have been mentioned already.

As the Minister has said, this would produce a vast and unwieldy Ministry. I accept this, but this co-ordination could be broken down on regional lines, and we could set up regional welfare bodies which would take over a large number of the services which are now administered, for instance, by the right hon. Lady's Department. I do not want to take away any function from her Department, but I am regionalistic at heart and I like the idea of spreading this coordination to the regions. Then we should overcome the problem of an unwieldy Ministry.

There is a need to seek out not only poverty but also social inadequacy. I do not believe that this can be done—particularly the seeking out of social inadequacy which requires personal calls—by imposing a duty on the officers and servants of the Commission. I hope that they will conceive it to be their duty, as indeed it is the duty of all good citizens. I should hate to think that any Minister would be held accountable because the Department had not discovered one case, or perhaps several cases, of social inadequacy which it could be said it should have discovered.

The cases of social inadequacy have to be sought out through dependants, neighbours, relatives, and people who live in the same village or in the same street. These are the people on whom we shall have to depend. I wonder whether, it this Amendment is carried, we shall then receive greater co-operation from them than we do now. Whenever one imposes a duty on a Government Department to do something, that automatically seems to remove it from the duty of everybody else. People tend to say, "It is their job—let them get on with it." I should not like that to happen here.

We have had a most interesting debate. It has been very wide-ranging, but it is none the worse for that. I want first to take up one or two specific points, and to deal with some fears which have been expressed by certain hon. Members because of the suggestion that visits to some people may take place less often in future. First, the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) asked me where I got the figure of 250,000 or 270,000 people in real need. I do not blame her for not knowing; there is always so much happening in this House and in our political life. But these figures arise from a survey announced in the House, the result of which has just been published. The hon. Lady will be able to obtain a copy from the Vote Office. There she will find the answers to all her questions.

The hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) was worried about the extension of the interval between visits from six months to twelve months. One of the important reasons for this is that we want our old people—and widows—to feel that they have a guaranteed income, and that it will not be cut. They will have this for at least a year. That is why, in these cases, the review will be carried out once a year.

At the same time, we have said that old people who do not wish to have an officer calling upon them at their homes may make application in writing and confirm their wish by going to the office. This is to overcome the feeling of some old people—especially of those living in villages—that there is a stigma attached to a visit by an officer. They feel that other people will realise that the officer has come to give them financial help.

We have had to weigh one consideration against the other. I can assure the hon. Member, however, that in the case of a person who, through ill health or any other reason, needs to be visited more often than once a year, those visits will certainly take place. They will possibly take place more often than twice a year. Further, we shall continue to nominate someone—perhaps a neighbour or relative of such a person—to get in touch with the Ministry immediately if he thinks that there is some need that is not being met. For the vast majority of old people, therefore, there will be a visit once a year, if it is required, and for those in real need the visits can be much more frequent.

I am much obliged to the right hon. Lady for that informataion. Do I understand from what she has said that if, when the visit has taken place, the officer has ascertained that the old person is sick or is living alone, he will make a specific note of the fact and will in some way ensure that the person receives a visit sooner than twelve months hence?

That is exactly what I have been trying to say.

Many hon. Members referred to the question of welfare facilities for disabled ex-Service men, and suggested that we might adopt the same practice under the Ministry of Social Security for the person who receives non-contributory benefits. Again, welfare officers visit the homes of disabled persons usually only once every second year. But in the case of severely disabled ex-Service men we are fortunate in having so many voluntary organisations which provide help. We have the war pensions committees, whose members provide a very good visiting service both for disabled ex-Service men and the elderly war widows. Here we propose that there should be a visit not less often than once a year, as now happens in the case of severely disabled ex-Service men who are visited by welfare officers.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) felt that it would be wrong if blind people were visited less frequently by the Commission. I can assure her that if a blind person is living alone and is not regularly visited by the welfare officer for the blind—because, apart from our assistance officers, there are those welfare officers—an officer of the Commission will visit that person at least once every three months.

The hon. Lady also referred to the difficulties that people now get into when they use for other purposes the National Assistance money that they have been given to pay the rent. I have had instances in my constituency. This can cause very great hardship. Under Clause 17(3) the Commission will have power to determine that the benefits shall be paid to a third party. That third party may be the private owner of a house or a local authority. The subsection provides that this shall be done

"Where it appears to the Commission that it is necessary for protecting the interests of a claimant or of his dependants…"

I turn to the Amendment as drafted.

Would the right hon. Lady answer the question I put to her? Would not a nucleus for a register of old people be found in the lists now being prepared by executive councils? Has she consulted, or does she propose to consult, the Minister of Health? This is a crucial point.

I intend to deal with that point when I deal with the consultations which I have naturally been having with the Health Ministers, because both my right hon. Friends the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland are concerned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) said that the Amendment is woolly. The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said that the Amendment was wide-ranging and that, if the Commission and its officers were to perform their other tasks effectively, this statutory duty should not be imposed upon them.

I will deal first with the Amendment as it appears on the Notice Paper and tell the Committee what its effect would he. It was quite clear that the hon. Member for Melton (Miss Pike) did not intend the Amendment to be as wide-ranging as its wording would imply, but it was evident that some of her hon. Friends wanted the Amendment to be very wide indeed. Having heard the hon. Lady's speech, I had thought that I would deal with what she thought was necessary, but having heard the other speeches I must deal with the Amendment as it is on the Notice Paper.

The Amendment as it is on the Notice Paper would make the officers of the Commission responsible for identifying the financial, health and welfare needs of the whole population. The Amendment would cover people of all ages, regardless of whether they came within the scope of the Bill and, indeed, regardless of whether they had any cause to have dealings with the Commission or with the Ministry of Social Security.

The Amendment, if accepted, would mean also that the Commission would be required to operate a universal welfare detection service, with certain limited. exceptions, one of which would be housing. Some hon. Members wanted even housing to be included. However, the Amendment as drafted would exclude housing but would include all the other social services for everybody in the community.

rose—

The hon. Gentleman came in very late, almost at the end of this debate. He has a habit of doing that. This has been a very long debate. I want to answer it in as much detail as I can.

rose—

I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

On a point of order. I must point out to the right hon. Lady that I had a Committee upstairs or I would not have arrived late.

That is not a point of order.

I am not complaining about the hon. Gentleman having a Committee upstairs, but I want to deal with the many valuable contributions which have been made.

I must make it clear, as most hon. Members have suspected, that the Government are not able to accept the Amendment. This does not mean that we do not feel that there is an important piece of detection work to be done. The hon. Lady the Member for Melton stressed the importance of ensuring that all needs, not only financial but also welfare needs, should be brought to light. The Government agree with this point. We are determined to do everything possible to reduce the risk of such needs being overlooked, because if welfare and health needs are overlooked very great hardship can ensue to those concerned. I am in complete agreement with the hon. Lady that the lack of such services as home helps and meals on wheels—things the hon. Lady mentioned on Second Reading—can often cause almost as great hardship as lack of money.

We are grateful to the Minister for her full explanation. Of course, we accept that her intentions are in line with all the speeches that have been made this afternoon to establish this detection service. Although there is very little between us in the goal which she and I want to achieve, there is a great difference in the means by which we want to do it. The hon. Lady says that a lot is being done and that ways are being found. We on this side of the Committee want to put the onus and the responsibility on to some specific Minister to make certain that coordination is established with all the local welfare organisations.

We know that at present there are a tremendous number of people working upon this; there is a tremendous amount of overlapping and we also know that there is a great deal of ignorance as a result of this. We believe that if we write into the Bill the onus of responsibility, wherever practicable—and those words are very powerful and important, because it means that we do not ask the Minister to do the impossible—to seek out these people, it will force coordination at local level by these various organisations. This is one of the most valuable things which we wrote into the Children and Young Persons Act. I keep coming back to this because I was responsible for bringing that Bill to the House.

The Bill can go even further than the forced co-ordination at local authority level. We accept the Minister's intentions and we know that she wants to do these things, but we are realists and know that unless there is an onus of responsibility put upon a Minister things move forward too slowly. If we are to bring in the Minister of Health and other Ministers, this is the way to make certain that we have this wider scope and co-ordination.

I accept that it will mean that if we do our job properly, however we do it, whether by intention or onus of responsibility, many more skilled social workers would be needed. By writing this onus of responsibility into the Bill, we will be forced to use these people properly. People are getting married earlier, and there will be many young married social workers who could give part-time help. We can bring them in in this local co-ordination. The people I am frightened about are those about whom the Minister was talking, the borderline cases who, at one moment in their lives, are just all right, and then, because of exceptional circumstances, inflation, the movement of forces in society, they are at risk. They may be young or old people and it is absolutely essential that we use all our forces at local level to make certain that these people are detected. We believe that wherever practicable there should be this onus of responsibility and it is for these reasons that we shall divide on this Amendment.

I am very surprised indeed at the decision of the hon. Lady to divide. I could understand her back benchers wishing to divide, but it is completely against what I understood her to mean when she nodded assent to what I said. It is clear from Clause 3(1) of the Bill that all the power that is needed is there. If the hon. Lady wants to divide the Committee, we will be quite happy.

I nodded because I was believing that the Minister's intentions were there, but I know that the Minister will not always be there and I want to make absolutely certain that the onus of responsibility is in the Bill.

I arrived late in this debate and heard two speeches. I had been detained in a Committee upstairs. When I asked the right hon. Lady if she would give way, I was quite prepared for her to say that she did not intend to do so. Instead, she made two comments which were in the form of debate about my attempt to get her to give way. First of all, she said that I had not been in the debate, which was perfectly true. Then I had to explain the reason for that on a point of order. Then she said that I made a habit of coming into debates and speaking.

I must tell the right hon. Lady, and she knows it perfectly well, that I sat through the Second Reading of the Bill. Even supposing I as a Member of the House of Commons, came in here—

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bring himself to the Amendment.

I am dealing with what happened to me on this Amendment. The right hon. Lady—

Order. What is under discussion is the Amendment

I am very anxious that it should be made clear from the back benches that we may have to put up with a "we are the masters now" attitude, but we are not prepared to put up with "we are the mistress now" from the right hon Lady. That is all I wanted to say.

I wish to thank the Minister for providing in the Bill that there shall be at least two women members on the Commission. However, I object to the fact that this has to be done. I look forward to the time when women are selected for their work and not because they are women. We do not come to the House of Commons as women Members of Parliament; we come as Members of Parliament. But I hope that this will not be a precedent and that women will not be allowed to serve on commissions or committees unless provision for it is written into the Measure. I thank the right hon. Lady for doing this. I appreciate that it has to be done.

I agree completely with what the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) has said. I came to the House of Commons not as a woman Member of Parliament, but as a Member of Parliament. I hope that the day will come when women will be allowed to serve in these capacities for their own qualities and abilities. If we had not put this provision in the Bill other hon. Members would have insisted that we did put it in. Therefore, the safest thing to do was to put it in.

I wish to draw attention to what is I think a serious deficiency in the Clause in respect of people who will be allowed to benefit under the new non-contributory arrangements. On Clause 2, the Minister referred to the fact that the long-term chronically sick would gain the extra 9s. provided by the Bill, but she omitted to say that chronically sick wives or seriously disabled wives of men who are in full-time employment are not at present eligible for benefit of any kind. This is a problem with which I know the right hon. Lady is concerned, because she has referred to it on a number of occasions and has promised to undertake to try to correct this anomaly. I had hoped that the Bill would provide a suitable opportunity to bring in benefits for this group of people.

On 22nd March, in referring to the policies carried out by the Government, the Minister said that they had dealt speedily with the needs of the old, the sick and the disabled. I hope that she will not rest there and that she will continue to try to help these disabled people. Previously, this was resisted on the ground of the contributory principle, but the Bill specifically supports non-contributory pensions, so I should have thought that that argument was no longer as valid as it was. War pension improvements and improvements in constant attendance allowances for people who are seriously disabled have recently been announced.

This problem, which is growing, is of comparatively recent origin. The medical profession has made great advances in prolonging the expectation of life of people who suffer from such diseases as respiratory poliomyelitis and multiple sclerosis. There have also been great improvements in the machinery available to people who need special breathing apparatus. Whereas, previously, they could be treated and looked after only in hospital, there is now portable equipment—the Ministry of Health has played its part in developing it as well as private enterprise—which has made it possible even for some people suffering seriously to live in their own homes. I am sure that the right hon. Lady will agree that it is very desirable that, where possible, people suffering in this way should live with their families and be part of the family life for the benefit of both themselves and their family rather than have to stay as long-term patients in hospital.

It is possible to argue on financial grounds alone that the cost of maintaining a patient in hospital is about £40 or £50 a week, whereas at home the cost to the country is not anything of that order and frees a hospital bed. More important is the human aspect.

I had a constituent who contracted "polio" 12 years ago, when she was a young married woman with two children. She was able to talk her way out of hospital and return home. Although since then she has not drawn breath without the aid of mechanical apparatus, she takes part in the family life. She has kept the family united. When one goes into the home, one finds an atmosphere of friendliness. It is a well-run home which would have broken up if she had had to remain in hospital and she would probably have deteriorated mentally. The members of the family lead active and useful lives.

My constituent is not a unique example, but an outstanding example, of courage. She has the use of only a few muscles in her feet with which she can operate a dictating machine. She has taken a diploma at the London School of Journalism and is a staff reporter on the local evening newspaper.

Such people show courage. They are able to make a real contribution to life and to lead a life which is constructive and useful. Unless, however, we are able to help them to live in their homes, we make much more difficulty for them. Great strain is caused to the family which has someone permanently incapacitated and for whom a nurse or domestic help must be constantly available.

At present, a fully employed husband has to pay for some of this attendance. I know that local authorities do what they can, but some of the attendance and nursing care has to be provided by the husband. This imposes a financial strain on the family and a mental strain on the disabled person, who feels that she is depriving her children and husband of some of the luxuries of life or of a holiday away from home which they might otherwise have been able to afford.

I am sure that the Minister is concerned with this type of case, to which she has referred in the past. Hope springs eternal, and I hope that the right hon. Lady might be able to see her way to bringing this class of disabled person within the ambit of the Bill so that they may be eligible for these non-contributory benefits as of right.

As the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) has pointed out, subsection (2) of the Clause provides that

"Where… the requirements and resources of any person fall to be aggregated with and to be treated as those of another person that other person only shall be entitled to benefit."

Because it is important, as, I am sure, the whole Committee will agree, that people outside Parliament, especially those who may be disabled and need help from the Bill, should be enabled to understand what we are trying to do more easily, perhaps, than some other recent legislation has been understood, I make no apology for asking my right hon. Friend the Minister for a measure of clarification, with which I am sure she will be glad to help us.

I follow the hon. Member for Newbury in taking the Clause as referring to the position of a married couple. From Clause 8, however, I find that any person in full-time work is excluded from the benefit of the Bill. What worries me, therefore, is that a person who, under Clause 4, is aggregated, however disabled that person might be, with a person in full-time employment, is denied any benefit from the Bill.

This is a measure of social injustice which, now that we have a truly compassionate Minister and a Government who are determined to make great progress in this direction, I hoped that we might have taken the opportunity of the Bill to remedy. It is not a new problem. The chronic sick have been with us since the beginning of time, but I very much welcome the increasing public concern on this question.

The heart of the dilemma is that no Minister, of any Government, has ever been prepared to recognise that a woman working in her home should be regarded as fully employed. Goodness knows, that is an attitude which is quite unacceptable to any mother who is trying to bring up a large family. But we have never accepted as an insurance statistic the married woman working in her own home. When she works outside her home, she has an optional right to insurance, but only 1 million married women working outside their homes have taken up their full rights under National Insurance.

That means that if a mother who has decided—and who is to say that she has decided wrongly?—to stay at home and make that a full-time job, particularly while her children are small, is then struck down by a crippling, disabling disease for the rest of her life, the whole family are impoverished. It can destroy the living standards for the children and for the husband and affect the whole fabric of their lives, and yet, although it is her disablement that produces a situation of chronic poverty to a family, it seems, if I read the Bill aright, that this is a direction in which we are not able to promise any alleviation.

I know that in cases of this kind local authorities give all the help they can, but I am thinking of people who need more than the routine visit of the home help or the health visitor. I know of several individual cases, and had we made faster progress with the Bill, I would have wanted to speak at greater length. Most hon. Members will know of families in which the husband is out at work all day, struggling to keep a home together, doing the housework at night, looking after the children and trying to find someone whom he can pay to come in and help while he is at work, which to a person receiving a low wage is often difficult.

It means that money is spent in that way which should be spent on the children's food, or on other necessities for the family. The basic principle of the insurance status of the married woman is, I shall probably be told, far beyond the ambit of the Clause, or even of the Bill, but it seems to me to be at the heart of our wrong thinking in this matter.

I would like to know from my right hon. Friend the Minister, who is, I know, more than ready to help in every kind of difficult case, whether there is not a possibility of this situation being reconsidered. The number of people involved might not be very large. There are precedents in other countries for the payment of non-contributory disablement benefit. I would be sorry if I thought hat we were to remain indefinitely behind other countries which had found a solution, however small, to this difficult problem.

I agree with what the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) has said, but I would like to raise a Further point concerning subsection (1) of the Clause, which states that

"Every person in Great Britain of or over the age of sixteen whose resources are insufficient to meet his requirements …"

I should like to know from the Minister why, at present, the age of 16 is mentioned. I presume that it is because it is expected that the school-leaving age will be raised to 16.

I wish to draw the Minister's attention to a case with which I am familiar. The family consists of a father, mother and four children, aged 6, 8, 12 and 15 years. The husband works as a labourer and earns £9 5s. a week, after deductions, and he has a rent of 25s. He has a son who, regrettably, is disabled, who is now 15 years of age and has, therefore, had to leave school but has not been able to find work.

I understand that the family is not entitled either to family allowance or to National Assistance. The total income of the family is, therefore, £10 3s. If it were possible for them to have National Assistance—in other words, if the father did not work—I understand that the family would get £14 1s. 6d. Therefore, this young boy, through no fault of his own, reduces the income of the family because he is unable to work.

I would like to know from the Minister whether, at least until the school-leaving age is statutorily raised to 16, she will allow cases such as this to be eligible for assistance.

May I follow the eloquent plea of the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) in again drawing to the Minister's attention the plight of the incapacitated housewife which I mentioned on Second Reading and again earlier in today's debate. I support everything the hon. Lady said about the difficulties suffered by the houswife and family so afflicted. It is not only the afflicted woman who suffers but also her husband who has the extra financial burden of supporting the home and also the children, who lose the whole-time attention and care of the mother. Indeed, their entire time is spent in looking after their mother.

When the mother goes into hospital it costs the State about £1,000 to keep her there. if her husband is entitled to claim full fiscal relief he is entitled to the princely sum of £35 a year, which is quite derisory in comparison. It will cost him about £600 to keep his wife at home. The need of such families is therefore apparent. But these are the families the numbers of which it is very difficult to assess. It is almost impossible to find out the number of families where the housewife is afflicted in this way from such diseases as sclerosis or polio. I have tried to ascertain the numbers involved and I have failed. We need to help these families. I hope that the right hon. Lady will pay attention to my earlier plea and that of her hon. Friend to help this category of family.

Again we have had a very good debate. The main point made has been about the disabled housewife and the effect which her disablement may have not only on herself but on the whole family. I will not spend any time on this at present because the point is covered by later Amendments, and since we have been going rather slowly on the Bill, it seems a pity to use the time of the House now when the subject will be discussed again later this evening. I promise that I will deal with the points that have been raised when later Amendments are moved.

The hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) asked about the age of 16. It is only when a person becomes 16 that he or she has a right to become an applicant. This age is mentioned because, it is to be remembered, the school leaving age will be put up to 16. Moreover, a great many young people—more and more each year—are continuing at school until the age of 16 although the compulsory age limit has not yet been raised to 16.

The hon. Lady gave an example of a low wage-earner with a disabled son and other children. In other instances there is not such great hardship because the vast majority of young people are able to find jobs when they leave school at 15, and the real hardship arises when the father is in full-time employment but is a low wage-earner and has other children. I will deal with this aspect on a later Amendment.

I believe that the Opposition Front Bench, too, are anxious to get on with the Bill. I am willing to stay all night if that is necessary to allow the discussion to take place, but I think that there is anxiety to get on with the Bill and I will deal with these points when the Amendments are debated.

Is it not the case that 16 was arbitrarily fixed as the age some years ago under a previous Administration and not because the school leaving age was to be raised to 16? I ask my right hon. Friend to remember that this arbitrary decision has caused much heartburning especially in areas in which there are pockets of unemployment or hard cores of unemployment, so that when the child leaves school at 15 he is denied any allowance in spite of the fact that he is more or less an adult and in spite of the fact that the father is in the low-income group.

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that because of this economic problem the Lanarkshire education authority was compelled to open a pre-vocational centre to give some training to these 15-16 year olds, who could not find jobs, and a reasonable bursary to tide them over?

I recognise that it is the genuine intention of my right hon. Friend and the Government to increase the school leaving age by 1970, but as the possibility of a serious shortage of teachers might prejudice this intention and raise the question of a possible postponement at that time, will my right hon. Friend later in the Bill consider the possibility of using as a yardstick the statutory school leaving age instead of mentioning any particular age? I have always felt that this would have overcome many problems which I have experienced in my constituency where it is still not easy for school leavers to find employment.

I ask my right hon. Friend to bear this point in mind. I know that she, too, has had this experience, and I appreciate that she has taken account of it, but I should like her to indicate that it has been borne in mind and that the Government hope that it will be possible to meet the problems of children who leave school at 15 in areas where it is difficult to find employment and who become wholly dependent on a father who is in the low-wage-earner group.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 39, to leave out "Part I" and insert "Parts II and III".

I shall move the Amendment briefly. It concerns an important but comparatively narrow point in relation to the Amendments which we have discussed and to the many important Amendments which are to follow. The intention of the Amendment is simply to give the Government of the day power to increase disregards by regulation. I view with some suspicion, as no doubt do all hon. Members, any proposals to give any Government more power, particularly more power to change legislation by regulation. We all know how difficult it is to get adequate discussion of regulations and therefore an adequate check on the Executive when they bring forward changes in the law in this way.

But in this case I can see no good reason to distinguish between the scale rates and the disregards. The law continues the present position under the National Assistance Act whereby the scale rates may be increased by regulation, whereas new legislation is required for changes in the disregards.

Even if there may have been a good reason for this when the Act was introduced, I see no good reason for continuing this distinction. It is true that in the past it has been the practice to increase the scale rates more frequently than the disregards. This is right and proper, although I wonder whether in the past the disregards have been increased often enough in relation to the scale rates. However that may be, for many years the concept of relative poverty has been accepted by both sides of the Committee—the idea that the safety net provided for the various sections of the community should be what is called dynamic and not static. Previous Conservative administrations have accepted this principle and have carried it out on many occasions when they have increased National Assistance rates substantially more than would be required merely for cost-of-living purposes. The present Government have done the same.

But this concept of relative poverty involves not only inadequate cash; it also involves a decline in the value of savings. the fruit of past thrift, and some of the hardest cases of relative poverty fall within this second category where the value of savings and an accustomed standard of living have been eroded through inflation.

We have already welcomed the proposals in respect of the disregards, and I do not suggest that the disregards should be increased on every occasion when the scale rates are increased. But I hope that the Government agree that they should at any rate be looked at on each occasion to see whether they should be increased when the scale rates are increased. If this principle is accepted, then it seems to me only right, reasonable and practicable, that the same machinery in putting the proposals before Parliament should apply to the disregards as to the scale rates.

Should I be in order, Sir Beresford, in expressing the pleasure of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, and particularly of this side of the Committee, at your occupying the Chair? I have not seen you in the Chair before. I am sure that all hon. Members join me in expressing our pleasure.

On Second Reading and again today the Minister has argued that the Bill will make for greater flexibility in meeting need, especially among the elderly, and will do so in a way which preserves dignity and self-respect. I agree. But in some respects opportunities exist to make the Bill truly effective in overcoming the pockets of poverty and deprivation which exist. It is interesting to note that the present National Assistance Board Regulations allow for disregards of the kind set out in Part III. The Board, through the discretion of its officers, may allow additional disregards which are not specifically set out in the Regulations.

For example, under the existing regulations the first 15s. of superannuation payments must be disregarded, but under the general power conferred by Regulation 3 of the 1948 Regulations, the National Assistance Board also disregards the first 15s. of any payment from relatives or charitable organisations. The officers of the Board tell me—and they have done this for many years—that they feel that it is reasonable that the recipient should benefit from a charitable source in the same way as he may from a superannuation payment. I am sure that this is in line with the humane and sensible and flexible approach which, within the scope of the Regulations, the Board has practised for a long time.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) said, poverty is a relative term and very difficult to define. I think that I am right in saying that it has never been defined in statutory form. Most people would agree that minimum standards should be geared to the current standard of living and that it is morally wrong and wasteful in what is generally regarded as an affluent society to allow too large a gap to grow between those who, for one reason or another, have a struggle to exist and a great mass of the population.

For this reason and bearing in mind the cogent arguments of my hon. Friend, I would have thought that there was a strong case for introducing greater flexibility in the application of Part III of Schedule 2. There should be greater flexibility in respect of disregards given on capital and earnings and also certain payments. It is possible that within a few years it may be thought expedient by the Government of the day to alter the disregards in respect of certain payments to, say, 50s., especially if some step is taken, as I hope it will be, if not now, in the relatively near future, to provide a realistic constant attendance allowance for all categories of the severely disabled.

I support the Amendment, because I think that it would enable the Minister to make suitable regulations much more quickly than if he had to go through the tedious business of amending the main Act. This is a matter of some principle. It will not cost the Government anything, but it is an issue which could be conceded and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be generally sympathetic.

The matter has been so persuasively argued and as we are all anxious to make progress I need not take time. I hope that the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary is on the Bench while his right hon. Friend is having a well-earned breather means that she has left him with power of attorney to accept the Amendment. I am sure that that is the reason, because he is well known to be a highly competent Parliamentary Secretary who is well able to put this course very pleasantly to the Committee.

Quite plainly, to accept the Amendment would cost the Government nothing at present and need not ever so cost the Government anything. The Parliamentary Secretary is not being asked to spend any money tonight. The second thing is that we all know on both sides of the Committee of the appalling difficulties of finding Parliamentary time for amendments to legislation. We all know that, whatever changes are made in our procedures, that may well always be the case.

Here is an example of a very simple Amendment which just gives extra flexibility to future Ministers of Pensions and National Insurance. Obviously, the Parliamentary Secretary does not have much interest in future Ministers of Pensions and National Insurance, but we on this side of the Committee have considerable interest in future Ministers. We would like to give the Parliamentary Secretary the necessary flexibility to be able to operate Part III, calculation of resources. I think that it is incumbent upon him—and he always argues every case persuasively and carefully—to show why if, as I believe him to be, he is right to take these powers for Part II, the calculation of requirements, he does not require the same powers for the calculation of resources.

I should have thought that it was one of the features of a growingly affluent society that it was possible progressively and deliberately to increase the disregards for payments made as of right and that it would be enormous benefit to any Government to have this flexibility and freedom. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will listen carefully to the arguments put before him.

The Amendment has been debated shortly but extraordinarily persuasively and I can hardly believe that the Parliamentary Secretary will brush aside the gift offered to him across the Table from these benches. It must in the nature of things be of enormous help to any future Ministry of Social Security to have a power which will enable it to operate quickly, effectively and immediately instead of as at present having to return to the House of Commons when an alteration in the disregards is contemplated.

The Committee is offering the Ministry the chance of that sort of flexible power to alter the allowance for disregards in line with the standard of living which the country enjoys, and to do so quickly and flexibly and without having to return to the House, when Parliamentary time is always so short and in such demand, in order to make alterations which could make all the difference to people living on incomes probably too low for them to enjoy those amenities which have become common throughout our society.

I therefore hope that I can see a twinkle in the eye of the Parliamentary Secretary and that he sees the prospect of a delicious power being handed to him from these benches for the use of his Ministry of Social Security for the not too long future.

I can assure the hon. Lady the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) that I am renowned, particularly among the ladies, for having a twinkle in my eye at all times, not only in the House of Commons.

Perhaps I can add my congratulations to those already extended to you, Sir Beresford, by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine). I hope that you will have a long life in the Chair, although, of course, coming from the Opposition benches.

I can assure hon. Members that the power to vary by regulation the rules about income requirements in Part II of the Schedule has been provided in Clause 5(2) for very good reasons which do not apply to Part III. The hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) may or may not be surprised when I tell him that the Government feel bound to resist the Amendment.

The non-contributory scheme provides benefits for people with few or limited other resources, and the income requirements in Part II set the minimum standard of provision under the social security scheme. The Government must be able to take action without delay when the need arises to maintain that minimum standard. The simple example is when there are rising prices. The Government would not be able to do this if we had to go through the full legislative process to improve the value of the income requirements, or to deal especially with the income requirements of any particular category of claimants. Clause 5(2) enables the Government to act effectively in these matters while at the same time still preserving, under the Affirmative Resolution procedure, Parliament's right to approve or disapprove of the Government's proposals.

None of these considerations applies to the rules for calculating resources, that is, the disregards set out in Part III. Therefore, there cannot be the same urgency about amending them, because, by definition, the people who have disregards already have a higher standard of living than is prescribed by the income requirements.

However, apart from this there are positive grounds for not altering the disregards in any way other than by coming to Parliament with a full scheme of disregards set out in the form of definite proposals for legislation which can he carefully considered. The income requirements apply the same standards to all those who are in the same circumstances—householders get the same, so do non-householders, so do married couples and so do children. There can be no question of inequitable treatment as between one person and another in these groups.

Disregards work the other way. They give preferential treatment to those who have certain kinds of resources. We have found this to be a source of complaint of inequity in National Assistance disregards. For instance, we have the complaint from many people about the preference given to War Savings as against co-operative society dividends. We are putting that right in the Bill. It is recognised on both sides of the Committee that some preferential treatment can be justified in the matter of disregards, up to a point, and the Bill provides what we believe to be the best solution to this difficult and complicated problem. These preferences for some people must mean that less is available for others, and the disregards are not something which we should change in a hurry or without the fullest consideration of what is involved.

The Amendment follows the precedent of the National Assistance Act, 1959, which gave power to increase National Assistance disregards by Order. It would give a much wider power than that given by the 1959 Act, which simply allowed the amounts of existing disregards to be increased by regulation, whereas the Amendment would give power to vary the nature of the disregards.

May I, first, apologise to you, Sir Beresford, for not congratulating you on assuming the Chair? I am bound to say that you were presiding over us with such an air of authority and distinction that I assumed that you had been doing it for many years. I should like to add my congratulations to those of other hon. Members.

I shall be extremely brief. I am very disappointed with the reply which the Parliamentary Secretary has given. I think it must be very rare for Ministers to get up at that Box and refuse powers which the other side of the Committee is only too ready to give them.

In this debate my hon. Friends, three of them, have put forward very persuasive arguments. They have all emphasised the need for flexibility in this matter. It seemed to me that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in his reply relied almost entirely on what one may call Civil Service arguments, and he has really missed an opportunity, now that a new system is being introduced—that is what the Government have told us—to see whether it would be very much better to put these two, both the scales and the disregards, on the same basis as far as increases are concerned.

The hon. Gentleman referred back to the original National Assistance Act, 1948. It is astonishing how often we get this. With one breath we are told, "This is an entirely new system which is being introduced and a great step forward and a great reform in our arrangements for those who are most needy". Yet in the next breath we are told, "Sound precedents were established in 1948 and we ought to continue with them". The Government really cannot have it both ways. No full arguments were put forward on that, and the Minis- ter has missed an opportunity on this occasion to put both aspects, both very important aspects, of the needs of the elderly on all fours.

I did not suggest, nor did my hon. Friends, that on every occasion when the scale rates are increased disregards should be increased also. All we were suggesting was that they should be looked at on each occasion, now that we have firmly accepted the concept of relative poverty, involving as it does not only inadequate cash but decline in savings and the money which savings produce, in days of inflation. With those words of disappointment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I do not know whether I shall be in order in so doing, but before I put the Question may I thank hon. Members on both sides for all their kind remarks. I am bound to say that I find them rather embarrassing.

Before we leave this important Clause I should like to raise just one point. This Clause deals with determination of right to and the amount of benefit, and the point I wish to raise relates in particular to the assurance which we were given by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary during Second Reading, that no one under the scheme would be worse off. He was quite specific when my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) interrupted his speech and asked for an absolute clarification. The hon. Gentleman replied:

"I assure the hon. Lady that no one under this scheme will be worse off—no one at all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th May, 1966; Vol. 729, c. 414.]

We accept that assurance and are glad of it, but there are certain aspects which are a little puzzling and which perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will be good enough to explain. In particular, I wonder how the determination of right to and the amount of benefit will be assessed in the case of those who are getting substantial discretionary additions at the moment.

In the Bill, we have an increase in the scale rates of 5s. single and 7s. 6d. married. We have the automatic 9s. in Place of a discretionary addition which is now averaging about 10s. That will mean that a married couple with a discretionary addition of 16s. 6d. will, as I understand it, be no better off than under the present arrangements.

According to the latest figures which we have, in Appendix 21 of the 1964 Report of the National Assistance Board, it is clear that there are about 75,000 people in that category who are getting discretionary additions of 17s. 6d. or more. So, presumably, special arrangements will be required to ensure that these people are not worse off. From the same table, I see that there are no fewer than 42,000 retirement pensioners who get discretionary additions of over £1.

On the face of it, unless special arrangements are made, a substantial number of people, most of them retirement pensioners, will get less under the new arrangements than they get at present.

There are also the old-age pensioners under the Old Age Pensioners Act. There are about 14,000 of them who are not getting National Assistance at the moment. As I say, we accept the assurance which the Parliamentary Secretary has given, but it would be helpful if we could know how the arrangements are to be made to meet these cases.

In what is a rather complicated Bill I do not see a specific mention of the point, and I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman can say whether the assurance that he gave during Second Reading is written into the Bill.

It is only my fear of adding to your embarrassment, Sir Beresford, that prevents me adding to the congratulations.

I have one specific point to make on the Clause. However, before I come to it, I want to add one short word of regret that, despite the very strong arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), the Parliamentary Secretary was not able to accept his suggestion. Instead, he put forward what I regarded, not without some personal experience, as rather typical Treasury arguments in refuting the case put forward by my hon. Friends. After all, with inflation running at 5 per cent. per year, a discretionary addition of 40s. loses a quarter of its value in the course of one Parliament. That seems to be a fairly urgent reason for trying to maintain the balance of the equity which presumably Parliament intends if it passes the Bill.

I find it extremely hard that, after all that we have heard about the inequities of a means test and how monstrous it was of the Tory Party to try to deal with poverty simply by increasing National Assistance rates, we now have a chance to bring in not only a new version or National Assistance, turning it into supplementary pensions and allowances with requirements varied by regulation, but a new version of a means test; that new version, which is still the old means test, becoming progressively more harsh during an inflationary period.

The point on which I should like a reassurance from the Minister or from the Parliamentary Secretary arises out of a comparison of the wording of subsection (2) of this Clause with that of paragraph 4 of Schedule 2. Subsection (2) says:

"Regulations under this section may vary the provisions of Part II"—

that is to say, the requirements—

"of the said Schedule 2, but not so as to reduce any amount specified therein."

The intention is obviously to allow the Minister to increase the benefits by increasing the level of requirements, and presumably also to prevent the Treasury, without legislation from Parliament, forcing the Minister to decrease benefits when things get difficult. But the intention appears to be frustrated by Part I of Schedule 2, paragraph 4, and I say "appears", because I may be wrong in my reading of it, and it is simply an assurance that I want from the hon. Gentleman.

Part II of Schedule 2 deals with the calculation of requirements. Part III of Schedule 2 deals with the calculation of disregards. Part I really governs the relationship between the two, the method which it is proper to use in bringing the two together to determine the actual sums paid, and it also governs the more general conditions which shall be applied.

In dealing with exceptional circumstances, paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 2— and I hope that I am not out of order in referring to this, because it is relevant to this Clause—says that the benefit may be awarded and can in fact be higher, and sub-paragraph (1,b) says that the supplementary allowance—not the supplementary pension—can in certain circumstances be reduced or withheld. Paragraph 4(2) specifically excludes this last provision from the qualifications which the rest of the sub-paragraph proposes.

I could return to this later when we deal with the Schedule and refer to the wording of this paragraph and the contrast between the supplementary allowances in paragraph 4(1,b) and the wording used in paragraph 4(1,a) and what the precise meaning of that is, and I think that the Committee will probably understand if the Minister prefers to deal with this point at that stage, but we shall want a firm reassurance that it is not possible—not that it is not the intention, but that it is not possible—to use this paragraph to frustrate the intention which Parliament has in passing this Clause; and that the exceptional circumstances in paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 can be applied only to individuals and cannot refer to specific groups of people, or indeed to specific circumstances, to the economic circumstances of the day.

If the Minister can reassure on that point, we on this side of the Committee will support the Clause, with regret that the Government have seen fit to take so rigid a line over the means test and have rejected our suggestion for facilitating keeping the test of means, as well as the test of needs, in line with the rising cost of living.

I can immediately give the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) the assurances that he wants. Perhaps it would be best for me to say, first, that Clause 5 enables the Minister, by Regulations which are subject to the affirmative Resolution procedure, to vary the provisions of Part II of Schedule 2. Part II of this Schedule sets out the rules which will enable the Commission to determine itself the level of income requirements in each individual case, covering the rates of requirements themselves, the long term addition and rent.

The Minister will be given power by the Bill to vary these rules but not to decrease any of the amounts specified. This was what concerned the hon. Gentleman. In other words, the Minister can prescribe higher levels of requirements or different levels for new categories, but cannot reduce any of the rates—

Am I to understand from that that where the Minister cannot, the Commission can, vary the level and that she is empowered under Paragraph 4 to vary the level of requirement. or is that not so?

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member but we cannot go into the details of the Schedule at this juncture.

Of course, Sir Beresford, I accept your Ruling.

The main thing which needs to be made clear—this was the concern of the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) and, I am sure, of the hon. Member for Farnham—is that I reaffirm my categorical assurance on Second Reading that no one will be worse off under the Bill.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary go a little further? He will recall that the point I made—it may not have been valid—was that the National Assistance Board has been in the habit of allowing certain disregards which are not specifically set out, using their general powers under Regulation 3 of the 1948 Regulations. This is an indication, I think, of the obvious desire of the Board to stretch its powers in certain cases as widely as possible. I mentioned a case where the Board allowed—although this was not laid down in Regulations—15s. of any payment from a charitable or family source. This was not laid down. All I am asking is whether the Commission will have the same flexibility under the new arrangements as the National Assistance Board had in this case.

Yes, of course.

I am sorry to come back to this point, but I am still anxious to learn whether, if the Commission has this power of flexibility, it has greater powers by reason of the wording of the Schedule than the Minister herself—I do not suggest that anyone has any intention of so doing—to vary the Regulations downwards. I accept that, under the Clause, the Minister has not this power, but it seems to me that in withholding this power from the Minister we were in danger of overlooking the fact that the Commission might itself have the power which Parliament is specifically not giving to the Minister. As the Commission is part of the Ministry, this would, in some ways, frustrate the will of Parliament as expressed in the Clause.

I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's concern and the interest which he is showing in the new arrangements for dealing with the exceptional heeds and as to how they will be operated by the Commission.

I am informed that this has always been a most important part of the work of the National Assistance Board. Under the Bill, although the long-term addition will deal with special needs in the majority of cases, there will still be an important sphere for the use of discretionary additions by the Commission. However, I do hot think that it would be right for me to go into detail on this matter now.

It will be seen from the general framework of the Bill and from the White Paper, Command 2997, that it will be one of the first duties of the Commission to consider in what ways additional payments should be made to meet special needs. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is more concerned with the question of a downward adjustment than that of meeting special needs, but as I have said, those at present receiving National Assistance will not be any worse off. Indeed, nobody will be worse off under the Bill.

This Clause touches on a matter of considerable importance and principle which require an explanation from the Minister. It would appear that the provision is merely a continuance of the present charges for dental and ophthal- mic services—spectacles and surgical appliances; boots, supports and elastic hosiery. Presumably, too, it means that such charges do not apply to hospital inpatients, patients in receipt of National Assistance and war pensions in respect of their accepted war disabilities. But what about other persons who are not able to afford the charges?

Under the present arrangements such people may apply to the National Assistance Board for a grant towards these charges. In such cases the Board is empowered to waive its rule of not assisting people who are in full employment. Will this still be the position? I am bound to say—and I say this more in sorrow than in anger—that the Government's attitude to the question of charges is bewildering in the extreme. The provision in the Clause is in complete conflict with what the party opposite has promised the electorate. I recall that as recently as 1961 the present Prime Minister advocated not only the abolition of Health Service charges but of National Health Service contributions as well. Indeed, he wrote in the New Statesman on 24th March, 1961:

"The first task in the Health Service will be to recreate the free service established by Aneurin Bevan.…Year by year the case is becoming stronger for taking the Health Service and its contributions under the General Exchequer system".

Indeed, such a proposal was advanced in the Labour Party's manifesto for the 1964 election. In that document the party opposite stated:

"Our aim is to restore as rapidly as possible a completely free Health Service."

When one remembers that the Government's National Plan shows that income from National Health Service charges is actually expected to be higher than it is today, can we assume from this Clause that the Government have finally decided to abandon the idea of a completely free Health Service?

The matter is of such importance and relevance that the Committee is entitled to be told the answer. As these charges are to remain—and we must assume that the Government are legislating for some time ahead—the Committee is entitled to know whether the Minister is satisfied that the present system of recovery of charges is working satisfactorily. I ask this for a specific reason. I can remember, when I was at the Ministry of Health and sitting on that side of the House, how critical hon. Members opposite were when they were in opposition. Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary satisfied that there will be no undue delay or difficulty in regard to refunds to those people whom this Bill is designed to help and who need the various services or appliances which I have mentioned?

There is a further point. I have found, and I imagine that this has been the experience of other hon. Members, that it is not generally known that persons whose income is slightly above National Assistance scales can apply to the National Assistance Board for reimbursement of National Health Service charges—if not in whole, then certainly in part. I put this question to the National Assistance Board officers whom I know and with whom I worked for many years, and they told me that they are astonished that, despite all the publicity which has been given by successive Governments and by the National Assistance Board, this fact is still not widely known. Will this arrangement continue? Despite the provisions laid down in the Clause, will it be possible for people who get the supplementary allowance to receive a quick and full reimbursement of National Health Service charges?

I should also like to know whether the new Minister will arrange to make this more generally known. I am sure from what the right hon. Lady said earlier that this would be her intention, but I am giving her the opportunity to make it absolutely clear.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) for raising the point, but I do not want to delay the Committee. Let us get rid of the party piece. We were asked the rhetorical question whether it is our intention to abandon the free Health Service. We have before us today what marks the completion of a further stage of the Government's review of our social services. The Bill will provide a better deal for the poorest people in the community, the old and the sick.

That is what we are dealing with, so what in the name—I must keep in order —of the Lord has the free Health Service to do with this? It has nothing to do with this Clause. To discuss it is completely out of order, with due respect to you, Sir Beresford. Let us come to the point. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It was necessary to point out the irrelevance of the opening gambit in order for me now to come to the master move at the centre of the board.

rose

Let me finish the sentence first, please, and I shall give way, because the hon. Gentleman is always courteous. I wanted to make this point, because it was not fair to introduce that question when the hon. Member had put forward quite important issues that were worthy of answer. Now I shall sit down.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He should not deliver these strictures, because it is quite clear from the provision that for some considerable time to come the Government are requiring these charges to be levied, and I made the point, which I think is valid and which I hope the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will answer, that under the National Plan the Government evidently expect the revenue from such charges to rise. I am sure that under the Labour Government people will not get so sick and incapacitated that many more will require these appliances and services. It follows that the Government have abandoned the idea that charges for these appliances and services can be waived for the whole population.

With respect, the argument has nothing to do with the case that we are discussing, which is whether the Clause shall stand part of the Bill. The Clause merely refers to medical requirements and to the National Health Service charges. The Clause ensures, first, that benefit is not awarded twice. It is not awarded to meet requirements which may be met without charge by the National Health Service. That is a piece of common sense.

Secondly, provision is made to enable benefit to be paid to meet requirements for which charges still remain under the National Health Service. Irrespective of anything else, hon. Members on both sides of the Committee know that certain charges remain. We are concerned with he chronic sick, the ill and others in that category. In that case the Bill does not exclude help for surgical, optical or dental requirements from the definitions, or, in other words, from help.

In 1965 the Board made certain grants in respect of assistance for National Health Service charges other than for prescriptions and surgical appliances. In respect of 448,000 pairs of spectacles we paid out £991,000, and for dentures and dental treatment given in 148,000 cases we paid out £563,000. We have already told the Committee that nobody will be worse off.

Subsection (1) describes the appliances and services for which benefit can be granted. I was surprised to hear the references made to conditions under which war pensioners and others are living. The treatment of war pensioners under the Royal Warrant system is such that nobody needs to worry about them. I give that as an answer to the hon. Member's point.

I did not mention war pensioners. I did not have them in mind. I had very much in mind those persons who are above National Assistance rates, but only just, and who have the right to claim reimbursement from the National Assistance Board. I want to know whether these people, who are not necessarily eligible for additional benefit under the Bill, will continue to have that right.

Yes, they will. There is the same flexibility with the Commission as existed before. We shall be dealing with this question later in a little more detail.

Subsection (2) provides that the amount of benefit paid will be whatever is appropriate. This will be for the Commission to determine, having regard to the claimant's resources and ordinary requirements, and the amount of the charge. Secondly, it may be paid to or on behalf of the person receiving treatment. In other words, it enables payments to be made either to the claimant or direct to the dentist or optician. Neither side of the Committee wishes to deceive itself. It is obvious from the spirit in which these debates have been conducted that both sides wish, within the limits of available finance, to do the best we can for those covered by the Bill. I have now answered directly the questions put so courteously by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East.

I wish to voice my usual protest at the wording of the Clause. This innocuous and harmless Clause consists of only four lines:

"Where it appears to the Commission reasonable in all the circumstances they may determine that benefit shall be paid to a person by way of a single payment to meet an exceptional need."

The Clause merely empowers the Commission to hand a person a lump sum in the form of benefit where in all the circumstances this appears to be reasonable to the Commission. In this wide world it is very difficult to find a reasonable man or a reasonable woman. What appears reasonable to me will appear most unreasonable to other people. What the Commission will regard as reasonable will be regarded as most unreasonable by interested parties.

At this point it is appropriate to pay a tribute to the wonderful work done in difficult circumstances by the officers and officials of the National Assistance Board. The work which they did in the performance of their duty was often regarded as unreasonable by many of our constituents. The servants of the Board carried out their duties with tact, discretion, skill, care, humanity and kindness.

The Commission's power under the Clause will become widely known. Many people will not seek to take advantage of it, but there will be many others who will. We are not all angels. Many people will learn that the Commission has the power to hand over a lump sum. A lump sum is a most attractive and desirable thing to acquire. The Commission, in pursuance of its duty, will many times have to refuse reasonable applications and will thus appear in a poor light to applicants and will attach to itself much of the approbrium with which the National Assistance Board was regarded.

As a member of the lowest form of legal life—an unpaid, acting justice of the peace—I am confronted all too often with the word "reasonable" in legislation. This word bedevils our efforts all too often. I should like to see the word excluded from all Bills.

On behalf of the Government and of the Opposition, I thank the hon. Lady for the courteous and generous way in which she expressed a tribute to those who have worked with the National Assistance Board, irrespective of what Government might have been in power. All of us with experience in our constituencies for many years know how difficult the task of the Board's officers is and what a good job of work they do.

On many occasions over the years I have joined the hon. Lady in Committee upstairs in rolling the beautiful euphemistic word "reasonable" on the tip of my tongue. The hon. Lady spoke about the distribution of lump sums. The Clause merely enables the Commission to make a lump sum payment to meet an exceptional need when it considers that it is justified. It is a different thing from the Determination of Needs Regulations. We have all been glad of the opportunity to inform a constituent who has been in trouble that there are occasions when a single exceptional payment can be made to meet an emergency. This power is here and it will be used as generously and wisely as it was in the past. With that explanation, I hope the hon. Lady will be satisfied.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 16, after "benefit", to insert:

"other than the additional family allowance".

It has been proposed, if the Committee agrees, that with this Amendment we take the proposed new Clause, entitled "Low-wage earning family" and the Amendment to Schedule 2, page 22, line 3, at end-insert:

"but for this purpose no account shall be taken of any additional family allowance payable under this Act"

both in the name of the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan).

The purpose of the Amendment which I am moving, together with the consequential Amendment to Schedule 2, is to validate the new Clause standing in my name relating to the low-wage-earning family. It reads:

"A person engaged in remunerative full-time work, whose resources are insufficient to meet his requirements as calculated under Part II of Schedule 2 to this Act, shall be entitled to an additional family allowance in accordance with a scale of requirements which the Minister will prescribe by regulations made under this Act."

The purpose of the new Clause and of the Amendments is twofold. First, it is to deal, so far as supplementary allowances are concerned, simultaneously with the wage stop problem and with the low-wage-earning large family. Its second purpose is to do so in a way which avoids the delay inherent in the survey to which the Parliamentary Secretary referred on the Second Reading and to which the Minister referred today—the delay which the exigencies of the Parliamentary timetable, I fear, will impose, no matter with what dispatch the actual survey itself is conducted, and yet, in avoiding this delay, in no way to limit the Government's freedom of action when the survey is completed.

For this reason we did not seek to write into the wording of these Amendments and of the new Clause any attempt to provide a comprehensive solution in the Bill to the problems of the low wage-earning family, even if this were the appropriate Bill into which to put it. It is for this reason, too, that we did not seek to lay down what, in our view, was the appropriate scale of assistance. Like the Parliamentary Secretary, the right hon. Lady and others who have spoken on both sides of the Committee, I think that it is more efficient to act on facts rather than on hypotheses.

I also believe that another fact has been established to demonstrate now the need for immediate action and that the method of taking such action is available through the medium of regulations setting down requirements which this Bill provides in Clause 5. We have in the Bill both the opportunity for immediate action to meet a proven social need and the chance to provide the further more detailed and more efficient action when the surveys and inquiries set in train by the Government have a chance to be considered and digested, and proposals are made therefrom.

It is important to remember that those who are in need are looking to the Bill as a means of help. Those whom the Parliamentary Secretary referred to as the poorest in the country will be very disappointed with the party opposite if this Government are allowed to miss the opportunity provided by the Bill to help them.

There must indeed be rejoicing in heaven tonight over the sinners who have repenteth; but the repentance is none the less welcome for its tardiness. I should be the last to deprecate the concern of the Committee for the low-income family, which presents one of the most intractable social problems of our time. I hope, however, that the Committee will not accept these Amendments and will recall rather the assurances of my right hon. Friend about the investigations which are being carried out into this complicated question.

Family allowances were accepted only after a long campaign of education, in which the name of Eleanor Rathbone comes quickly to mind. When family allowances were adopted, the sum of 5s. for a child which was agreed upon seemed small enough, but in purchasing power it was worth more than the family allowances which are available today. That is another reason why I feel that the whole question of family allowances needs to be gone into separately from the Bill.

I would strongly resist any attempt to divide families into two, into the poor extra-family-allowance families and those which are above the line. It seems to me to be basic to Tory thought on improving the social services to divide the country according to means in the way that happened under the old panel system, when a person who earned more than a certain figure could not be on the panel. Such a suggestion could also have a serious effect upon claims for increased wages. I can imagine many employers using the availability of this kind of extra family allowance as a reason for holding down wage claims I am sure that the Committee would not want this to happen. Having said that rather destructively, I would not want it to be thought that any of us on this side are unaware of or insensitive to the problem.

I find it a little difficult to follow the argument of the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger), who suggests that we must not try to help the poorest people in case that splits the community. The proposal made was that we should try to give supplementary allowances to those who are in the greatest need rather than to give a flat rate across the board which would go to the wealthiest, too. I do not understand how that would split the community.

If the hon. Member cannot understand how dividing families along a street into two categories would create a split, then he does not live near enough to ordinary people to understand how they feel.

I should like to set the Amendment in its context in the Clause and to support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) about the urgency of the matter. Without amendment the Clause states clearly that supplementary benefits should not be paid to a man in full-time employment, and in general this principle is absolutely right and we all agree with it. If a man is capable of earning enough to support his wife and family, he should do so and retain his independence. Indeed, he should be encouraged to do so. This is the general trend of thinking in our social security system and has been the trend with both Governments.

But there are special cases which must be exceptions to the rule. The Clause recognises one of them—the man who suffers loss of earning power through disability. That is in subsection (3). It recognises, too, in subsection (4), that there should be exceptions in the case of subsidising appliances.

But the Clause could do a lot, and does nothing, in the large area of hardship which is known to exist, and here lies what we regard in putting forward the Amendment as a sin of omission of the Clause. As my hon. Friend made clear, we feel that exceptions to the general rule should be made for the low-wage earner with the large family whose total earned income, including family allowances, falls below the level of income laid down by the National Assistance Board scale, which is designed to keep a family above the subsistence borderline. According to figures given by the right hon. Lady on Second Reading, which were mentioned in the debate on Clause 1, there are between 200,000 and 300,000 families where the wage earner's earned income is below the current amount under the National Assistance Board's scale.

May I refer to the Answer given on 26th July by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour which has also been mentioned earlier? It was stated that the average number of children is slightly more than three per family. This means that about 650,000 children are being brought up in this area of poverty under conditions which Parliament, through the medium of the National Assistance Board, regards as being below subsistence level. There are about 650,000 children in this area of poverty who are undernourished and underprivileged. This is a great breeding ground for vice, misery, delinquency and degradation which the Bill—and Clause 8, which we seek to amend, is the relevant Clause—could do something about, but, in fact, does nothing about.

The difference between the income of the low wage earner with the large family and the scale rate of National Assistance income, which is the best guide we have as a generally recognised standard of subsistence, can be quite substantial. In the memorandum presented last December to the Prime Minister by the Child Poverty Action Group we were given the example of a married couple with six young children, three below the age of 5 and three between 5 and 11 years of age, with a net wage of £10 a week, plus family allowances, paying a rent of £2 10s. a week. The income of this family works out at about £3 16s. a week less than the total allowed in the National Assistance Board's scale.

With children from 5 years of age right through the range, the income according to that memorandum would be £5 9s. a week below what is regarded as the subsistence level by the National Assistance Board. If such a man had only three children between the ages of 3 and 12 and a net wage of £12 a week plus family allowances, and a rent of £2 10s. a week, his family's income would still be £2 14s. 2d. a week less than the National Assistance Board scale.

These differences are quite substantial. The wife of this man with a family of three children, after paying the rent and paying for fuel and light, would, even if she were lucky, have £6 a week less with which to feed and clothe a family of five and replace household equipment and then do little more than dream about family holidays.

The Committee is aware of the argument that some of the increase in the number of families living below the level of income allowed within National Assistance scales is due to the progressive increase in those scales during the last 15 years—nine increases since 1951 including that of last year—raising their value by about the same amount as the increase in male industrial earnings during the same period.

But although this may account for the increase in the numbers below the present level, surely the Committee will agree that in a society in which incomes are steadily rising and standards are, therefore, constantly improving, it is right and proper that we should also be raising the minimum standard of what we regard as subsistence level, because, as was said earlier, poverty is relative.

As a general principle, non-contributory benefits, as they are now becoming known, follow the guide lines of the Beveridge system for the payment of benefit against interruption or loss of earning power, so that benefits cannot be paid to a man in full employment. This is probably the basic rule behind the regulation not to pay benefits to men in full employment, which is what Clause 8 says.

On this side of the Committee, we agree that it is a right and proper principle, so long as we base our social security on Beveridge, but there are plenty of precedents for helping the children of families in financial straits without breaching the Beveridge principle. Family allowances are paid irrespective of earnings and whether or not the breadwinner is in employment. There is the special help, which we all know about and appreciate, which is given to the children of the widowed mother whether or not she is in employment, and, to mention a third, there is the special children's allowance for the children of deserted and divorced wives.

These do not breach the Beveridge principle, but they give assistance to families through the children's allowances or supplements. Why not make some supplementary benefit available to be added to the family allowance paid to the low wage earner with the large family even though he may be in full employment?

As it stands without the Amendment, the Clause misses a great opportunity to help the low-wage earner with the large family who is undoubtedly in need and, what is more important, to help the children who are undoubtedly in need, because without the Amendment the Clause seems to shut firmly the door against any attempt to alleviate within the Bill an area of need which certainly exists and which all hon. Members know to exist from their own constituency experiences.

Of course, I accept that the right hon. Lady is anxious to do something about the problem and I therefore ask her just as a possibility whether it is envisaged that regulations might be laid under subsection (2) postponing indefinitely the application of subsection (1) to persons of large families becoming engaged in full-time occupations from which the remuneration is not adequate to maintain their families above recognised standards of subsistence. I am not sure whether that would be possible, but I would like to know whether it is and, if so, whether there is any intention of using the subsection in that way.

I am sure that the right hon. Lady knows that none of us doubts her sincerity or desire to do something about this problem or her awareness of it, but we want to try to persuade her to treat it as a matter of great urgency, and one way of giving some help quickly would be to accept the Amendment.

The hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) said that there was joy in Heaven that sinners had repented on this side of the Committee. I am glad that she thinks heaven is even looking at this side of the Committee. But although sitting on this side of the Committee, I do not count myself a sinner or repenter, because the Liberal line on this issue has been clear for a very long time. We support the Amendment, not in a party political sense, but primarily because this is very much a regional problem. It is a regional problem because low income families are concentrated in certain regions, and I want to draw attention to the problem in the regions.

In Cornwall we have a very low average income and there are many families whose total disposable income is below the scales laid down in the Bill. I have a great deal of sympathy with the seamen's case, but when we in Cornwall hear that the seamen are getting only £14 a week or so, admittedly for many hours over the 40-hour week, we do not raise our hands in horror, as people in the South-East of England do, because it is extremely difficult to find anybody in Cornwall earning that amount of money for a 56, or a 60, or even a 70-hour week. There are many people in Cornwall living well below the minimum levels laid down in this Bill.

I said on the Second Reading that in one large rural district in my constituency 70 per cent. of the ratepayers were eligible for rate relief, thus indicating the extent of the problem. When benefits in a Bill such as this are very close to, or in excess of, what can be earned in full-time employment, there is something very wrong.

Many people write to me saying, "Why should I work when somebody next door is getting more than I am, and for doing nothing at all?" And it is true in Cornwall. It is a Right-wing truism, if you like, elsewhere in the country, but it is very very true in Cornwall. Therefore I hope that the right hon. Lady will think again about this Amendment, because we certainly support it.

Again, we have had what I consider an excellent debate. One of the things which has surprised me greatly during Second Reading and in the debates we have had on Amendments and on the Clauses is that we have had excellent non-party speeches from the Opposition back benches. They have been in glaring contrast with the type of speech we have had from the hon. Member on the Opposition Front Bench, the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan), who moved the Amendment. It seemed to me that the Opposition Front Bench seemed to think of this not as a serious Bill trying to bring social justice to many, many thousands of people, but as a vehicle of propaganda for the Opposition.

I am glad that the Liberal Member, the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), who spoke on Second Reading and has spoken twice today, does not treat it like that, and I am glad that a great many back-bench Members of the Opposition are not treating it like that, but have been trying to bring their point of view to the Minister and to the Government and, I hope, to the country.

The hon. Member for Farnham, particularly at the end of his speech, was most indignant because we have not solved all the problems—in less than two years. We became the Government only in October, 1964, and really began government only in November, 1964. We are now only in June, 1966, less than two years afterwards. The hon. Member had synthetic indignation because we have not solved every single problem in the social security field in that short time. How I would love to be able to stand here tonight and say that the problems have all been solved; but there are so many of them which have been left to us. I will not weary the Committee by enumerating the things which we have already done in these few short months and the many problems with which we have already dealt, but I will now deal with this Amendment.

The hon. Member spoke about the family with a high rent. There are many families—yes, even of low-wage earners—who are suffering high rents, not because of anything we have done, but because of the action of the hon. Member's own party when in power. We have not been sitting back doing nothing for the people on those small incomes. They are the very people, the low-wage earners with families, who from April this year will be benefiting under the provisions of the rent rebate scheme. That, at least, is something which is helping them.

It has been said that we should not reject this Amendment because we might feel we were breaching the Beveridge principle. In these last months we have breached the Beveridge principle time and time again. I do not think it is a sacred principle. From the first week of October this year workers will be getting earnings-related sickness and unemployment benefit, and widows will be getting earnings-related supplement on top of their widows' allowance for 26 weeks. Well, that is something very, very different from Beveridge.

I am not in the least worried about the principles of Beveridge. The Beveridge Report was a wonderful job and all right for its time, but we are in a very different time today, and matters are moving very quickly.

What disturbs me is that one would think that the new movements in our country began only in October 1964. Many of those movements have been going on for a very long time, and I wish that there had not been so many problems left for me to solve as Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. But I am glad to have had the honour to be able to solve some of them, and I am determined, if I continue as Minister, to find a solution for the one which we are debating tonight.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North touched a chord in my own heart when he spoke about this being in many respects a regional problem. Wherever there has been heavy unemployment over a long time, earnings will be much lower. We are affected by it in Scotland. The North-East of England is affected by it, and Cornwall is affected by it. If we take what I call the tip of the iceberg—the 15,000 unemployed who are on the wage stop in National Assistance—there are a far greater number in Scotland and the North-East of England than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. The reason is that in those areas wages are lower than in other areas. The point made by the hon. Gentleman about Cornwall is one which I understand very well.

Looking at the Amendment, it is clear from what my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) said that, if one were to accept it as it is, there might be very strong feeling in the country about it, and that it was the way to deal with the problem as it affects children.

I am not going to take any side this evening. I know where my own feelings lie, but what I want to find is a solution which will bring help to the families of the low wage earners.

For the benefit of hon. Members who did not hear the beginning of the debate, the proposals which have been put forward by hon. Members opposite would give entitlement to an additional family allowance, not to every family in the country, but to those families whose breadwinners are in full-time employment but whose incomes are below the non-contributory benefit scales laid down in the Bill.

I do not think that there can be any doubt on either side of the Committee or in the country of the Government's grave concern about poverty amongst the families of low wage earners. On 23rd February, the Leader of the Opposition expanded his Birmingham speech, and my hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio made quite clear the concern which we had and the examination which we were giving not only to the financial help but all the other forms of help that could be given to such families. They must all he taken into account if we are to find a real solution to this problem.

During the Second Reading debate, without any prompting at all, I told the House that the Bill did nothing to solve this problem, that as far as the wage-stop was concerned the 15,000 families would not have their problems solved by it. But I made it clear that various estimates have been given of the number of children of men in work who are suffering because the income for the family is below the level.

The hon. Member for Melton (Miss Pike) was puzzled about the figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) during the Second Reading debate, and the figure that I gave. The figure which I gave, which might be anything from 200,000 to 300,000, was the number of families. The figure given by my hon. Friend was the number of people affected, and, of course, that was a very much higher figure than the number of families.

We were concerned about this problem long before we became the Government. If the hon. Member for Farnham criticises us for not having done the work, perhaps I might tell him that if some of the research work had been done, and some concern shown about this before we came to power, this might have been dealt with like some of the other matters have been, and we might have had a solution ready for introduction in this Bill.

We are not shelving this problem in any way. When discussing an earlier Amendment I told the House that on the 20th of this month we were beginning the field work of the survey into the circumstances of the bigger family with two or more children. My officers will visit more than 2,000 families during June. This will give us a great deal of information on which to base the kind of solution which I am determined we must find.

As I said during the Second Reading debate, we are not waiting until we get the results of this survey. We have been doing a great deal of work trying to find ways and means of finding an equitable solution to this problem, and this work is going on at the present time. My right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio was twitted by the Leader of the Opposition, but we have not waited for the review to be completed before bringing forward improvements. They have been coming forward. They have been passed into law, just as this will be when we are ready to do it.

I say to the Committee, and, in particular, to the hon. Member for Farnham, and to the Liberals, that until the results of the survey are available, and the Government have completed their study of the whole question of how best to relieve child poverty, it would be wrong to decide on, or indeed to rule out, any particular solution. I am not ruling out the suggestion which has been put forward tonight. I do not know whether it will be the right solution.

Quite frankly, I would prefer the solution which my hon. Friend touched on when she spoke, but I am so concerned about this matter, and so determined that something will be done, that until this work which I and other Ministers are doing as a matter of urgency is completed, and until we have the results of the survey, I shall not rule out any solution at all, though I must say that my leanings are towards the kind of solution that my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) discussed.