I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."

I am sorry that after so extremely interesting a Debate on an all-important subject that I have to draw attention to another matter; but I want to bring before the House and the Minister concerned a not less interesting matter to the bulk of the people of this country and perhaps even more absorbing to them than the subject we have been discussing. I refer to the administration of pensions during the past year. I want in examining that administration to do it in no spirit of carping criticism, or petty or party spirit. I have always tried, in approaching this subject, to do so in that spirit which the subject merits; and of one thing I am certain that until recently I would yield to no man in my admiration of the system which has been built up in this country by co-operation between the humblest worker and the other classes in the State, right up even to the Pensions Minister. The system has been built up out of a state of almost incredible chaos and confusion, and it reflected very great credit upon the people of this country.

Within the last year an Act, has come into operation which has very definitely clamped down the enthusiasm of people all over the country, enthusiasm characteristic of those who co-operated with the Pensions Ministry during previous years. When the Pensions Act was going through this House the outstanding fear which some of us expressed, and which was forced clearly upon us, was that the sympathetic spirit in which our people tried to atone for the wounds and the suffering of those who suffered, and their dependants, was going to give way to a cool, calculated officialism, at the behest of economy so-called. I think that outlook has been justified by the facts. I do not criticise an official because he is an official, but what I do say is that pensions are a particular and peculiar subject which need for their successful administration the whole-hearted co-operation of the best citizens in the towns and villages of the country, and not only that but the use of the experience of these people, and indeed every experience, as all are essential to the successful working of the system.

The Pensions Ministry, I know, may say to me that the bulk of the officials who are now operating are ex-service men. I should like, however, to retort to the representatives of the Ministry on the Front Bench that whether or not the bulk of the higher-placed officials are ex-service men, that at the present time the pensions system is simply a great machine run for all material purposes by a comparatively few officials and a Minister who dominates the Committees and the whole of the pensions machinery, and who, in his turn, is dominated by a so-called economy about which we hear so much. We said when the Bill upon which the system is worked was going through this House that the inevitable result on the whole system would be, in face of the fact that we were going to have wider areas and lesser powers, that the administration of the whole system would practically pass into the hands of the higher officials, and of the Pensions Minister himself. As a proof that this has been so, I want to quote a circular which has been sent out by the Liverpool War Pensions Sub-committee. This clearly expresses the experience of most local committees upon this subject.

The fashion of the Pensions Ministry now, as one gathers from letters and so on that one receives, is to interfere with old and accepted interpretations of Royal Warrants, and at the same time with old and accepted methods of administering the pensions. Hence the Liverpool War Pensions Sub-committee has had reason to draw the attention of the Pensions Ministry and to every Member of this House to what is going on. May I mention a very important alteration which has been made in the Royal Warrant, and which, if allowed by the House to continue, will not only hinder people from getting pensions in the future, to which the House and the country will think they are entitled, but at the same time will deprive thousands of people, who at the present time have pensions, of the pensions they are receiving.?

6.0 P.M.

There is a Clause in the Royal Warrant in Article I and also in Article 24 which deals with roughly the same subject. There is an article which makes it quite clear that a man who is married after his removal from duty may get his pension and his wife cannot receive a pension. That Article was laid down for some clear reason of experience, and the reason was that men who were convalescent and had been removed from duty were getting married, and in many cases it seemed as if the State was accepting an obligation which it had no right to accept. This was the accepted interpretation up till the present time. If a man had been permanently removed from duty—the House will mark that— that is the interpretation that has been worked upon up to 26th June this year— if a man had been permanently removed from duty before he was married, then his wife did not receive any pension. Let me quote a case given by the Liverpool War Pensions Sub-committee. This man was married in 1917, and served 14 months after that. After leaving the Army he received a pension, and his wife, or widow, subsequently received a pension for 31 years until in April of this year she suddenly found the pension stopped. The Liverpool committee wanted to know why the woman's pension was stopped, and they were told that the man had been removed from duty 14 months before he was married. He had been in hospital in Salonika. That was his first removal from duty, and although he had served 14 months after that, the inter-pretation was accepted, and although the woman had been getting the pension for 3½ years, it is now accepted that the period was taken from the man's first removal from duty and, therefore, no pension was paid, or is paid. If that system is likely to be carried, it means this: In those hectic days, when the young men used to be sent by tens of thousands back to this country, they were admitted to hospital, and people visited them, and when they were convalescent they were admitted to the homes of both rich and poor. In those days many young men came in contact with ladies, and they got married. It was very difficult to avoid that fate under the conditions in which they were placed, and a man must have been a miracle to have avoided it. What happens? In the instance I have given the man went out and served some years. He was wounded once, and more than once, after he was married, but, according to the Minister of Pensions' interpretation, this man's wife, if she is now receiving a pension, can be deprived of it because he was married after his removal from duty. That is the only logical interpretation one can place upon depriving this woman of her pension. It means more than that. It seems to me that there may be widows who may be deprived of their pensions because they were married after the first removal from duty. I want the House to note what has taken place. This interpretation of the removal from duty has been accepted as a permanent removal for the whole period of the War, and afterwards up to April of this year.

In April this year the officials in the Liverpool area deprived this woman or her pension on the ground that she was married after the first removal from duty. On 26th June the Minister of Pensions, probably finding that he was in difficulties, made an Amendment in the Royal Warrant. I have here the Royal Warrant of 21st June, which was laid on the Table on 26th June, and this was three months after the Committee had given their interpretation. Who is in charge of this matter? Are the officials in charge or is it the Minister himself? I think it will be found that the whole system is now in the hands of a comparatively few officials who dominate the whole show in harmony with the Minister of Pensions who is more concerned about economy. The Minister of Pensions has had compliments paid to him from this side every time there has been a debate on this subject, but in the light of my own experience, I am not prepared to bandy compliments with the right hon. Gentleman for the simple reason that interpretations of this kind are going to have a very bad effect as far as the bulk of these men are concerned. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman means to insist upon that interpretation or not. I do not know whether he fully understood how far it would lead him when he took that course, but I am certain that if this interpretation of the Royal Warrant laid on the 26th June of this year is accepted, hon. Members of this House will find themselves up against a wholesale system of depriving women of their pensions because it is alleged that they were married after the first removal from duty.

Take the whole question which has been raised by the Liverpool Pensions Committee. In the first place, there is the question of the seven years' limit, and I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman is considering that matter. He was quite right when he stated in the Debate on the Bill that this system had been endorsed in previous Acts, but there were very grave doubts expressed at that time in view of the fact that we were coming nearer to the time when the limit would operate. At that time very grave doubts were expressed as to whether it was not going to bring very great hardship on the men. I said at the time that I did not care whether the period was seven or seventeen years, if it could be proved that a man was suffering on account of this particular service, that man had a right to consideration.

It makes it all the more necessary that the Warrant should be overhauled, in view of the fact that 60 per cent. of the pensioners are being paid for disease rather than for wounds. That means that the bulk of the men who are suffering and being paid pensions, are suffering from diseases which take some time to work themselves out, and, although the Minister of Pensions has said that there are only twelve suffering through this time limit up to the present time, it is quite obvious that there is going to be more and more men who will come into this category, and that ultimately the State will be compelled to face the situation with a view to a revision of the Act and the Royal Warrant.

This special circular from Liverpool deals also with the cancellation of the education grants. I cannot understand why, in cases where education grants have been made, the children should have their education interrupted because they have been deprived of that grant in the midst of their education. I do not know whether this is being dealt with by the Minister of Pensions or not, but it seems to me, even if there has been a mistake and reason for doubt, that it is something akin to a crime, when a man has been killed, to assume that his children would not have been educated had he been alive. In this way you are breaking in upon their education just at the time when they are beginning to feel the full value of it.

I will deal now with the question of the deduction made from pensions by reason of grants made to the pensioners by local organisations. It is becoming quite the fashion wherever contributions are made by local organisation to count them as income, and thus make it impossible for the people to get a pension to the full amount to which they are entitled. If there is an organisation in a particular division paying 5s. a week to a pensioner that is counted as income, and the pension is deducted from that amount. There is another side to this question. I have several cases of this kind in my own area, and it is obvious that this practice is becoming increasingly common. Here is the case of a woman whose son has died, and he was about 24 years of age. This boy enlisted when he was 17 years of age. He served several years and was wounded, and this year he died. Now the pension officer wants to know how much is coming into the house. The father is scarcely receiving enough to keep himself, and the youngest son is not keeping himself. There are two or three other 'boys, and there is the mother, and for five of them there is not more than 50s. a week coming into the house, and yet they are deprived of a pension because they are above the line of pecuniary need.

That boy went away from home at 17 years of age, and is there to be no compensation for the bringing up of a son who has to go away from his home under those conditions. Here is the position. These people have been caring for this 'boy. They have not been receiving enough to support him, and now, when he dies, there is to be no pension because they are above the line of pecuniary need. I could give case after case of this description, and the result of all this kind of thing is that men and families are being sent to the guardians, the local authorities are protesting against being deprived of powers to deal with these questions, and the guardians are also protesting against people being sent to them for relief who ought to be supported out of the funds of the State. If this system is to continue without the hearty co-operation of the people, it is going to lead in the long ran to the expression of views which are not desired by the people of this country. If the Minister of Pensions desires to economise, let him say so plainly. If he says that he cannot pay pensions, let him say so at once, because that is far more honest than limiting pensions and cutting them down by new interpretations of the Royal Warrants which have been accepted for years. That would be far more honest than putting into operation regulations which have certainly violated accepted definitions and interpretations of the old Committees. It seems to me that there is very grave need for overhauling the entire system.

I have not said anything about the Pensions Appeal Tribunals. All I desire to say about them is that in many districts people very seldom go to them, and they are losing faith in them. There is no value in going to such tribunals, because the system and the spirit now dominating the administration of pensions is altogether out of harmony with the desires of the people of this country. I say that it would be far better for the Minister of Pensions to take a firm and candid course, and if he wishes to economise let him do it straight and above board without all these equivocations we see expressed through Royal Warrants and various regulations. The right hon. Gentleman may say, "Well, the facts are so and so." I do not see how he can get out of the case, in view of the position in which he has been placed by the new interpretation of the Royal Warrant on the question of removal. But this fact remains that it is having a bad effect in the country and on the minds of the people.

The right hon. Gentleman may speak eloquently, he may make a good case as far as he is concerned, but the fact remains that people are being deprived wholesale of pensions, and this is telling in the country. I hope the right hon. Gentleman can explain the action taken on legitimate lines, but I hold that a. very definite investigation is required into the administration of our pensions system, especially under this new Act. Unless the right hon. Gentleman can challenge the statement put forward and illustrated by thousands of cases, unless he can do so by means of an inquiry, then I am afraid the spirit of unrest is going to operate generally in the country. I do not relish raising matters of this kind continually. Every time we ask questions about pensions we are simply inundated with letters from all parts of the country in regard to similar eases. I think the right hon. Gentleman will do me the credit of admitting that I seldom put questions down on the Paper. To-day for the first time for many months I had two, but I always send my cases direct. It is becoming of very little use doing that now in view of the attitude taken tip by the Department, but I feel it my duty to raise this question to-day because if this new system is allowed to operate with its soullessness, its cruel, calculating methods of putting people down and using the guillotine upon them, then I say the whole country is going to be permeated with distrust, and the result of his administration will be that one of the finest systems in the world will be thrown into chaos and confusion, it will be surrounded with suspicion and distrust, and will ultimately prove not simply unworthy of this country but unworthy of the spirit with which the country has faced the question since the inception of the pensions system which followed on the wounds and sufferings of the War.