I beg to second the Amendment.

I realise that the responsibility of the Minister of Pensions is a heavy one. I want to assure him, and I think I can do this on behalf of all those whose names are associated with mine on this Motion, that we have no desire whatever to increase the weight of his burden. Indeed, my desire, at any rate, is, if possible, to lighten his task and to enable him to escape from the evil consequences that are growing rapidly and are the inevitable result of the ill-considered policy upon which the Ministry has now embarked. The Minister of Pensions is responsible to this House for that policy. I want to say what I have to say briefly and frankly. The right hon. Gentleman has an individual responsibility to this House, but I should like to believe that that responsibility is shared by every Member of the House, and that the matter of pension administration is not merely a House of Commons responsibility but a national responsibility. I shall also speak briefly because I am anxious to hear the statement we are to get from the Minister in regard to the Present administrative situation. I think I can even now at this early stage of the Debate anticipate some of the things we shall be told to-night in order to justify the Ministry's present attitude to wards ex-service men.

I speak from the point of view of ex-service men, and I can assure all those hon. Members who take an interest in this question, that amongst the ex-service men to-day there is a most serious and growing feeling of unrest and suspicion with regard to the Ministry's methods of administration. From my point of view, I conceive that those suspicions are justified. I can hear the right hon.

Gentleman, when he speaks to-night, expressing, as he did on the last occasion when this subject was under discussion, his personal sympathy with the ex-service men and their dependants. But something more than sympathy is needed in this matter. I can readily believe that when he speaks he will be able to justify, out of the provisions of successive Royal Warrants and various Pensions Acts, every step he has taken in regard to changes of administrative methods. But if he is to rely on the terms of the Pensions Acts and the terms of Royal Warrants for justification of what is being done in the field of the administration of pensions, he will have justified completely, in my opinion, the very serious charges that are being made against that administration to-day. This matter of pensions is not a matter of the movement of a soulless, mechanical administrative machine groaning under legal enactments and under legal provisions. I know the official mind worships administrative rules and administrative regulations, but I do suggest that in this matter it would be better business and sounder economy to pay less attention to the letter of the law, and a little more attention to the spirit which should animate the administration of such a matter as pensions. I say it would be good business and good economy, as I cannot bring myself to the point of view at which one accepts the possibility that the recent changes in administrative methods are due to financial pressure from the Treasury. I do not believe that anyone will stand up and say that the taxpayers' pocket should be protected at the expense of the ex-service men and their dependants. We have to tolerate attacks whether we like them or not on the status of workers through the medium of the unemployment exchanges. We have to tolerate, even if we disapprove them, attacks on the status of workers' children in the field of education, but I can hardly believe it to be possible that we are now prepared to say that, in this matter, money, and even national money, should count in the scale against the interests of the ex-service men. We owe those men a bigger debt than we can ever hope to repay in money.

Let me try to state in a few words what I regard as the essence of this pressing administrative problem. Have hon. Members any knowledge of the position of local pensions committees at this moment? If they have they will agree with me when I say that the position of members of these committees is steadily becoming intolerable. The local committees are becoming simply machines for the registration of Ministerial decrees, and it is just because the administrative machine has developed into a highly centralised legal machine that this trouble has arisen. There is a widespread feeling amongst ex-service men and amongst pensioners that the Pensions Ministry is a soulless, mechanical, official machine, and that it is making it its first business to place obstacles in the way of ex-service men in regard to their getting benefits rather than otherwise. My own experience teaches me that these obstacles exist. My strong feeling is that they need not exist and that the network of legal obstacles and Departmental rules and regulations, which have to be surmounted before claims for pensions are admitted and granted, should be swept away. The human element should count far more than the merely official and Departmental element. Of course the official mind will not accept the soundness of what I am saying. Perhaps at this stage I could remove any idea there may be in the mind of any Member of this House that the protest I am now making is made from a party point of view, or in order to score a mere political point at the expense of the Ministry. I have here in my hand a memorandum issued by one of the largest local pensions committees in the country, and I propose to quote just one paragraph from it in order to show what these committees are thinking with regard to this centralised administration. This is a memorandum from the Bristol Committee, and it reads: My Committee feel very strongly about these matters. The matters referred to are those upon which I have been commenting to-day— We suggest that if economy is to be practised it should not be at the expense of men who have been made physical wrecks through War service. We do therefore ask for more sympathetic treatment of these men. We shall be obliged if the Committee will give some explanation of their change of policy. We ask for reconsideration of these matters which are giving rise to strong protest both from the men concerned and from those who have to administer these Regulations. I could read further extracts from this Memorandum if necessary. What I want to insist upon is that local committees throughout the whole country are in more or less open revolt against the situation as it now exists, and the general grievances which were commented upon by the last speaker are, throughout the whole country, multiplying at a very alarming rate. I do not want to take up the time of the House by dealing with specific cases, because, if I did, the objection might be urged that I was dealing with exceptional cases, and that that is not a fair method of attack on the Ministry. I have dealt with scores of similar cases. I have particulars here of typical cases in which grievances arise purely on the ground of inefficient administrative methods; and the biggest difficulty, in my judgment, that we have to face and surmount at the present moment is the difficulty of breaking down this centralised administrative organisation, and vesting in the local committees a much larger measure of control than they have at the present moment. The local committees are far more capable of dealing with cases on their merits than a centralised authority. I know something of the manner in which eases are now dealt with by the Ministry. I have here documentary evidence which shows that cases passed by medical boards as eases in which the disability was due to or aggravated by War service have been considered by the Ministry at headquarters, and the decision of the medical authorities turned down. On what ground could such a decision possibly be reached? I could give, not one case of this sort, but many. The trouble is that the decisions are reached, I am certain, not always on medical grounds, not always even on the ground of the man's medical history, but in very many cases, I am afraid, on legal grounds, on interpretations put on a man's case and on his disability by people who look at these cases purely from the official and Departmental point of view.

I could occupy a great deal of time in detailing the grounds of grievance which ex-service men have to-day. I will take one as a sample of what ex-service men are enduring to-day, and I would ask the House to consider whether the difficulty that. I indicate in this matter is one that should be tolerated any longer. This Memorandum of the Bristol War Pensions Committee draws attention to the trouble. It points out: If a man allows 12 months to elapse before making a claim, it is invariably concluded that the disability has been contracted since his discharge, although the man has struggled through this time, hoping that his health would improve, and only appeals when he has completely broken down. If a man, however, during service, contracts tuberculosis and has been in hospital, he gets turned down as having contracted the disease before joining, although his medical record shows that he was class A on taking up service in the Army. These tuberculosis cases are, in my opinion, the very worst type of case that we have to consider in this matter. The Ministry seems to be straining every effort in order to prove that tuberculosis cases are constitutional, that the tuberculosis is not the result of war service; and if, unhappily, a man after demobilisation allows even a few months to elapse before he reports his disability, the Ministry rejects his claim on the ground that he has contracted the trouble since demobilisation. Not one case, but hundreds of cases of that sort, have been turned down by the Ministry, and what does that indicate? I do not question the medical judgment on individual cases, but I do seriously say that this indicates that the Ministry, in its Regulations, is now putting difficulties and obstacles in the way of men claiming benefit and getting what, in my judgment, is their due. The Liverpool memorandum has been referred to. Does not that memorandum, without discussion of its merits at all, indicate that this trouble is far more widespread than the Ministry at the present moment appear to realise?

I want before I sit down to say just a word in regard to the position of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal. Like the last speaker, I have hesitated many times before advising constituents of mine who have consulted me to avail themselves of the right to have their cases considered by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal. I have had a suspicion for a long time that the Pensions Appeal Tribunal is much more useful to the Ministry of Pensions than to the ex-service man. It is useful to the Ministry of Pensions in this respect, that cases turned down by the Ministry are referred to the Appeal Tribunal, the claimants are urged to appeal to the tribunal, and the Ministry is able to wash its hands of responsibility for the cases being turned down, even although the Minister will tell us tonight that be has no control whatever over the tribunal's findings. That is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, and I suggest that we should get from the Minister what I think would be of some value, namely, a promise that for the future the decisions of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal shall not be the rigid unalterable decisions that they have been up to now. The Minister says that he has nothing to do with them. He has nothing to do with them in a statutory sense, but is it not a fact that the Pensions Appeal Tribunal is here as an institution through which the Minister of Pensions is able to whitewash his Department and to escape from his responsibilities? I agree that it is an independent authority in the sense that it is not under Departmental control; but the Minister of Pensions knows full well that claimants whose eases have been turned down by his Ministry are recommended to go to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal, in order that their cases may be fully and finally considered, and he has no responsibility. I should say, however, that the nation has a responsibility for what is now being done by these tribunals. At any rate, I should hope that this would take place, and take place soon: that, where new evidence can be secured to substantiate a case, the decisions of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal shall not be regarded as final and binding, but that cases, even if they have been before the tribunal, shall be capable of being re-opened and reconsidered on their merits. That has not been a possibility in the past. I ask the House to believe that this is a serious matter for ex-service men to-day. I ask the House to remember, at a time when monuments are being erected all over the country to men who served the nation during the great War—and I approve of that—that the most enduring monument that we can erect to the memory of the men who served us is to ensure that none of them or their dependants shall suffer through our neglect of their interests.