I have the greatest sympathy for the Parliamentary Secretary these days and, with other speakers, I wish to congratulate him on the efforts he is making to face up to the difficult situation in which he finds himself. The enormous addition to the number of unemployed, which continues to grow, has exacerbated what is a very serious problem. Unfortunately the latest information available from the NESC and the Central Bank is most worrying and, against the background of the many forecasts that have been made, including the gloomy forecast of the Minister for Finance, one must have sympathy for the over-worked officials of the Department. The Parliamentary Secretary is making strenuous efforts to try to keep payments in line to cope with the rapidly decreasing value of money and unchecked galloping inflation.
Today an expert has told us these are a tremendous waste of our national resources. This may not be the right place to make the suggestion but, in order to ease the load of the Department, the Parliamentary Secretary might enlist the assistance of his colleagues to produce some plan to alleviate the problem, to shorten the dole queue and to stabalise the value of the £ so that social welfare benefits will not be eroded in value.
I would have had more sympathy for the long and informative speech of the Parliamentary Secretary had he not tried to make excuses for other Members of the Government. His job is to try to ensure that the recipients of social welfare payments do not suffer. He should refrain from making the old excuse we are tired of hearing in the last few years, namely, that in common with other countries we are suffering a recession. The NESC at last have pointed out that domestic inflation accounts for at least twothirds of the rate of inflation we are experiencing.
Today the Parliamentary Secretary stated:
In a period of worldwide recession, when the stagnation or decline of markets results in at best a standstill in production and national income there are inevitable pressures on public expenditure. When to the effects of recession must be added the impact of severe inflation even greater strains are certain.
This is not the occasion on which to deal exclusively with the effects of inflation but it is necessary to make reference to the lack of effort to do something even at this late stage. It is now acknowledged that something must be done at home with regard to domestic inflation. It was easy to say that the situation was due to factors outside our control, that other countries were undergoing the same experience. Now other countries are grappling with the situation, they have brought it under control, they are stabilising the cost of living and in some cases they have achieved a decrease in the cost of living. People who have been conservative and careful in their past estimations now estimate that unemployment will reach 140,000 by spring of next year. That is a horrible outlook and it will create even greater difficulties for the Parliamentary Secretary and the Department. We hope the worst will not happen but if things continue as the economic indicators point the situation is one to be feared.
Perhaps it would be possible for the Government to take emergency measures, to alter the policy they have been pursuing in the past and to check the factors that have been causing inflation. These are the increasing demands for higher rates of wages, salaries and incomes generally and indirect taxation which directly contributes to inflation and to rising prices.
It was amusing to see that after the tremendous injection of subsidies there was a slight fall in the cost of living which lasted for a day or two but immediately afterwards a new list of increases were announced.
It is my estimation that in the past two years prices have risen by twothirds more than they might justifiably have risen. Somebody must tackle seriously this whole problem. It is now accepted generally, even by the Government, that external causes are responsible for only one-third of the inflation rate. Therefore the responsibility lies with the Government to tackle this problem immediately.
The Parliamentary Secretary has generalised to some extent with regard to what the future may hold for social welfare and has told us that to interpret this policy goal in practical terms it is necessary to concentrate attention on a number of key considerations and he lists these as being: the overall purposes of social policy; the establishment of a workable and up-to-date legislative base for the development of the whole service; a planned development of the social insurance system with a complementary support provision of social assistance and personal social services; a coherent provision for a research input; and a clear view of the special place of policies against poverty and in favour of redistribution in the overall context.
These are remarkable generalisations in relation to future policy. Most of them are related to what should have been done by means of the use of EEC funds. When we sold the idea of membership of the EEC we believed that certain benefits would accrue to this country to a much greater extent than has been our experience so far. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, whose party opposed entry, might now with some justification say that we oversold the idea of membership.
The whole spirit of the Treaty of Rome was to have a common social economic policy which would ensure that no one economy would lag behind another, that there would be a coordinated effort to ensure improvements in standards of living and in the quality of life generally, an achievement which could not be reached without the co-operation and the confederation of the member countries. However there does not appear to be any great effort by any of the member States— least of all the new members—to bring that about. The British took action to justify their ego regarding the EEC and were not very concerned as to whether they broke with traditional rules in order to satisfy their election promises.
We have been particularly careful not to offend any of the conventions which we adhere to so strictly in terms of the EEC. Nobody could be satisfied with the social policy, for instance, and there is not much point in so far as the social or regional funds are concerned for a Government Minister to spend time referring to the paltry sums we are getting. It is the task of those involved in the EEC to ensure that we get what we were supposed to get. These people must assume some of the load which to a great extent has been caused by our not being able to live up to what membership promised originally and which apparently was justified at the time of our accession. This is not a time merely for talking or for making excuses. It is a time when extraordinary efforts must be made to bring about a better state of affairs at a period which can only be described as a serious emergency in our economy.
Now when there is evidence of an upturn in other economies it is not enough for us merely to hope that some of this improvement will automatically come our way. Nobody is attaching any credibility to those statements to the effect that the difficulties have been caused by factors outside our control. Therefore I am surprised that the brief presented to us this morning devotes a few pages to making excuses for the decline in our economy. Even those people who have been rather kind to the Government—one might be forgiven for suspecting them of being influenced in some way—and whose views were counter to those of the Central Bank regarding the causes of inflation are compelled now to point out the whole facts of the situation and to indicate that there is no other way out of the dilemma but to take action at home.
On a recent occasion when an international body were discussing common monetary policy with the President of the US, they were told by him to go home to their own countries, to look after their own economies and not to expect America to pay for everything at a time when the world is sore and bleeding. We are a sovereign country. Our Government are in charge of our affairs. In other words, our sovereignty has not been affected to any great extent by our membership of the EEC. Therefore we have our own job to do. It is for us to do that job and not to blame all our difficulties on outside sources.
I should like now to deal with some of the points in relation to social welfare generally. The first is the question of unemployment exchanges throughout the country. The Department are put to the pin of their collar these days trying to cope with the changing circumstances and the increasing burden which the present economic situation has imposed on them. In those circumstances the Department are inclined to forget the importance of the shop window, the unemployment exchanges.
As the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, the amount of remuneration paid to the manager of an employment exchange who is operating on a contracting basis is never sufficient to carry out efficiently the job that is required of him. This is borne out by the fact that when an office reaches the stage where it must be taken over by the Department the running costs are increased greatly. Therefore I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to ensure that branch managers of employment exchanges are paid adequately, that they are paid to an extent where they can employ adequate staff for the keeping of records and the carrying out of the other duties involved and also to ensure that the work can be done within reasonable hours. It is well-known that some branch managers must work into the night in order to be able to take advantage of the extra few pounds that make it worthwhile to run these establishments. It is no longer possible to employ staff without paying them well. Irrespective of any improvements that have been effected recently employment exchanges still require a good deal of thought from the Department. I ask that these establishments be brought up to a standard equivalent to that which pertains in those offices run by a Department. It would enable records to be better kept. It would ensure a better filing system and generally better staffing. The life of the branch manager would be made tolerable. The hours he works at the moment are far in excess of those worked by other public servants.
The evolution of social welfare since the last war has been spectacular. The scope of benefits has been inextended and rates have been increased from time to time. I had the pleasure of seeing the extension of the service in a somewhat significant direction. The Parliamentary Secretary admits there is still quite a distance to go with regard to effecting improvements but we will soon reach the stage at which most deserving cases will have been brought under the welfare umbrella. There are some cases which deserve particular attention. Any provision made for the aged and for widows, particularly widows with dependants, is welcomed by every section. Society generally has become alert to the needs for the redistribution of the national wealth in order to give deserving sections what they are justly entitled to. Most people hope to live to a ripe old age and it would be a good thing for people to know they will be provided for when they retire or grow old.
I see the Exchequer has to come to the rescue of the social welfare services to the tune of 59 per cent. I believe the real solution lies in a scheme of national insurance to which everyone will contribute and on which they can draw should that become necessary. It will not be charity because they will have contributed to the scheme. The self-employed and even the unemployed should contribute to such a scheme, as they do in other countries.
There is at the moment a kind of euphoria with regard to the amount of benefit people are receiving. There are abuses. It is no good putting our heads in the sand and pretending abuses do not occur. There are abuses. The pay-related benefit scheme has added to the amount one may be entitled to in the event of unemployment and has made it possible for people who do the odd nixers during their unemployment to bring their income up to a reasonable standard. While the Minister gives an assurance that the law will be used to ensure abuses are eliminated, he says that abuses are not as common as people may think. I believe they are pretty common. My regret when I was Minister was that, if these abuses did not occur, more money would have been available for distribution to those entitled to benefit.
The cost of administration at 7 per cent, is relatively small. Most people are ignorant of the day-to-day working of the Department, of the thousand repetitive jobs which have to be done day in and day out. When one change is made in any rate of payment the complete assembly line is put out of action and everything has to be rejigged, with additional staff being required and overtime working. In those circumstances 7 per cent is a reasonably good performance and compares very favourably with other Departments.
Reference has often been made to an overall comprehensive social welfare policy. Raising hopes and making projections as to what may be done, should be done or could be done does not amount to a comprehensive social welfare policy. We worked on the resources available to us and, as the public conscience became alerted into an awareness of the need, it was much easier to extract by way of taxation or otherwise payments to push up social welfare schemes towards a more comprehensive type of scheme, bringing in people who had not hitherto been brought in. Most people are now brought into social welfare and it is now a question mainly of qualifications and the amounts paid. When a new group is brought in the scheme initially is limited. As time goes on the scheme is extended. When I first introduced the dependent relative allowance we could cover only those who had left insurable employment to care for aged parents. That was the beginning of an excellent scheme. The idea was to obviate the necessity for sending old people into institutions so that more of them would be kept at home. The next year we extended it to uninsured people. It was not necessary for them to show they had left insured employment. Then we extended it to a wider list of relatives, nieces, in-laws, and so on. It can be extended much further.
I personally appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary not to lose sight of the importance of that scheme. It can be extended tremendously to meet a need which requires attention. We all get many letters dealing with this matter. For instance, a man and his wife may be living in a house with an old age pensioner who may be confined to bed, or maybe two old age pensioners. They are not allowed anything for taking care of them because they are not living alone except for one other person. If two people are living in a house, two brothers or two sisters, and looking after old people, they do not qualify. The result is that nowadays, with rapidly rising costs and the difficulties these people find to exist on their incomes, applications are made for admission to old people's homes where it costs five times as much as what the extra payment would be to keep one person at home, and maybe in some cases seven times as much.
If the prescribed relatives scheme, which provides an extra allowance on the old people's pensions for having people to care for them and look after them in their homes, is properly expanded to cover a much wider range that it covers at present—as I say, when it started it was rather limited but we were able to improve it three times—and to include most cases where old people require constant care and attention, the number of old people going into homes will be reduced.
I would go even further and include people who are prepared to take an old person out of a home and care for him or her in their own homes. They should be given a generous allowance. Even if they were given half what it costs to keep people in homes, they would feel they were very well paid, indeed, having regard to the per capita costs in old people's homes at present. This would be a very generous payment towards the care of old people in their own homes.
Even though old people's homes have been improved, some of them have a vast distance to go to reach what would be regarded in modern times as an acceptable standard. No matter how good the standard may be in those homes, old people will never be as happy as they would be sitting by a fireside with their own relations or some neighbours who might be given a reasonable weekly fee for looking after them. That is a direction in which our social services could move in the future. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with this when he is outlining his hopes for an improvement in the services in the future.
I do not know whether it is appropriate to discuss the conditions in old people's homes on this Estimate. The Department of Health are conjointly involved in the matter of better conditions for old people. I visited a certain home recently to see at first hand what the conditions were. It was not in my own constituency. It was clean. The old people, who were mostly mentally handicapped or mentally deficient in some way, were kept clean. The food was reasonable. By the standards which prevailed 30 or 40 years ago it would be regarded as excellent. The beds were clean and quite good. That is not everything. That was all they had: a clean home, reasonably good food, and a bed. They had no social life and no type of recreation. They were sitting around in a large room stacked up in rows looking into space. For those who were capable of following a programme on television, a television set was available. We need to do much more in 1975 if we are to improve the conditions in these homes.
The first question you must ask yourselves when you visit such a home is: how would you like your own mother to be in it? Does it measure up to what you feel a home should be like? If we apply that standard, we find we have a long way to go. As I say, the Department of Health may be more directly involved here than the Department of Social Welfare. The Parliamentary Secretary who has a social conscience could get the ear of his Minister, who is also Minister for Health, to deal with these matters. I strongly advocate the use of homes only where no other means of caring for old people are available.
