House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 Feb 1993

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consider what has happened to the retired population to realise that we are storing up a problem of gigantic proportions, which we shall have to try to address. At present, the proportion of supporting taxpayers to pensioners is slightly more than three to one. By the early decades of the next century it will have fallen to about two to one.

If one makes that point to the classic awkward pensioner whom every Tory candidate is terrified to meet during a general election campaign--the Albert Tatlocks of this world--they say, "I don't want to know about the burden on the working population. I paid my dues over the years. I fought in a world war." I know a few people who fought in two. They don't want to know about the burden their pensions represent for the working population. Although those people's contributions give them the right to be supported by the working population, the practical ability to maintain them in the style to which they wish to be accustomed lies outside what can be achieved with the tax contributions of the working population.

As the proportion of workers to pensioners decreases markedly, there will be some pretty tough decisions to be made. Perhaps the most partisan remark that I need to make in this connection is that, to some extent, the justification for the optimism of the Labour party in thinking that it can once again be the governing party will be indicated by the extent to which it helps the Government in this debate. I cannot for one moment imagine that the Opposition spokesman wants to spend the next 20 years fighting on the Labour Front Bench and finally, in his grey-haired years, come to the Government side and find that he has only two taxpayers to support each retired person. It seems to me that, if the hon. Gentleman really believes in the Labour revival, he will have to enter into this debate. On these occasions, it is worth concentrating on the points that unite us. As this debate proceeds, it will be interesting to see the extent to which, in the end, there is no difference between us. As a member of the Select Committee on Social Security, I sometimes find myself outflanked on the right by the Chairman, and sometimes think that I am outflanking him on the left. If that is an indication of a constructive debate, it will ultimately be so much harder for the Government to cover up any sins. Of course, they do not have such sins, so the risk does not exist.

9.13 pm

Mr. Malcolm Wicks (Croydon, North-West) : It is no surprise that this debate about the uprating statement has also been a debate on the Government's reviews of public spending--particularly the reviews of social security spending. Future uprating statements, whether under a Conservative Government or a Labour Government, will depend critically on our ability to look rigorously at public spending on social security.

Although Front Benchers may have fun with one another about each other's reviews, it is surely no coincidence that both the Labour party and the Government have now launched fundamental reviews. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) felt a little anxious that the Liberal party did

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not have a review. If I were he, I should say that my party had had a very good review--the Beveridge report of 50 years ago--even if it needs some radical updating.

It was a bit rich of the Secretary of State to attack us for having an independent review. Why should he attack a privatised review? He made it clear in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) that his will be a secret review, and therefore a classic nationalised review. We live in strange times when such criticisms are made.

I welcome the need for a fundamental and long-term review, but note much foreboding in our community about the Government's review and their intentions. I see many honest citizens in Croydon and throughout the country reaching for their purses and wallets when they hear about the Government's review. I ask why that is. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, announcing the public expenditure review, said that we needed to distinguish between essential and avoidable costs. That must be right ; it is simple and truthful stuff with which we can all agree. What are the implications for this review? Although any proper analysis of social security spending should start at the beginning, I worry that the Government might start at the end. In other words, they might start where they can save money--what benefits they can cut--and make a political calculation about what they can get away with at the next election. Perhaps I am being too logical, but I think that we should start not at the end but at the beginning. I will say what I mean by that in a moment.

Let us acknowledge that this is not the first Government review. At least two or three times since 1979 the Government have said, "We need a fundamental review ; we need to constrain or reduce public expenditure."

Mr. Dewar : Fowler.

Mr. Wicks : The Fowler review comes to mind, but in their 1990 White Paper the Government clearly stated their objectives : "The Government intend to reduce public expenditure progressively in volume terms over the next four years."

That did not work. They did not reduce public expenditure in real terms or any other terms. In fact, public spending increased dramatically from £203 billion in real terms at the beginning of this Administration in 1978-79 to a significant £258 billion in 1992-93. Although there have been many differences across the Chamber--more, frankly, than some hon. Members, in a spirit of politeness, have acknowledged--any Government will face fundamental questions. What do I mean when I urge the Government to start at the beginning of the story and not at the end? I think that we need, first, to ask questions about social change in Britain : how do people live and work, and how will that look up to the year 2000? Given that analysis, what trends are making for social insecurity, and what trends and what policy development could make for social security? My fear is that in future we may not have enough money to give decent benefits to people who have to rely on social security because, for the want of better policies, we are having to provide benefits for people who, in a better world, would not need to depend on social security. The second task of a proper review would be to state its objectives. The objectives of any proper review of social security would be to ask, how do we develop policies,

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which often have nothing to do with the DSS, that enhance economic well-being and enable our citizens to become financially independent? Only after that would we need to focus on those who, because of disability or advanced old age, have to depend, quite properly, on universal state benefits.

I will explain my point in three ways. The first is the most obvious, but I make no excuse for returning to the theme of unemployment. Unless we make up our mind as a society to attack Beveridge's giant evil of idleness or unemployment, all our plans, as he said 50 years ago, and as I more modestly say today, for social well-being and social security are out of reach. If we have to spend large sums of money, often paying very low benefits but to masses of people, we shall not in future be able to cater for all the modern needs for which a decent society should cater.

We shall not be able to cater for the needs of the carers, as the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) said, the needs of the growing numbers of people with disabilities or those who, in frail old age, often--and rightly--have to turn to the state for help. They include not least the generation which has missed out on the private and occupational pension revolution.

The Government must come clean at the beginning of their review. Do they see a future of mass unemployment? If so, they can hardly quarrel with the expenditure implications which consume a daily growing proportion of our social security budget and of our gross domestic product. They must come clean about their employment, full employment or unemployment assumptions.

The White Paper on public spending clearly shows how much we as a society are spending to keep people out of work who want to work. When we consider the trends among one-parent families and some longer-term sick people who are on benefit, we cannot but ask questions : how many of them would be in work and not on benefit if we were to approach full employment again? There are hidden costs of unemployment in the public expenditure White Paper, which we should make as visible as possible.

A fundamental review of social security and unemployment is more about macro-economic and employment policies and about child care and training than about social security policy. Therefore, I urge the Secretary of State to introduce an interdepartmental element into his inquiry.

My second illustration of starting at the beginning rather than the end of the story involves family breakdown. One of the demographic and social revolutions affecting not only a European society such as ours but others across the world is, sadly, the growing number of children who spend some or all of their childhood in one-parent rather than two-parent families. Almost four out of 10 new marriages will end in divorce, so a large percentage of children exprience family breakdown.

That revolution has not been painless. The fact that 70 per cent. of today's one-parent families depend on income support reflects the failure of society to comprehend or to cope with that revolution. A higher proportion--about 85 per cent.--of one-parent families will spend some time on state income support. That is bad news not only for mothers, children and society as a whole, because life on income support is rotten, but for taxpayers, public expenditure and the economy. I do not believe that life needs to be like that.

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In Sweden, for example, the picture is quite different. About 80 per cent. of one-parent families are not on the Swedish equivalent of income support, but in employment. There are many reasons for that, including the fact that the state has intervened through labour market policies, employment training and child care to help people socially. Of course there are costs involved in intervening through the state, but the social and economic savings have been colossal. Our failure not only to comprehend family breakdown but to prevent it and to help its victims has major public expenditure implications. The Government should start there rather than by asking whether they can cut a bit off benefits for one-parent families.

My third example deals with the subject of aging, which various hon. Members have mentioned. There has also been a social and demographic revolution of aging, which has major consequences for public expenditure and pensions policy. We shall hear more about that after 1 April, when the so-called community care policy comes into effect.

We are beginning to have a vigorous debate, but there is not yet a consensus on who should meet the costs of aging, either for pensions or, in particular, for care. Soon the Government--any Government--will have to grapple with the equalisation of pension ages.

That is a several billion pound question. Do we go back to 60? The Government would say that we could not afford that. Do we equalise at 63? Do we go to 65? Do we follow the advice of the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts)--we now find out that he was apparently quoting Beveridge--and go for 67? Those are important questions. We should not consider those questions in isolation, but should relate them to the other questions with which hon. Members on both sides of the House have to grapple, about the right future mix between public and private provision. We may disagree about that mix, but we should have the debate.

As has been pointed out, the poorest groups are people in their late 70s and in their 80s and 90s, who have missed out on the private pension revolution and who may now need targeted help. I agree with the hon. Member for Havant that such help need not be

means-tested--indeed, I urge that it should not be means-tested. Let us ask questions about the pattern of retirement. Let us not talk about pensioners as a grey mass, which they are not : they are many millions of individuals, some of whom want to retire early and some of whom want to work until they drop and never retire. Let us have flexibility and look at the actuarial implications in ways which make sense to people. Let us not treat people as a mass who have to retire either at 60, 65 or 67--or even 57. Let us offer them choices and freedom, and discover how we can do that in ways which enhance social welfare but also make sense in terms of public expenditure. Those are the important questions.

Finally, the review--

Mr. Frank Field : Ours or theirs?

Mr. Wicks : Both. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead who, almost echoing Government policy, called for open government on the issue. Such fundamental questions should not be about political fixes and cutting benefits. Why do we not

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encourage public debate on them? Why not consider a discussion paper, a Green Paper, a series of meetings or whatever, to engage the public in the discussion? There are no clear answers. There may be disagreements. At the end of the day, the Government will come to their own decision, with a White Paper and perhaps legislation. But why not encourage a public debate?

I support the review if it turns out to be long-term, fundamental and open. We need to review those questions. Any Government approaching the year 2000 will face difficult social questions involving public expenditure. Let us open the debate beyond this Chamber to the wider mass of people who have a major interest in the issues.

9.27 pm

Mr. Charles Hendry (High Peak) : There has been some discussion during the debate about speeches being recycled, so I shall say at the outset that I wrote my speech myself, and that it has not been used before. When I have finished it hon. Members may realise the benefits of recycling speeches and using them time and

again--especially when they are as good as the one that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made to the Young Conservatives conference at the weekend.

I was briefly tempted to use again the speech which I made in the debate on the Social Security Bill last November, because no one took any notice of it at the time, so no one would have realised if I had used it again tonight. But then I was much more tempted to re-use the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), which brought in so many new ideas and so much enlightened thinking.

I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), and during its 29 minutes I was wondering whether he might effectively dispel Conservative Members' belief that there had indeed been a gloomy feeling among Opposition Members at the time of the uprating statement. On that occasion we could see, as Opposition Members could not, the faces of those sitting on the Benches opposite us. We saw how miserable they were. Where, even today, were the words of welcome for the uprating statement? Eventually, after twenty-eight and a half minutes, the hon. Member for Garscadden got there. He said that he welcomed the statement "as far as it goes." That was a magnanimous gesture by the Labour party--but the hon. Gentleman immediately went on to attack the amounts of money involved. We always hear from the Labour party how to spend wealth. Now and again it would be nice to hear Labour Members tell us about how to create wealth.

We hear attacks on the amount of money paid in benefits. The hon. Member for Garscadden says that it is not enough, that it is a measly amount--but does he tell us how much he would spend? Does he give us an inkling of how much the Labour party believes the benefits should be? He does not, because we would ask how much that would cost. Labour Members would not tell us ; we should have to tell them how much it would cost. Please will the Labour party come clean? If Labour wants to challenge us on the amounts paid in benefits--all Conservative Members would like to see the levels of benefits increased--please will Labour Members tell us the level to which they think benefits should be increased?

It is only a year ago that Labour was more open and was telling us that Labour party policy was that pensions

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should be raised for a single person to one third of average income and to half average income for a married couple. The hon. Member for Garscadden makes an unlikely Father Christmas. Indeed, it has been uncharitably said that he thinks that charisma is 25 December. Christmas presents come ill from the Labour party which twice cancelled the pensioners' Christmas bonus.

Labour's commitment to raise pensions by that amount would have cost £25 billion. We do not know whether Labour still stands by that policy. If Labour had stood by that policy and if it was now in government, we should not be considering a fundamental review of Government spending and how to allocate resources, but a closing down sale. As happened before, we should have found that we were spending infinitely more than we could afford. We at least have the courage to recognise that and the integrity to try to challenge those issues. We are now told that we have a new Labour party, the fourth new Labour party after four election defeats. From his remarks, it is clear that the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) recognises, as we do, that a fifth election defeat is likely for Labour.

Mr. Frank Field : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hendry : In view of the charitable comments that my hon. Friends pile on the hon. Gentleman, it would be churlish not to give way to him.

Mr. Field : I was not saying that a fifth defeat was inevitable. I said that a victory is there for us, but that we need to make fundamental changes. These debates offer that opportunity. Other opportunities arise to make that contribution to the party. I believe that we should run the Conservatives really close next time and that we should put the fear of God into them that they will lose their red boxes, their chauffeur-driven cars and all the trappings of power. Labour should be serious this time about that objective.

Mr. Hendry : We do not mind Labour running us close as long as it does not win. As long as the majority does not drop below 19, we can live with it. We plan to increase that majority ourselves. Having seen the new, new model Labour party, we could look around justifiably for clarification about its policies. We looked forward with great excitement last week to the speech by the Leader of the Opposition in which we thought that he would set out the new agenda and the way forward. We thought that he would of course talk about social security. Sadly, he did not. Social security did not get a mention.

We were obliged to wait until this week when the Leader of the Opposition was interviewed by The Times. That shows how much the party has changed. A few years ago, even last year, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would have had an interview with The Guardian. Some of his colleagues would have gone to the Morning Star. Now, Mr. Murdoch is in favour and Labour Members are prepared to talk to The Times. We welcome that transformation. However, we find that we still lack a clear explanation of the party's way forward. We know of Labour's commission on social justice. Conservative Members have attempted to find out how fundamental the review will be. I quote what Labour has said :

"There is a strong case for maintaining universality".

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As has been said already in this debate--we have to challenge you on the issue because you will not tell us what it means--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : Order. The hon. Gentleman must not use the word "you". He has repeatedly done so. I am not responsible for anything of which he has accused me.

Mr. Hendry : I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should have realised that.

The quotation continues :

"everyone having access to child benefit and retirement pensions to which they have contributed during their working lives."

Again, there is universality. The quotation continues : "The commission is perfectly free to propose all sorts of subtractions and additions and alternatives."

In spite of the challenges from Conservative Members, the Labour party will not tell us whether it means that as an open-ended review or whether it seeks to use weasel words to pretend that it wants both sides of the circle playing together.

I shall concentrate not on the way of the past, which is what we hear from the Labour party, but on the way forward. I shall pick up some of the points so excellently explained by my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts).

We have two priorities in social security. First, how do we stop people drifting or moving into dependency? Secondly, how do we help people to come out of dependency ? I do not see it as one of our priorities to seek to sustain people and keep them in dependency. That should not be one of our goals.

If we are to stop people moving into dependency, one of our key principles must be to help people to prepare for times of difficulty or illness, or simply for the process of getting older. That is why we believe so strongly in private, personal and occupational pensions. It is a source of great sadness to us that there is still no cross party recognition of the fact that planning ahead should be welcomed rather than scorned.

It cannot be right to spread benefits so wide that those in need do not get the help that they genuinely require because too much help is being given to those who do not require it. I referred just now to massive increases in pensions. If one gives large increases to everyone--including people with large personal incomes on retirement--we shall make it increasingly difficult to target help on those in genuine need. If one asks a child, "Do you want a lollipop?" he will say yes. If one asks a child, "Do you want to pay for it?" one will get a slightly different reply. We must accept that higher levels of benefit cost money.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) said, we are faced with the problem of a working population that is shrinking relative to those who will be living and requiring support from the state. Planning ahead is not callous. It is not a vicious 19th-century Tory principle. It is common sense and reflects the aspirations of people throughout the country.

If we are to be honest about targeting, we shall have to look at some other sacred cows. I know that this does not necessarily fall within the Department's responsibilities, but we must challenge the long-term future of mortgage interest relief. We spend more than £5 billion a year

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helping people with their mortgages, even though many of them can well afford to pay them. As a result, other people in need of housing support receive less than they require.

Now that the housing market has bottomed out, I hope that we shall gradually start to tackle that principle. With a base rate of tax of 20 per cent., we could start by saying that mortgage interest relief should start at 20 per cent. rather than 25 per cent. That alone would create a saving of £1 billion which could go towards reducing the deficit or towards spending elsewhere.

How does one help people to move out of dependency? Too often, the policies of the past have worked to trap people in dependency. Over many years, choice has been removed. Let us consider what has happened in our inner- city areas, where such policies are most important. The state--either at local or national level--has said to people, "We will look after you. We will look after your housing, education and health. We will look after you when you are young and when you are old and in all aspects of your life. You need worry about nothing. The state knows best. The state will look after it." In many areas, we have rolled back that principle, but in some areas it survives and people have lost the ability to choose. It is not that they do not want to choose but that they do not understand how to. They are frightened of making choices. Over the past 14 years, we have been tackling those problems gradually. Initially, we told people who wanted to take an opportunity that we would take off the lid that had been holding them down and allow them to make a choice. We told people that, if they wanted to buy their council house, buy shares in a company or start up a business, they could go ahead and do it. Then there was a second tranche consisting of people less willing to take the leap. To them, we said, "We will give you an incentive to start taking out personal pensions and to buy shares." Our priority must now be to consider people who come into neither category. We shall not achieve that merely by shaking the benefits tree-- although it is certainly important to ensure that people do not get benefits to which they are not entitled. For many people, the benefits tree represents security. It is not like a tree of apples from which ripe fruit drops when one shakes it. Many will cling more tightly because the tree is their security.

I agree with some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks), who said that we require a cross- departmental system. The benefits system is part of the package, but we also need to look more widely. Let me give a couple of examples. Many single parents are in dependency for the simple reason that they do not have the opportunity to go out to work. The mother cannot raise income because she has no one to look after the child, and she cannot simply get a job. We need to look at that cross-departmentally.

In my constituency, we have a shortage of housing. In one area we have a number of empty police houses. We have two empty police houses side by side, which is a chronic waste in an area of housing shortage. We should examine whether those empty houses could be turned into units for single parents with children under school age. The houses could be turned into four or five units and single parents would have facilities on site and a child minder. The mother would have the opportunity to get a

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job without placing an extra burden on the state for a massive provision of child-minding support. In that way, we could help single parents to find work, start tackling their problems and looking to a brighter future.

The same could be said of the unemployed. We should not look simply at how we support unemployed people. We must see how we can give people the cross- departmental support which they need to make them ready to move back into work. For that reason, we need to be open-minded on the principle of working for benefits.

Mr. Winnick : If I heard the hon. Gentleman correctly, he referred to unemployed people moving back into work. Does he realise that the overwhelming majority of unemployed people do not want to rely on benefits of any sort? When vacancies occur, there will often be 500 or 600 people applying for a single vacancy. Sometimes they queue all night for the opportunity of getting a job. The responsibility for what has happened lies with the Government. The hon. Gentleman should be concerned that millons of people are denied the right to work.

Mr. Hendry : If the hon. Gentleman looks across the channel, he will see a socialist Government which has pursued socialist policies and which has an unemployment rate that is almost the same as that in the United Kingdom. It is not a question of the Government's policies having failed. The United Kingdom, significantly as a result of our refusing to take on board the social chapter, is ready for growth, and most of the independent reports expect it to have the highest rate of growth in the European Community by the end of this year. Perhaps the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) can look more at the positive aspects than the negative ones.

The hon. Gentleman makes the important point that unemployed people want jobs. The worst waste for unemployed people is having nothing to do, sitting around all day at home or getting up late and losing the work attitude.

I have been unemployed twice--once when I left university 12 years ago, in a similar time for graduates as it is now, and shortly thereafter. I know what it is like to write letters and wait for replies. One finds that many people do not bother to reply and many other people simply give one a dismissive letter as though they have not considered the application. In those circumstances, it is difficult to maintain morale and continue looking for work daily. One of the reasons for looking at the principle of work for benefits is the question of how to put people in a frame of mind whereby they are in a position to apply for jobs and be enthusiastic about getting them. Many questions need to be examined : whether working for benefits would be part-time or full-time, whether it would be compulsory or voluntary and whether it would apply to everybody or only to those who have been unemployed for some time. We need to challenge things. It was President Kennedy who said : "Change is the law of life, and those who only think of the present and the past are certain to miss the future."

He had vision and imagination in many other areas. We are right to challenge the principles, think the unthinkable and hope to do the unthinkable. That is the way in which we should move forward. There has been a creeping dependency over many years which the Government have sought to reverse in the past 14 years. That creeping dependency is not desirable.

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Moreover, it is something which we cannot support. I support the Government's social security initiatives as part of the package to put those problems right. I will be supporting the Government on the order tonight.

9.43 pm

Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : In the past two and a half hours we have heard several wide-ranging and deeply intellectual speeches from people who are plainly formidably expert on social security matters. As I am sure you know, Madam Speaker, I am not an expert on social security. But as a Back-Bench Member of Parliament I am worried for those constituents of mine who, for reasons beyond their control, are unable to defend themselves against the irregularities that arise in their dealings with the local Benefits Agency offices. I shall use some examples to show the need for reviews of the social security system.

All the examples that I shall use come from my two most recent surgeries. One involved a man living in Port Glasgow who told me that he applied for disability living allowance in May 1992. He brought to my surgery a formal acknowledgement of his application dated 1 June 1992. He has heard nothing from Blackpool since. I find that disgraceful.

Mr. Winnick : That is fairly common.

Dr. Godman : Whether it is common or not, it is a matter of deep regret for my constituent.

Another example concerns a young girl who came to see me at my constituency surgery. She is 17 and four months pregnant. Her parents put her out of the house when she announced that she was pregnant. She refused an abortion. She is living in a house which is much too big for her in a part of my constituency where the houses are known as "difficult to let".

The young girl went along to the local benefits office in Port Glasgow to ask for help in her difficult circumstances. She was turned away because she was not in receipt of income support. She is undergoing youth training. Why did not one of the officials sit the girl down--a girl is what she is ; she is 17 years old--and say, "We cannot pay you because of the harsh regulations governing payments from the social fund. You are not on income support. But did you know that if you are in such difficulties you can go along to the local social work department?" The hon. Members for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that, under section 10 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, a social worker may have been able to give the girl some financial assistance. Why was not the girl given that advice?

Another example of the failure of the state to protect individuals who find themselves in difficult circumstances is the case of a constituent of mine who is suffering from asbestosis. He is deeply ill, like many of the sufferers whom one finds in shipbuilding constituencies for reasons that I do not need to spell out to the House. He has been advised that he needs an independent medical examination. The man is living in poverty, but he is expected to find the money for that independent medical examination which is required by the Department.

I was grateful to the Minister for saying that he would look into this difficulty for men and women suffering from asbestosis. As you know, Madam Speaker, in almost every

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case asbestosis is terminal. I am pleased to say that at long last the law in Scotland has been brought into line with English legislation, in that the claim no longer dies when the victim dies. We are grateful for some small mercies.

I raised the question of invalidity benefit earlier with the Secretary of State. He courteously gave way and listened tolerantly to what I had to say. If any benefit needs to be subjected to a tough-minded review, it is invalidity benefit.

Under United Kingdom law, a women loses invalidity benefit at the age of 60 and is given a retirement pension instead. In a case heard in Liverpool, Commissioner Skinner decided that Mrs. Rose Graham had suffered sexual discrimination vis-a-vis EC directive 79/7/EEC. The Secretary of State is appealing against the Secretary of State. The assistant chief adjudication officer telephoned me last summer to tell me that that was the case and I have received correspondence from Ministers on the subject.

The social security commissioner decided that United Kingdom social security law discriminates against women, and that they should be treated in the same way as men when in receipt of invalidity benefit. On the basis of the Liverpool case, I made representations on behalf of a constituent, Mrs. McLatchie, whose invalidity benefit was restored plus the payment of arrears. That was fine and good, and I thought that the Government were acknowledging that EC law has supremacy over our legislation. They are, however, appealing to the English Court of Appeal.

I organised a take-up campaign on behalf of constituents caught in the same trap and about 400 made late appeals. They have all been told that they cannot be paid, despite the fact that Mrs. McLatchie was paid. Incidentally, one of my constituents is going to take the Government to the sheriff court, because under Scots law it is argued that she should receive her money.

I wrote to the then European Social Commissioner, Mrs. Papandreou, formally to request that she initiate proceedings at the European Court of Justice against the Government for that act of gross sexual discrimination. Mrs. Papandreou has gone, but I received a response from the acting director- general, Steffen Smidt, who said : "With reference to Mrs. Thomas case, I can inform you that there is actually a proceeding before the Court of Justice of the European Community deferred by the House of Lords on the basis of Article 177 of the Treaty of Rome."

That article enables a national court to refer a case to the European Court of Justice, and that has profound implications for any review of social security systems throughout the European Community, let alone in this place.

The letter continues :

"This case concerns Mrs. Thomas and four other persons" two are male : Mr. Murphy and Mr. Morley.

"Hearings took place in November 1992, and the Commission is awaiting with the greatest of interest the forthcoming judgements. At this stage, the Commission has to wait for the above judgement before introducing any proceedings for infringement against the Government of the United Kingdom."

As I said in an intervention in the speech of the Secretary of State, the Advocate-General has proffered his opinion to his colleagues. The other judges may well choose to reject his recommendations, but I suspect that the omens are not good for the Government. If his colleagues accept his recommendations, it will cost the Department of Social Security dear, as more than 400 people in my constituency have appealed.

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It seems that, in future, people who believe that they have a genuine grievance against the Department of Social Security, and hence the Government, may, under the Maastricht treaty--if it is resuscitated by the second Danish referendum--have the right to take the Government to a domestic court. Those people will not have to undertake the long and winding road to Luxembourg but can take the Government to a domestic court because of their perceived failure to protect those people's interests.

In its 15th report for the 1991-92 Session, on page 49, paragraph 34, the Select Committee on European Community Legislation stated : "There is now a new factor. The jurisprudence of the Court has developed to a point where it has recognised a right for individuals (in carefully defined circumstances) to sue their Member States in their national courts for damages flowing from non-implementation of obligations intended for their protection. In relation to obligations of this nature, the prospect of a flood of actions in national courts may be a greater deterrent to dilatory Member States than the prospect of a simple fine."

In future, people who feel that they have a legitimate grievance against the Government for their failure to protect them under social security legislation may take the Government to court. Those people can use the European Court of Justice as a tactical convenience. The provision is contained in the Maastricht treaty. I make no apology for attempting to use the European Court of Justice for tactical convenience to protect several hundreds of my constituents whose invalidity benefit was stopped when they reached the age of 60, which is the present position.

When the learned men sitting in Luxembourg decide that the Government are guilty of sexual discrimination when paying invalidity benefit, it may result not in reductions in the social security budget, but in the problem of where to find the extra money to pay the scores of thousands of women who will be involved. I look forward to that decision, about which I am fairly optimistic. No doubt Ministers are hoping that my optimism is misplaced and believe that I should not place too much reliance on the European Court of Justice. However, if Ministers and Government officials fail to protect my constituents, I shall willingly use the European Court of Justice and our national courts--if the Maastricht treaty is resuscitated by the Danes--to protect my constituents.

Even the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire is going to conduct a review of the social security system. The reviewers, whether professors or Department of Social Security officials, may have to take cognisance of the role of the European Court of Justice in determining, by way

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of European Community legislation, what is fair and proper in the administration of individual social security systems in the European Community--soon to be called the European union, I believe. That is an important subject, especially for hon. Members like me who are not experts but have to defend constituents' interests.

The three examples that I gave of constituents who came to my surgery involved people caught in deep poverty. I hope that this evening the Minister will respond sympathetically to those examples. 9.59 pm

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