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Mr. Rendel: Perhaps when she winds up the debate, the Minister will tell us when her departmental team was told that incorrect information had been given.
Mr. Heath: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Either Ministers were told and were negligent, or the civil service has made an appalling error of judgment. The Government have ended up implementing a measure to which they were strongly opposed, and it would be a dereliction of duty in the civil service if that fact had not been brought to Ministers' attention.
All that is history, and we must deal with what is happening now. People have been placed in a difficult financial position. The Minister made the perverse suggestion that people who have suffered real hardship must establish that they were misled, and that they consequently made the wrong decision. I do not know what will happen to those who were misled, but took the right decision. Is the test cumulative or single? The test is perverse. Anyone who was wrongly informed by a Department of Government has been misled. It matters not what process of mind people went through. If they were told something wrong, they were misled, and the Department should be big enough to say so.
The Minister has put a gloss on the situation by saying that a phone call is sufficient evidence of someone's having been misled, even where there is no documentary proof. Inaction is just as adequate as action as a proof of wrong action. A person need merely say that he was telephoned, and did nothing more. That will be enough proof to win compensation. That is nonsense, and if the Minister does not realise on reflection that it is nonsense, someone else will realise it for him.
It would be far better to deal with problems at source, and fairest to take proper measures to extend the period of introduction to mitigate them. If that is not done, both the Department's culpability and the size of damages will have to be established, and it might cost the Government more to act in that way than to extend the period. Alternatively, a clear system must be developed to identify cases in which people were let down. Leaving it to the ombudsman would be another dereliction of duty. The Government appear to feel that it is all too difficult for them, so someone else must decide. "See you in court," they seem to be saying. A responsible Government dealing with people who have taken decisions on the best available advice would surely think it right to pre-empt the ombudsman and the courts by doing the right thing from the start.
I question the difference between the approach taken to this issue and that taken on the mis-selling of private pensions. There is a cost to the Exchequer, and I have the greatest of sympathy for Ministers. However, they must take this matter seriously. To the suggestion that the Liberal Democrats should somehow have warned people, I can say only that had we been running the Department of Social Security, we would have done so. It so happens that that responsibility fell to the Conservatives for a long time and has fallen for the past couple of years to Labour Ministers.
We achieve nothing by laying blame. We must do right by widows who are suffering and by husbands who are worried sick about the provision that they thought that they had made, and that they must now make again. It is cruel that elderly gentlemen have been left not knowing which way to turn. I implore the Government to take this matter seriously, and to do all that they can to mitigate a mistake that is not their own, but that they have not yet sought to repair.
Kali Mountford (Colne Valley):
I apologise to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) for missing his speech. He and I have exchanged views during the course of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill, so I have had the benefit in the past of the full range of his views.
The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) gave us a vision of a widow, wrapped in her weeds, covered in a black shawl, shuffling about and unable to raise her head for want of self-esteem or dignity. The hon. Gentleman should know that times have moved on. The picture that he painted did no credit to him or to widows. We ought to recognise that widows have reached a dreadful time of life--I can imagine few things more terrible than the loss of a spouse--but the point is that it is the loss of the spouse that causes deep grief, not just the loss of a husband.
The hon. Gentleman might have recognised that benefits should be extended to men as well as women, not out of some spurious feminism and not even out of simple fairness, but because both men and women grieve. I do not know how men have carried on until now. Those who have managed to set aside grief to go off to work have done so because they had to. I have never seen a difference in the ability of men or women to cope with grief, which is equally deep, whether the deceased is a husband, a wife or a child. The quality of grief does not vary according to gender.
To suggest that extending benefits to men is spurious feminism is both wrong and unfair, particularly to fathers who must support their children. Many fathers choose to continue to work, but others do not. Mothers make similar choices in the interests of their families. The Government are right to restructure benefits to help families at a time of great need.
I cannot imagine that anyone could offer me a sum of money--even £50,000 a week--that would ameliorate my grief. There is no cost to grief, but there is a cost to living.
The argument is why a period of six months has been chosen rather than a year or two years, but we have to look at everything on balance. We do not argue that, after six months, the grief will suddenly end.
Eight years ago, I lost a grandchild. I grieve for him still. I imagine that I shall grieve for the rest of my life, but I am not incapable of working and never have been. Nor is my daughter, who returned to work fairly quickly after the terrible, grievous loss of her first child. We cannot put a defined time limit on grief, but benefits are not about compensating for grief. They are about giving a period of sanctuary, but then life goes on and it must go on. It is right for Governments to consider how they can best help people through a period of distress in their life. I know from my family, friends and neighbours, and my own life that dignity comes from work and that it can provide a way of returning to life.
I do not argue that every woman or man is capable of going back to work instantly after the grievous loss of their spouse. They may still be grieving and their grief may cause them mental ill health, for which they will receive support. Even Liberal Democrat Members have failed to recognise that, if the bereaved person does not have children, when the allowance comes to an end, a range of other benefits will be available. They are available to all people who are ill or seek to retrain for work. People are not left unsupported in British society today.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar back in his seat. I hope that he will read my remarks about widows and recognise that they are not the women wrapped up in shawls whom he seemed to describe. I am glad to have the chance to put that point directly to him. I am grateful to him for recognising the terrible mistake of the Government whom he supported. Much has been made by Members on both Opposition Benches of what happened with SERPS in 1986. It was gracious of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar to accept responsibility, even though he was not a Member of the House at that time. It makes a pleasant change.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) made the point that we had to look at the situation that we were now in, not the one that we would have wished to be in or imagined that we were in. We inherited the most appalling mess, and that is why I am grateful for the apology. That appalling mess is such that the ombudsman is investigating it. It would be foolish and wrong for any Government to come in and say, "Here we are. We are going to save the day without looking closely at the detail." The detail is so complex that it may take a little while to sort out. It would be a grave mistake to rush it.
It occurred to me during the debate that people might say that they telephoned and were given advice. If they telephoned from a telephone box, I have no idea how they can prove that they made the call. The mess will be difficult to unpick. I do not seek to cast blame here, there and everywhere; that would not help the situation. The fact is that the matter has to be put right. I have no idea what the ombudsman's report will look like; I await it with interest. People feel let down by what has happened to them. People have made plans according to the advice that they were given. It behoves the Government to look closely at how that can be put right. To pretend that we can come along 14 years later with an instant solution would do no one any service.
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