FORMIDABLE COST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 40, 17 February 1943, Page 5

FORMIDABLE COST

NEED FOR CAUTION

(Rec. 10.50 a.m.) RUGBY, Seb. 16. The Lord President of the Council, Sir John Anderson, announced in the House of Commons today that the general lines for the development of social services laid down in the Beveridge Report were those the Government wished to follow, but that all the main features did not commend themselves equally. He emphasised that the Government's study of the report was by no means complete. The Government was not ready to make a final pronouncement, 'and any provisional conclusion would be subject to reconsideration in the light of the debate.

Illustrating the formidable expenditure which was inevitably involved in any such scheme, Sir John Anderson said that the charge on the taxpayers for the provision of social insurance and allied .services would by the twentieth year have grown by £168,000,000 compared with the first year of operation of the plan, and even then it would by no means be at the peak.

Obviously, no one could pronounce now with certainty on the financial position at the end of the war, and estimates framed now might not prove well founded. What the Government must do now was to see whether any steps by way of preparation could reasonably be taken without interfering with the war effort. The tasks and problems of the future must, however, be faced confidently and courageously. "The Government therefore says let' us not be deterred by doubt as to finance from putting the plans into shape," he said. "Apart from social insurance, which must take high

priority, there are education, agriculture, housing, roading, forestry, and colonial development. Work is proceeding in all these, but it must be months before the Government can be ready.

"In social insurance there is a vast amount of detail which must be sifted. In the meantime, there can be no commitments. Nothing will be lost by the inevitable delay."

Sir John Anderson added that the scheme would be worked out as rapidly as possible, and Parliament would have to take decisions in the light of the fullest available information of the financial situation. He explained that although once the plan as a whole was adopted it could be brought into operation by stages, nevertheless the various parts of the scheme, apart from the fundamental assumptions on which it was based hung together, and it was from that point of view that the Government was considering it. SOUND NATIONAL ECONOMY. "After international security, which in the Government's view must be the first of our peace aims," he said, "there must come the establishment of our national economy on a sound basis, with the export trade in a healthy condition and employment continuously maintained at Ithe highest possible level. This must be done. The question arises whether this basic assumption as to the maintenance of employment which underlies the scheme—it is the bedrock on which the finance of the plan has been developed —should not be first investigated and placed beyond reasonable doubt before the plan can be adopted." This would be the prudent course if there was reason to expect such investigation to reach conclusions upon which practical reliance could be placed, but unfortunately there was no reason to expect such a result. It seemed to the Government that acceptance or recognition of this basic assumption must attend not upon, prior demonstration of its validity but whether it was considered not merely by the Government but by all concerned as something we all intended to strain every nerve to achieve. On this basis the Government had adopted the assumption.

The Government had also accepted in principle two other basic assumptions —a comprehensive medical service and a System of children's allowances.

In connection with the proposed comprehensive health service. Sir John Anderson stressed that the Government had no intention of forcing the new service on those who preferred private arrangements for medical attendance or hospital treatment.— 8.0. W.