LABOUR’S PLEDGES

Evening Star, Issue 20322, 2 November 1929, Page 15

LABOUR’S PLEDGES

PENSIONS IN BRITAIN BILL BEFORE COMMONS Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, October SI. Mr Arthur Greenwood (Minister of Health) in moving tho second reading of the Widows and Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill, said it was merely an instalment of a larger policy. A Cabinet Committee was surveying the complex problem, but the present Bill would remove several hardships and would provide pensions for 500,000 widows. Mr Neville Chamberlain had attacked the measure because ho said it would cost £8,000,000 per year, but if they had been asked for £8,000,000 for battleships the Conservatives would have given it. Mr Neville Chamberlain (Con.) said that during the election Mr Henderson had promised pensions to every widow in the land and an increase of old ago, pensions of £l, though ho must have known that his promise could not be kept. The Labourites were beginning to think about finance. When they came to raise money they would learn that there was no bottomless pit about it. Mr D. W. Gunston (Con.) said this was not a Pensions Bill but a shower of gold from the State. He did not sea why spinsters should not share in the shower of gold. Sir Kingsley Wood (Con.) said that the Bill was a betrayal of all the election pledges given by the Labour Party. It was a 'most unjust measure.

Miss Susan Lawrence, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, summing up on behalf of the Government, said that no one had had any right to expect that this Bill would carry out all the Labour Party’s pledges. It was merely an instalment, but it doubled tho number of widows’ pensions. The Bill was read a second time without a division.