PENSIONS IN BRITAIN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 142, 20 May 1925, Page 5

PENSIONS IN BRITAIN.

CONTRIBUTORY BASIS. OPPOSED BY LABOURITES. LONDON, May 18. In tlie House of Commons, tlie second reading of the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill, which gives effect to the scheme announced by Mr Winston Churchill in his Budget speech, was moved by Mr Neville Chamberlain, who declared that the cost of putting the Government scheme on a non-contributory basis, as urged in some quarters, would be thirty-one, instead of seven and a-half millions for five years. He expressed the opinion that despite the cost to employers, which was estimated at ten and a-quarter millions annually during the first decade, the latter must admit the scheme would* increase output, because of the psychological effect upon contented worker!;. The scheme would reduce unemployment by enabling. 400,000 workers over 65 to retire. The Government estimated that another effect would be immediate relief from rates to the extent of three millions annually, as foreshadowed in the poor laws reform scheme of 1923, which would develop the Government policy of helping those willing to help themselves.

Mr Wheatley (Labour) moved the rejection of the bill in a resolution which approved of the principle of the measure, but condemned it on the ground that the workers’ contributory provisions imposed additional burdens on industry and the inadequacy of the allowances where the father was incapacitated. Mr Lloyd George ridiculed the Labour view and supported the scheme. He favoured a contributory basis in view of the demands on the public purse for other social reforms. He made various suggestions for amendments, comparing the position of a man of forty broken down in health with a vigorous man of sixty-five. He urged that the real test was not age, but disablement. He advocated compulsory insurance and £lO for funeral expenses, which would replace the present voluntary payments of twentyfive millions annually, of which over half disappeared in administration expenses.—A. and N.Z. cable.