FOR NEEDY WIDOWS ONLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 837, 4 December 1929, Page 9

FOR NEEDY WIDOWS ONLY

PEER’S VIEW OF PENSION PROPOSALS GOVERNMENT DEFEATED LONDON, Monday. In the House of Lords 20 amendments, have been tabled in committee to the Widows and Orphans Old Age Contributory Pensions Bill. The Earl of Onslow moved to limit widows’ pensions to necessitous cases. Lord Buckmaster, a former Liberal Lord Chancellor, in supporting it, said there was no reason why every woman should become a charge on the State because she was widowed. Even the amendment did not go far to stay the flood of extravagance under which the country would soon be submerged, accompanied by the multiplication of Government departments, which was to be feared more than the multiplication of widows. Several Liberal peers supported the Government, but the amendment was carried by 37 votes to 16. The consequential amendment, describing necessitous widows as those not in receipt of £250 a year altogether, was carried without a division. Another sub-section was deleted by 33 votes to 9. The bill was then passed through committee. The Government does not intend to accept the amendment, a similar one having been defeated twice already in the House of Commons. The Government view is that the amendment would disqualify a few widows, but add considerably to administrative expenses.