February 13, 1948, Public Assistance Journal and Health & Hospital Review

During a parliament debate on the National Assistance Bill, Sir H Webbe said it "almost made him treble to think of the responsibility and terrible power which Members of Parliament had over the loves of ordinary human beings. It was a tremendous step to take old people away from their own surroundings. From the human point of view it was the most drastic thing that could happen. The solution that the Bill provided was highly efficient but it lacked humanity. Under the clause as it stood these people could be picked up and taken away to an institution for months. He knew the desire to be efficient, but many thousands of old people, in the past, had been put into new surroundings where their actual illness had been alleviated and they had more creature comforts, but nevertheless they had died, not of their disease but of a broken spirit."