FROM THE ARCHIVES:The unionist government in the North found itself in hot political water in 1956 when it tried to block changes in children's allowances in the UK because they benefited Catholic families more than Protestant ones. The minister responsible, Ivan Neill, gave this explanation to unionist backbenchers before the government was forced to abandon its plan for a separate scheme.
NEILL explained that since family allowances were introduced a decade ago, the fact that at Westminster’s dictate the first child was excluded tended to give Nationalists, with their larger families, a greater proportion of the total family allowance fund than their proportion of the population warranted.
This had led to an increase in the number of Nationalist children, the number of babies jumping from 38% before the war to 44% at present.
This, said Mr Neill, would inevitably narrow the Unionist majority in the next generation. The present total paid in family allowances was almost 50-50 between Unionists and Nationalists, although Nationalists were in a 40-60 minority, and this meant that the Nationalist birthrate was already being subsidised.
Of the £750,000 total involved in the increases under the British scheme, over £500,000 would go to the large families of the Nationalist minority, and a little over £200,000 to the smaller families of the Unionist majority. This would tend to increase the Nationalist birthrate further and hasten the day when the Unionist majority would disappear.
The Minister’s warning to Unionism and his indication that 47,000 more families would benefit under the Northern Bill swayed the meeting to a big majority vote for the Bill.
When the Premier [Lord Brookeborough], backed by this decision, went to London that evening and explained the Government case to the Ulster Unionist M.P.s at Westminster, he found that the Imperial M.P.s would not support the Bill, and that some British Labour M.P.s were reputed to be intending to put down an amendment to the British Bill, enforcing its extension to Northern Ireland.
Faced with the likelihood of a big row at Westminster, in which charges of discrimination would be made against his Government and in which the Northern M.P.s would not get up from their seats to defend the Northern Bill, the Prime Minister’s nerve broke.
Realising in the clearer atmosphere of Westminster that it would not do to go on with the separate Northern scheme, he got the second reading debate at Stormont adjourned
The whole incident had reduced the Government’s prestige to a very low level. Even Unionist backbenchers confess that the party has been woefully served by the leadership Rumours that Mr. Ivan Neill offered his resignation, and that this was refused by the Premier on the grounds that the Bill was collective Cabinet responsibility, are current and have not been either confirmed or denied.
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