If it is the case that successive politicians have been lying about the 1939 National Registration it is about time something was done to rectify the situation.
It was not just in 1953 (HC Deb 21 May 1953 vol 515 cc2233-4 which I quoted previously) that MPs claimed the National Register was no longer in use
HC Deb 04 April 1955 vol 539 cc823-4
“Mr. Hynd
I am not asking about National Health Service numbers. I am asking about the national registration numbers which are asked for when application is made for service under the National Health Scheme. Is it not ridiculous that people should still be asked for the national registration numbers, which most of them do not know? Does the hon. Lady know her own national registration number?
§ Miss Hornsby-Smith
CMBR 53/1. I think the hon. Gentleman will recognise that no sizeable registration scheme with so many people bearing the same name could possibly be carried out without some method using numbers. In the case of the National Health Service, it was obviously the better solution to take the national registration numbers, which were available and were known to most people, who had borne them for 10 years, rather than institute an entirely new Health Service scheme.
snip
Miss Hornsby-Smith
If the hon. Gentleman will cast his mind back, he will remember that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House most emphatically in this House enjoined people when the national identity card system came to an end that the numbers would apply to the National Health Service.
§ Mr. H. Morrison
Can the hon. Lady really deal with this? Was it not the case that the country was given the impression that it was a great act of virtue on the part of the Government to abolish the national registration numbers, that it was, so to speak, an act of setting the people free, but is it not the case now that we are told that people should not have been set free and that they should remember their registration numbers? Are they not now landed with two numbers, the registration number and the National Health number, and will they not get into a state of confusion?
§ Miss Hornsby-Smith
The right hon. Gentleman—it is unusual for him, I must confess—is more than ever confused about this matter. It was due to the practical application of common sense by this Government that, instead of instituting a new series of registration numbers for the National Health Service, we applied the national registration numbers.
HC Deb 09 March 1956 vol 549 c231W 231W
§ Mr. Neal
asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been drawn to the compulsory use of the now obsolete National Registration identity card numbers in connection with claims for dental treatment: and if he will substitute a more appropriate code occasioning less inconvenience to the dentists and the general public.
§ Mr. Turton
When the abolition of National Registration was announced on the 21st February, 1952, it was explained in this House that National Registration numbers were being taken over as National Health Service numbers as a matter of convenience in order to save the labour and expense of introducing an alternative code."
As can be seen parliament was time and again over many years told that only the National Registration numbers were being used by the National Health Service and that the National Registration has been abolished.
I could go on but why bother, it should be online next month.
Cheers
Guy
