UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.

§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

It will, no doubt, be a cause of universal satisfaction in every part of the House that the prolonged discussions on this Bill are drawing to a close. On the Committee stage alone we spent something like 77½ hours, which are equal to about 10½ full Parliamentary days. In addition, we had, of course, the Report stage, we have the Third Reading to-day, and two days were given to the Second Reading; so that no one, I think, can say that there has not been ample and adequate opportunity for discussing this Bill in every detail.

The Bill, as the House knows, is founded on an agreed Report, but it is obvious that a continuous effort has been made throughout the discussions to make it appear that this Bill is one of the most controversial that has been presented to Parliament during the present Session; and there is this curious fact, that, the closer the Bill follows the Report, the greater the opposition that it has seemed to provoke. Indeed, any reference which we made to the Report from time to time seemed to provoke the contemptuous indignation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw); and I can well understand that it is embarrassing to the right hon. Gentleman to find that the partisan views which he expresses with such vehemence in this House found little or no favour with an experienced body of men and women whose only object was to produce a fair and workable scheme, and put the whole system of unemployment insurance on a permanent and stable basis. I will give one illustration. A day or two ago, when we were discussing one of the Clauses of the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that our action was, in his view, the maddest thing we had done yet. In that particular case the Bill, as in so many other instances, followed with almost verbal 1746 precision the Report of the Committee. The Committee, as the House knows, consisted of experienced men and women, and one of them was one of the most responsible, the most trusted leaders of the whole trade union movement—I mean Mr. Holmes; and yet, in spite of that, the right hon. Gentleman thought it proper to make this attack.

This extravagant language, if I may respectfully say so to the right hon. Gentleman, has, no doubt, been used by him in order to obscure so far as he can the hollowness of the criticism which he has directed against the Bill. I cannot think that the members of the Committee will be moved by these expressions. I wonder what the right hon. Gentleman would have said if we had embarked on legislation of this kind without the fullest and most complete investigation that we could give to it. The right hon. Gentleman would be the last person to say that the present system is perfect, or that it has no defects, because he has gone out of his way over and over again to tell us that the Bill for which he was responsible, and which he piloted through this House in 1924 was not a Bill in which he believed at all. He, therefore, is very fully alive to the defects of the present system. How better could those defeats be exposed, how better could we be in a position to remedy them, than by such an investigation as my right hon. Friend instituted? Now we are told that we are not entitled to place any reliance on the Report at all. Of course—and I think that this will be accepted in all parts of the House —the true explanation is, surely, this, that no Bill, whatever its details, unless it accepted the full Socialist doctrine of work or maintenance on a non-contributory basis, would have been acceptable to the Party opposite. The policy to which the right hon. Gentleman and his Party are committed is not insurance at all; it is a policy of out-of-work donation; it is a policy of dole on a gigantic scale.

I observe that the Liberal Party is not at the moment represented in this Chamber. It is quite true that during these discussions, extending over this long period, very few of them condescended to come here at all, but there are two conspicuous and honourable exceptions, one of whom is the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) and the other is 1747 the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris). Judged by every Parliamentary test, industry, ability and assiduity, they are fully entitled to be regarded as amongst the leaders of the Liberal Party, if for no other reason than that they are the only two who have consistently attended. What do we find? [Interruption.] I will include, if you like, the hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney). We find that, while their distinguished but absent chief is denouncing this Government at every by-election, in the Press, and in public speeches, for being reckless, improvident people, who care nothing about economy and nothing about finance, at the very same time these Liberal gentlemen in the House of Commons are speaking for and voting for Amendments which, if accepted, would have added at the very least £20,000,000 a year to the cost of the scheme. The truth of the matter, surely, is that, in this imperfect world, neither the Liberal Party nor anyone else can have it both ways, at any rate not at the same time; and they cannot expect for long to bemuse the puzzled electorate by these specious promises of economy when simultaneously they are proposing and voting for vast additions to the expenditure of the country in one direction or another. I frankly confess of the two attitudes I much prefer the open contempt for an actuarial basis—

Mr. SHAW

For this actuarial basis.

§ Mr. BETTERTON

—and the indifference to cost of which the right hon. Gentleman has so often boasted, and which is at least consistent with the professed policy of his party.

In commending this Bill for Third Reading, may I remind the House what its broad principle is? The Bill, as my right hon. Friend said in introducing it, with the exception of the contributions, carries out all the main recommendations of the Report, and the broad principle that is now at issue is this: By this Bill we are putting the system of insurance on a permanent footing, and assigning to it its proper place in our code of social legislation. We should be the first to admit that the question of unemployment is far more important than the question of unemployment insurance, but at the same time this by no 1748 means lessens the necessity for a sound, generous and reputable insurance scheme. When we were returned by a large majority in 1924 there were many people, not limited to one party, who expressed grave dissatisfaction with our system as it then was, and indeed, had we proposed at that time very drastic alterations, we should have had no difficulty either in carrying them through the House or in obtaining the concurrence of a large majority in the country.

We quite deliberately did not follow that course. For the first year that my right hon. Friend and I were in office we spent almost the whole of it in making the most complete personal examination into the details of the administration of the system as it existed. We spared ourselves no personal effort in order to know at first hand exactly what the scheme was and how it was working. After a year of the most careful examination we appointed this Committee, and the Committee also expended no less than a year hearing important evidence from every quarter in which they thought that they could find help in examining the problem, and at the end of the year they produced their Report. Whatever views hon. Members in different quarters of the House may have, I think we are under a great debt of gratitude to the Blanesburgh Committee for having devised a scheme which was acceptable to the various schools of thought that were represented on the Committee. It is true, and I think it would be true of every Committee dealing with almost any subject, to say that the scheme in every detail did not commend itself to every individual member of the Committee, but they were all prepared to accept it as a compromise, and they say so in the Report, and they add, what I believe to be perfectly true, that the value of their recommendation is enhanced and not diminished by that fact.

Everyone knows what a very difficult and controversial subject this is. There are those whose sympathy with the unemployed would lead them to support a scheme which would give wages—full wages if you like—for an indefinite period to all persons who are out of work. At the other end of the scale, there are those who are impressed with 1749 the demoralising effect of the dole, of the payment of something for nothing, and so impressed are they that I make no doubt some of them would in consequence tend to do far less than justice to the real needs of the situation. If ever, then, there was a question in which compromise was essential in the public interest, I put it to the House that this is one. One of the things that impressed me as much as anything about the Report of the Committee was this, that in their view—and they were perfectly right—the problem of unemployment should receive the closest attention not only of the Government but of the industries themselves. Equally striking was the desire of the Committee, as expressed in the Report, on the one hand for a generous scheme, honourable to those whom it benefits, free from all taint of charity, and on the other hand for a scheme which quite plainly includes within itself its own safeguards against what the Report described as injurious tendencies. Also the Committee, in a passage which will be remembered by every Member of the House, point out that otherwise the benefits, so far from maintaining the self-respect and the independence of insured persons when they are unemployed, will have precisely the opposite effect. On the Report of such a Committee, set up under those circumstances, this Bill is based. Apart from contributions to which I have already referred, where the Bill differs from the Report it differs in this, that the advantages and benefits it provides are more favourable to the insured persons than those recommended in the Report.

The Opposition have, of course, attempted to obscure from the House the real substance of the Bill. May I remind them what the Bill does. It provides a real insurance against unemployment, based on a statutory right, independent of political influences. It abandons the 26 weeks' limit of benefit. It abandons the existing ratio of benefit, that is to say the one-in-six rule. It substitutes a test deliberately designed to cover the great bulk of genuine unemployment. The combined tests of 30 contributions in the preceding 2 years and the genuineness of the search for work will in our view produce this result. In plain English it means that if a man has some insured work on an average 1750 in only 15 weeks in the year, and is genuinely in search of work, he can obtain benefit as of right. I cannot myself think that in any contributory scheme that is too harsh a test. The scheme is to be limited, as it obviously must be, to contributors to it—and if it is not it will degenerate into a mere pension scheme. In this way—this has not yet been pointed out, but it is very relevant to the whole matter—we have assumed for the scheme by far the greater burden of the whole volume of unemployment, and we have removed from the local authorities a burden which under earlier Acts would have fallen upon them. Therefore, in recommending this Bill to the acceptance of the House, I recommend it as a sound measure of constructive legislation. I used that phrase on the Second Reading, and the discussions we have had from that day to this confirm me in this view.

§ Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM

I beg to move, to leave out the word "now" and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day three months."

I do not know whether the extreme satisfaction which the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary must feel at the end of what has been a disagreeable—

§ Mr. GRAHAM

Not disagreeable? Well, shall I say agreeable passages, that have taken place between the two sides of the House, have led them to a more or less belligerent attitude, which we on this side are not in the habit of expecting from the Parliamentary Secretary, who began his speech in support of the Third Reading in that attitude. I suppose he was intending to frighten us. I listened very carefully and with the best will in the world to find anything good that could be said on behalf of the Bill, but I failed to grasp anything that would commend it to that section of the House which I think can fairly claim to represent the people who will be affected. I am glad to notice that the Liberal Benches are now occupied. I should have been glad if the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir John Simon) who now graces those Benches, had been present when the Parliamentary Secretary was drawing attention to 1751 the fact that the Liberal side of the House was empty. I hope that the Liberal Party outside this House or the Parliamentary Secretary's own Party outside will take note of some of the observations which the Minister made. It is pleasing to know that of the two parties in Opposition, he prefers the party which on this occasion has been led by the right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw). I hope that when the election comes and the Tories have no candidate or one in whom they have very little faith, instead of giving their votes to the Liberals they will give them to the Labour candidate. Had that been done at the last general election we might have had a few extra Members.

The Parliamentary Secretary dealt much more with the Report of the Blanesburgh Committee than with the provisions of the Bill. That has been the practice adopted since the Bill was introduced. The Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary have always sheltered themselves behind the Blanesburgh Committee. I would not for a moment suggest that that Committee was not a competent committee from many points of view. Although we may not and do not agree with the conclusions of the Committee, we do not wish to be unfair to them or to say that we believe that the men and women who formed the Committee did not do their very best. We give them the credit for doing their best. It is not the Blanesburgh Committee we criticise or condemn so far as this Bill is concerned. We criticise and condemn the Government. They are really responsible. I am one of those who believe, and I think I speak the views of the large majority, indeed I think of the whole of the Members on this side, when I say that when the Blanesburgh Committee was appointed we expected, and I think the country expected, that the whole question of unemployment and its effects upon the persons who are the victims of unemployment would be considered and dealt with in a manner that would have removed the question entirely from the sphere of ordinary partisan political policy.

Unfortunately, the Government did not seem to view the matter from the standpoint from which we view it. Had they done so, had they been really anxious 1752 to procure a non-controversial report from a competent committee, they would surely have recognised that in a question of this sort it would only have been fair to have given to the Labour forces at least equal representation. I take strong exception to the suggestion that has been made during the discussion of the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Miss Bondfield) should be held to any extent responsible for the conclusions that were reached by the majority of the Committee. Occasionally, we have noticed a disposition which was perhaps in the minds of hon. Members opposite that they were not at all unwilling to throw a considerable share of the burden of blame upon the hon. Member for Wall-send. It is unfortunate that the expectations aroused by the appointment of the Committee have not been realised. We believe that whatever failures result from the passage of this Bill, and there will be considerable failures in the sense that the expectations of the Government will not be realised, the blame will lie entirely upon the Government.

This Bill has 16 Clauses and five Schedules, practically every one of which raises questions of policy and administration. Notwithstanding the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary that something like 11 Parliamentary days have been given to the discussion of the Bill, we on this side fairly and reasonably claim that sufficient time for the discussion of the Bill has not been given. The Bill itself involves the whole question of the Government's domestic policy, and a Bill of this character ought to have been discussed, not as a mere Departmental subject, but one in which all the Ministries affected by the Bill should have been represented on the Front Bench. What Departments are particularly affected by the Bill? In addition to the Ministry of Labour, I suggest that the Ministry of Health is equally interested, that the Treasury has a considerable interest in it, and there can be no doubt that in the present condition of this country the Board of Trade has a big interest in this Measure, especially as the Board of Trade is to be responsible for one of the industries in which unemployment has assumed somewhat alarming proportions in recent years.

The question is not one that should be treated merely as an economic question. 1753 It has social, moral and physical, implications which are perhaps even more important than the economic, and for that reason we consider that not only the Minister of Labour, but the representatives of the various Departments I have mentioned should have been responsible for the conduct of the Bill during its progress through the House—and I think the country will agree with us. This Bill should have been removed entirely from anything in the nature of political interests. Unfortunately many hon. Members opposite imagine that hon. Members on this side are only interested in one aspect of our political life, that we are Socialists and nothing else. It is true we have studied the question of Socialism to the best of our ability and have arrived at the conclusion that Socialism cannot be brought into operation in a. day, or a week, or a month. We are quite willing to say that it may take over a year, but in the meantime people have to live and industry has to be carried on. We depend on industry just as much as any hon. Member opposite, and we are just as anxious as they are to see the industries of the country in a prosperous condition. I submit, therefore, that when a Bill of this character is being discussed in this House and suggestions are made from this side they should have met with more sympathetic consideration than has been given to them by the Government during the progress of this Bill.

The unfortunate thing is that the Government have considered this matter purely as an economic question, and in the narrowest possible sense. They have failed to recognise the human aspect; they have treated the matter as if this aspect did not exist at all. It is a blind and foolish policy on the part of the Government, and we are sorry they have taken that line. There is no question whatever that when they are compelled, whether they like it or not, to submit themselves to the will of the people they will suffer considerably at the polls. It may be that in some divisions they will be able to retain the hold they have at the present time. I have no doubt that in Berkshire, in which the constituency of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) is situated, there will be a fairly satisfactory return so far as the Tory party is concerned.

§ Mr. WILFRID PALING

Not in Reading, I hope.

§ Mr. GRAHAM

I am talking of Berkshire. The hon. Member for Reading, and the Minister for Labour himself, knows that there is no real unemployment in Berkshire. If there were the attitude of the hon. Member for Reading would be very different. If he had come from certain areas in the country he would have found it advisable to have taken quite a different line from that which he has adopted. This question is not settled yet by any means. The mere passing of this Bill to-day, and I have no doubt the Government will get their majority, will not settle the question. There have been quite a number of Unemployment Acts put upon the Statute Book since the end of the War, but none has been satisfactory, and in almost every Session we have been called upon to consider amending legislation. I believe that before the ink is dry on this Measure it will require amendment, and the Government will be called upon to take some action in regard to it. The Parliamentary Secretary has tried to convince us that sufficient time has been given to the discussion of this Bill. I admit, and the whole Labour party-will admit, that up to the end of the Fifth Clause fair time was given, but after we reached that stage the attitude adopted by the Government can be fairly described as partisan; they took full advantage of their majority. A large number of that majority took no part in the discussions on the Bill, but merely recorded their votes in the Lobby in favour of the position of the Government. I say that sufficient time has not been given to this Bill. Look at Clauses 6, 7 and 8. They deal with matters which certainly deserved, but did not receive, full and fair consideration. They were rushed through the Committee after half a day's discussion on a Friday afternoon. Clause 3 itself deals with the disqualifications for the receipt of benefit, a very important matter. The other Clauses deal with the continuous period of unemployment and the power to make grants out of the Unemployment Fund towards courses of instruction.

Up to the end of the fifth Clause we do not complain that the Government did not give us fair and reasonable time, but from the time when the guillotine was introduced their attitude cannot be de 1755 scribed in the terms which the Parliamentary Secretary desires the House and country to believe. He said that the recommendations of the Blanesburgh Committee were something in the nature of a compromise. In that case one would naturally expect, when the Bill was being discussed in Committee, that consideration would be given to other people's point of view. Unfortunately, that is not the case. With one or two exceptions there have been no concessions made on any of the Amendments that we have put forward. Only one or two minor concessions have been made, and it is fair to say that as the discussion went on the Government developed a partisanship that can only be characterised as due to an academic acquaintance with the subject or a callous indifference to the suffering that will fall on innocent men, women and children of the poorest class.

I want again, in the kindliest possible way, to tell the Government that, whatever faults we may have, they do not include a merely academic knowledge of this particular subject. We have a close and very direct acquaintance with the persons who are affected by the Bill. Many of us have been unemployed and know the horrors of unemployment. I have been unemployed for long periods, not because I was unwilling to work but because my character was not good enough for certain employers, and that at a time when there was little or no unemployment in the mining industry. Still, most of us have come through that experience, and I suggest to learned and unlearned Members on the other side that experience is a better teacher than a doctrine of philosophy on questions of this sort. It would have been reasonable and would have shown a much fairer disposition on the part of Ministers if they had met us much more considerately than they have done.

The Parliamentary Secretary stated that during the last three years he had had considerable experience of the working of the Unemployment Insurance Acts. All Members of this House have had considerable experience of the Acts during the last six years. If the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary had consulted the records they would easily have found that the Bill will accentuate rather than relieve the position 1756 in the areas in which the industries of coal, iron, steel, engineering shipbuilding and textiles are carried on. It is not quite correct, as has been frequently said in this House, that the coal districts are apart from other districts in which the heavy industries are carried on. As a matter of fact, in the West of Scotland, in the small area in which industry is carried on, coal, iron, steel, engineering and shipbuilding are practically together. They form a comparatively small and compact area in Scotland. The same remark is true of the North-East coast. In Yorkshire and Lancashire you find that coal, iron and steel and the engineering and textile industries are all practically together. I mention this because I want to draw special attention to the effect that the Bill will have upon the particular areas that I have mentioned.

In the unemployment index for November I find there are 59 divisions and counties with a register of insured persons who total 11,500,000. In 25 of these divisions there are over 7,000,000 insured persons, and there the unemployment ranges from 8 to 32 per cent. I understand that the Minister is looking forward to the possibility of 8 per cent. being something like the normal position so far as unemployment is concerned. In those 25 counties or divisions it is considerably over 25 per cent. In the counties of Stafford, Cumberland, Lancashire, Worcester, Cheshire, Northumberland and Durham—I wish I could include Berkshire—there are 3,169,380 insured persons, with unemployment ranging from 10 to 20 per cent. Actually there are 421,867 unemployed persons drawing relief in the seven counties in England. Nearly 40 per cent., or, roughly, about 35 per cent. of the total unemployed, are in these counties. When we come to Wales we find that Wales as a whole is a necessitous area. In Carmarthen, Glamorgan, Monmouth and the rest of Wales the number of insured persons on the register is 593,260. Of this number 159,390 are unemployed, or a percentage of 23.5. It may be fairly stated that the coal industry is the principal industry in the Welsh valleys.

When we come to Scotland we find the county of Lanark, including Glasgow, with 522,980 persons on the register, and 61,189 unemployed, or a percentage of 1757 11.7. Lanarkshire represents approximately 40 per cent. of the total of insured persons in Scotland. Speaking as a Scotsman and a native of the county, I am rather proud of the fact, because the Labour movement, I claim, had its birth in the county, before the Clyde was known. In any case, it is interesting to remind the House that the first Labour Member who entered this House was a native of the county of Lanark. He started as a Lanarkshire miner. Ultimately he succeeded in getting into Parliament. I am looking forward hopefully to the time when the Members of my party will be on the right hand rather than on the left of Mr. Speaker, and with full power, and if we have to deal then with the question of unemployment we shall deal with it in a way entirely different from that in which it has been dealt with in this Bill. As I said, there are twelve divisions or 12 countries in England, Scotland and Wales with 4,285,620 insured persons, or fully 37 per cent. of the total of insured persons, and 622,446 unemployed, or, roughly, 60 per cent. of the total unemployed of the country.

These divisions have contributed more, perhaps, than any other area to the raising of Britain from a condition of comparative insignificance to that of being in the forefront of civilisation, and they are still capable of raising it to still greater heights. I would ask Members opposite, not those on the Front Bench, but supporters of the Government, what the Bill is going to do with these people. Will it give them work? Thus 622,000 are, admittedly, according to the Government's own statistics, unemployed at the present time. They are unemployed not because they are unwilling to work, but because they cannot get work. We on this side would like to know what this Bill is going to do to relieve the situation which is likely to arise when this Bill becomes an Act as a consequence of these people being deprived of unemployment benefit. Industry as at present organised can find no place for them. Even hidebound Tories will agree that industry as at present organised can do nothing for them, but the Government refuse to take any course other than that of throwing them out of unemployment benefit and compelling them to go on the rates. I hope the Government will, even now, 1758 reconsider their attitude. I appreciate the fact that, no matter what we may say on this side, we cannot change the Bill here, but there is yet time for a fair and full consideration of the matter.

We have strong feelings upon it, and we are entitled to have those strong feelings, because we come into daily contact with those who have been deprived of benefit and thrown on the parish. Only a small percentage of those who are deprived of benefit actually receive parish relief. I do not know the conditions in England, but in Scotland a young unmarried man capable of working receives no parish relief whatever. Rightly or wrongly, we have a feeling that the policy of the Government in this matter is dictated by interests that are not directly represented on the Treasury Bench, or, at least, are not supposed to be directly represented there. The net result of this policy will be the degradation of the working class and the lowering of their standard of life. I venture to hope, however, that in another place the Government will take the opportunity which is still open to them, to reconsider the position and to accept many of the Amendments submitted from this side, while, of course, safeguarding the Insurance Fund against imposture. We have never defended imposture or fraudulent claims and, in preventing imposture, the Government will receive willing support from this side. We think that they should at the same time make absolutely certain that no bona fide unemployed person should have reason to believe that the State machinery is being used against him, and we believe that such will be the case if this Bill becomes an Act in its present form. I hope that the Minister, when winding up the Debate will be able to tell us that he is prepared, on behalf of the Government, to consider favourably many of the suggestions which have been made from this side for the betterment of the Bill.

§ Mr. LINDLEY

I beg to second the Amendment.

In rising to second the rejection of this Measure, I do so, not for the mere purpose of opposing the Bill, nor for the purpose of obtaining personal or party kudos, but because I believe the Bill to be inherently bad and positively in- 1759 jurious to the interests of the unemployed workers of this country. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the Bill provides a statutory right to benefit for the unemployed worker. It would do so in the event of certain very difficult and almost impossible conditions being fulfilled. It reminds one of a country fair where a cheap-jack showman offers some sort of prize if you can accomplish an almost impossible task. This is the kind of Measure which we get from a Tory Government that has never yet expressed anything but sympathy for the unemployed, but has extended nothing in the shape of tangible benefit. Expressions of sympathy are perhaps the cheapest things on earth. It is easy to express sympathy and perhaps exceedingly difficult to deal with a problem of this kind. We have, in the past, tried to deal with this problem as though it were a self-contained problem and had no relation to the other problems facing us to-day. The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) in chiding the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. T. Johnston)—who pointed out that the meagre benefits offered under this Bill, would seriously endanger the moral rectitude of young women in this country affected by the Measure—said: "You expect to get it both ways. You are persistently pointing out that the employers of this country are always anxious to employ young people in preference to adult workers." That is perfectly true. There is not merely a tendency in that direction, but it is a deliberate practice, of employers, to employ the cheapest juvenile labour they can get. Having used this cheap juvenile labour for a year or two, when these workers feel that because of the experience which they have acquired they are entitled to some increase of wages, then the employers have no further use for their services. They are thrown on the industrial scrap heap to be replaced by another volume of juvenile workers at the lowest possible wages.

It is admitted by the Minister of Labour that we have approximately 1,250,000 unemployed in this country, but nothing whatever has been said about those unfortunate unemployed workers who are deprived of benefit and compelled to seek relief from boards of guardians, 1760 and who, although unemployed, are not recognised as such by the Ministry of Labour. The number of these people is very large, and it would perhaps, if included, increase the official figure of unemployment to at least 2,000,000. Among these 2,000,000 unemployed it is no exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of thousands of young women who, because of the meagre and wretchedly inadequate benefit offered under this Bill, would have to supplement their income by hook or by crook, in some way or anther, and they would undoubtedly be in danger. But the young women are not the only people who would be in danger. What about the young men? They have to live somehow. You cannot expect them to lie down in the gutter and rot. They were able and willing to defend this country, and they did defend it when its very existence was in peril. They are the people who were told that their King and country needed them. Many of them went and they came back, expecting a livelihood in this country. Up to now nothing in the shape of a livelihood has been offered to them. These people are to be offered reduced unemployment benefit, and if they have to supplement their income by other means, is there any member of the Conservative party here or in the country who would blame them if they acquire the ways and means of living in circumstances that are not regarded as strictly legal?

I suggest that we are endeavouring to compel these people to do the impossible. We are manufacturing criminals, because I do not hesitate to say that if I were in the position of one of these unfortunate unemployed workers, and the money I obtained from the Unemployment Insurance Fund was not sufficient to meet my requirements, I would live in some way or other, because I believe that every man and woman in this country has the right to live. Interlocked with this question of unemployment is the question of the ownership of the land of this country, and until the land is free we are always going to be faced with this problem of unemployment, and we are always going to have to find money for the purpose of keeping in idleness people who are not merely willing but anxious to work.

I do not oppose this Bill because it emanates from a particular party. If the Measure were a good and beneficial 1761 Measure, whether it came from the Conservative party, the Liberal party, or the Labour party would be immaterial to me. There is not a single Member on this side who would not most heartily support the Measure, if he felt that it would be beneficial to the unemployed workers. It is not a question of party prejudice, but a question of whether this Bill is going to do the things that the Government say it will do. One certain thing has emanated from the discussion. It has been variously estimated that from 30,000 to 150,000 of the unemployed will be absolutely deprived of benefit under this Bill. Undoubtedly that means an increased number being thrown on the boards of guardians, and that the Government are seeking to relieve their financial responsibility in respect of the unemployed workers by fixing that responsibility upon the various local authorities up and down the country. Then the same people who criticise the Labour party in this House criticise local administration in the country, and tell us that the members of our party who are administering Poor Law relief schemes are responsible for extravagance and consequently for the increase in the local rates. How can hon. Members fix the responsibility upon anybody outside this House when they deliberately debar men and women from receiving unemployment benefit, not because they do not desire work, or are unable to work, but simply because there is not the work for them to do?

In that connection, we have had from Members opposite some very cheap jibes and rather dirty sneers in connection with the street corner loafers and the workshys. I have had some experience of working-class people, and I have found very few workshys, very few shirkers, and very few street corner loafers. On the other hand, we find that most of these people are very reluctant to appeal to the relieving officer or the board of guardians for help. They would far rather go to work and obtain something like a decent wage for work that they are not only willing but able to do. These circumstances are circumstances over which they have no control at all, and I would remind hon. Members opposite that the very fact that you have ex-Members of this House advertising in the public Press for work and unable to get it is not merely positive and conclusive evidence, but an abso- 1762 lute demonstration of the impossibility of obtaining work. Not long ago, one who had been addressed in this House as an hon. and gallant Member, one who had served his country well, one who had ability and reliability, found it impossible to get suitable work. He is only one of a number. If it be impossible for men of reliability and undoubted ability to obtain work, how much more impossible is it for those who have had no educational advantages and no special training in any particular direction?

Our policy surely is the right policy, the policy of work or maintenance. The Parliamentary Secretary denounced that policy as being a policy of donation, but for the life of me I cannot understand why it should be so described. A donation from whom? The whole wealth of the country is created by the workers of the country. Even Cabinet Ministers contribute very little towards the wealth of this country, and I am not sure that we should not miss the Cabinet Minister who is in charge of this Bill much less than we should one industrial worker. The industrial worker does produce something, and, when all is said and done, you have to admit, whether you like it or not, that your problem is, given a country and a people, how to make the best of that country in the interests of the whole of the people, and not merely in the interests of a few privileged people. [An HON. MEMBER:"That is Socialism!"] It may be, but it is common sense, and they may be synonymous terms, but is it common sense to expect these people, who are anxious to work, to endeavour to live on 17s. a week for an adult man, when we know very well that the cost of living has not decreased as the Ministry of Labour's figures would indicate? Even in this House, the other day, there was a criticism levelled against the method of arriving at those figures, and in spite of the figures indicating a very substantial increase over the pre-War figures, we are actually now expecting adult men to live on a reduced benefit and young people to live on a very substantially reduced benefit, and we are expecting them to remain law-abiding citizens at the same time. This Measure will simply add to the confusion and the chaos of existing legislation in respect to the payment of unemployment benefit. It does not clarify the 1763 position at all. It increases the difficulties of the problem, and it makes the administration of benefit much more difficult than it has been in the past.

I would like to have seen quite a number of things introduced into this Bill. I would like to have seen it made impossible for the various Employment Exchanges to offer one job to 20 different persons, and I would like to have seen it made impossible for men to be offered jobs that actually have no existence in fact. Within my own experience, I have seen that, when two jobs have been available, 30 workmen have been submitted, and usually the married workmen have been selected for work away from their own district, in the hope and expectation, and indeed in the anticipation, that they would offer some objection to being sent away from home on the very valid ground that it would be impossible for them to meet the increased expenses incurred. This thing has been done persistently, and if a workman has dared to offer some objection in the nature of pointing out how impossible it would be for him to accept the work offered because of the increased expense involved, he has been immediately struck off payment. By all sorts of subterfuges, Regulations have been framed, hitting all the time, not at those who are shirkers and workshys, but at those who are genuinely seeking work and who desire to get it.

It has been said that we cannot afford the increased benefit proposed by Members on this side of the House, that trade and industry will not stand this, that and the other. Is everything to be purchased at the expense of the poverty of the workers? Is no consideration whatever to be extended to those who are unemployed, who are on the verge of starvation and who scarcely know where the next meal is coming from? Is it fair to say that the burden must always be borne by those least able to bear it? Another point has been made that trade unions have imposed certain conditions in respect of the payment of their unemployment benefit. Fancy comparing the limited membership and the restricted resources of the trade unions with the resources of a State like this! If the Government of the day can offer nothing better to the unemployed people than the unemployment benefit scheme of the 1764 various trade unions, it is not saying very much for their ability to govern in the wise and beneficent manner that we are told they are able to do.

We are also told that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has exercised his influence in respect to the meagre payment of benefit. I have not noticed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken any deep and keen interest in the discussion of this Measure in its stages through the House of Commons. If he had given half as much attention to this matter as he has given to advertising his own great and magnificent ability to the people of this country and other countries, or half as much attention as he has given to disparaging the merits of the Labour party, to advertising the fact that we are unable to govern, and that he has an intellect of unusual magnitude, he would have been more frequently in this House, and have paid more consideration to the provisions of this Bill. It may be true that he has a gigantic intellect, something different from that of ordinary, common men. He may have an intellect of great magnitude, even of four dimensions, length, breadth, depth and thickness. We all agree that he possesses the last-named quality to a marked extent, but his attention to this Measure has been of a most meagre kind, and if he has exercised any influence in determining the extent of the benefits conceded, I hope he will extend further consideration, and will induce the Government to reconsider this problem.

The hon. Member for Reading has again and again told us that the trade unions do not pay benefit from the first day of unemployment. I only know that the trade union of which I am a member does pay unemployment benefit from the first day of unemployment, and that many others—I am not in a position to say all—pay benefit from the first day of unemployment. Those with which I am acquainted certainly do. The hon. Member for Reading thinks otherwise, but we have got accustomed to his presuming to knowledge on a very inadequate experience of the trade union movement. If the Government had been anxious to follow the example set by the various trade unions of the country, they could have done that right from the initiation of the unemployment scheme, and have made the benefit payable from 1765 the first day of unemployment, instead of making it payable from the seventh day of unemployment, and we would like to remind the House, particularly Members who sit on the Government Benches, that this waiting week does not mean merely waiting for six days and then drawing benefit at the end of those six days. It means waiting at least 14 days, and then frequently not being paid the benefit which the unemployed worker expects to get, with the result that the unemployed workers suffer considerably, and, if they suffer in that way, it does necessitate, again and again, an appeal to the relieving officer, which, in other circumstances, might not have to be made.

On the whole, therefore, there is no gain financially in inflicting this hardship upon the unemployed worker. There is no gain either locally or nationally. There is no gain to the health and stamina of the individual concerned. There is a direct loss in many directions, with the result that when these people do get work, in many instances they are unable to do that work. Hence, again, they are compelled to apply to their approved societies for sickness benefit. There is another source of expense arising from unwise legislation of this kind. It is not possible for this House to expect a volume of unemployed workers carrying on from day to day, week to week and year to year in a very docile manner, and remaining law-abiding citizens in circumstances in which the very people, who framed this legislation would find it impossible to live. I wonder what the Minister of Labour would do if he were an unemployed person, and were expected to live on 17s. a week. He might say, "Oh, I could get work ". It is rather strange that work always appears easy to get when you are not wanting it. It is when you are in want of a job that you find how very difficult it is to obtain. The heart-breaking, black despondency that comes along after a few days of seeking and searching for work which is not to be had, is one of those things that have to be experienced to be understood, and I venture to say that if the Minister of Labour had had such an experience, he would regard this problem from an entirely different angle, and would begin to understand, not in the academic sense referred to by the last speaker, but with the wisdom born of experience, how difficult it is to get work, 1766 no matter how assiduously you may search for it.

Undoubtedly, there does come a day when these people feel it hopeless to continue looking for work, and they come before the rota committee and are asked "Where have you been looking for work?" and they tell them, and they also tell them—if the hon. Member for Reading has sat on any rota committee he will know it—that when the Unemployment Insurance Act was first framed they were told it was framed for the express purpose of preventing their having to go about from place to place looking for work, that it was framed for the express purpose of finding work for the unemployed, and it had failed to fulfil its purpose. Consequently, the responsibility has again been thrown back on the unemployed person, who is least able to bear it.

I do hope that we may be able to induce the Government to reconsider this Measure, though hope in that direction is not very strong, I am bound to confess. Experience has proved to us on this side of the House how absolutely futile it is to endeavour to persuade this Government to depart from any particular line of action they have determined upon, or to induce them to do anything except that particular thing they have predetermined to do. Sympathy for the unemployed, yes, but we would like something more than sympathy. We ask for this Measure to be reconsidered, so that the workers of this country may feel that they are getting the consideration to which their services to the country entitle them, and if it be said that the policy of work or maintenance is a donation, it is only returning to the workers a small portion of the wealth which they have created. I do hope that this Measure will be reconsidered, and that we shall get some modification which will lead to a Measure that will be less harsh in its application to the unemployed.

§ Sir JOHN SIMON

The hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the House very truly said that on this subect something more than sympathy was needed; and, on the occasion when the Third Reading of the Bill dealing with Unemployment Insurance is down for discussion, we shall all feel that it is very necessary to consider what the House of Commons has been able to do with this 1767 Bill, and the judgment that we can form on the Bill itself after the efforts that have been made to amend it. I regret as much as anybody that there should not be, on Friday morning, a fuller attendance of Members at a Debate such as this. I looked round and made a simple calculation, and found that of the Conservative party four per cent. were present, of the Labour party 10 per cent. were present, and of the Liberal party 15 per cent. were present. I make that observation with all good humour, because some people may think that that illustrates the danger of statistical and percentage calculation. At any rate, we must agree that it is a misfortune that this Bill should be discussed on a Friday, a difficult day for many people. I am not suggesting that Members who are absent have not important public duties to attend to, but the one thing which is certain is that when half-past-three o'clock comes, some of those who are not here and, peradventure, may be resting from their labours, will roll up in accordance with the Government Whip, and will have no hesitation in pronouncing that all that they find is very good.

I only desire to intervene because I have, with a great deal of care, examined the Bill, and the Bill as amended in Committee, and, if the House will allow me, I should like to make observations briefly on two heads. First of all, I do wish to enter my protest, and I appeal to my colleagues in the House of Commons wherever they sit to support me, against the form in which this Bill is enacted. There is not one of us who, on different occasions, has not been led to protest against what is called legislation by reference. I am not quite sure that people outside the House of Commons always appreciate what is meant by that condemnation. Let me put it by means of an illustration which, at any rate, will give a picture. Not long ago it was the occasional occupation of lively young persons of both sexes in some quarters in London to indulge in the evening in what was called a treasure hunt. That is to say, there was an appointment that you should meet at a particular hour, at a particular spot, in order to join in the hunt for the treasure. You were given a clue, and if you were clever enough correctly to interpret the clue, you dashed off to some other point, 1768 which might be an archway under the railway at Battersea, or the third milestone on the Dover road, and you began to dig. If you dug at the right spot, which was always a very doubtful point, and persisted in your digging, ultimately you discovered what you were expected to find. It was not the treasure, but only another clue, and, having examined this second clue, you dashed off again to yet another address; and, if you were extremely fortunate, it might be that in the end you would find the treasure. The operation is very amusingly described in the last of the novels of Mr. A. E. W. Mason.

Legislation by reference is merely a form of Parliamentary treasure hunt, and, if you really want to see what it involves, I will give an illustration, from this Bill. If hon. Members will turn to page 3 of this Bill, they will find it deals with the extremely important subject of rates of benefit—not a very recondite topic in itself. On the top of page 3 they will read:— Sub-section (1) of Section one of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922, shall be amended as follows: (i) for the words 'a widower or an unmarried man has residing with him any female person for the purpose of having the care of his dependent children,' and so on, there shall be substituted the words 'either a man or a woman'"— then there is a parenthesis— has residing with him or her, and so on; and then: in Sub-section (2) of the said Section one for the words 'decided by the Minister' there shall be substituted the words 'determined in the same manner as a claim for benefit, and so on and so forth. I could not help being entertained when the Parliamentary Secretary was good enough to tell us something about the Bill, and he said: "This is what it means in plain English." Plain English is the very last thing which anyone who is responsible for this Bill should declare to be found within its covers. It is not plain English. It is double Dutch. It does not stop there. If anybody takes the trouble to get the Statute of 1922, they will find that they are only at the beginning of the treasure hunt. You will not find the thing you are after, because, when you 1769 look at the Section in the 1922 Act, that refers to the Act of 1920 and the Act of 1921. This can be illustrated also in Clauses 5 and 6 in an amazing way, and it goes to such lengths that in the present discussion the Minister of Labour was good enough to give us some results of piecing this thing together, so that those of us in this House who are supposed to be comparatively expert in dealing with Parliamentary formulae, should have a chance of understanding what it would be if you put the separate bits of legislation more or less together. But let me point out that you make a great mistake if you imagine that we are merely playing a legislative game for one another's amusement in the House. Legislation, and especially legislation of this sort, loses half its value if it is not enacted in such a form that a person who is prepared to take the trouble—the social worker, the political agent, the subordinate official in a trade union—may really have the document before him and be able to use it so that any plain man who works at the subject can understand it. It is time we made a most determined appeal to those responsible to stop this method of legislation. I do not say at all that it has only occurred in the lifetime of the present Government.

What is the explanation? The explanation of it is two fold. First of all, there is a most accomplished staff of gentlemen who are Parliamentary draftsmen, whose own knowledge of statute law is quite remarkable, and who themselves quite easily describe what they intend to do by formulæ which, to most people, seem rather cryptic. The second reason is that the inevitable and natural desire of every Government in turn, it does not matter what its party complexion may be, and of the Chief Whip of every Government, to get through business, makes them much prefer a form of expression which most Members of the House, certainly will not instantly find it easy to follow, and which presents, therefore, probably a much narrower front for Debate than if we had the whole thing written out from beginning to end. Though I do not minimise the importance of those considerations if we are to get through our business, really this thing is being carried too far.

1770 I happen to know that inside some Government departments—for instance, in the Department of Inland Revenue— while we here are passing highly-elaborate amendments of the Finance Acts, till the whole thing becomes a very bad Chinese puzzle, they have an official copy which puts together these changes so as to provide their own officials with the results in, as far as possible, a convenient form. We do the same thing in this House, I think, in the case of the Army Annual Act; and I think I am right in saying the same thing is done with reference to the Government of India Act. In some parts of the British Empire, in Canada, for example, they have a regular system by which from time to time they issue what they call Statutes Revised; but we ourselves are really getting into such a condition of complication that Parliament as a legislative machine is in very grave danger of forfeiting the respect of ordinary people, which it ought to try to retain. It is nothing less than absurd to say to a man —a journalist, a social worker or other person interested in the subject—"Well, after all, there is the King's printers' copy, which you can buy for 2d." When he has got it, he finds after reading it from end to end that it does not convey any intelligible information as to what we have done. Therefore, I would venture most respectfully to address the Minister of Labour about this Bill. Here is a Bill which, for the most part, is not to come into effective operation until a much later date. It may or may not be easy to have a consolidating Statute in the meantime, but surely in the interests of the House of Commons, in the interests of the ordinary Members, and in the interests of the public, something ought to be done to get our legislation into a more intelligible form.

I have sometimes thought that it would be well worth while for the House of Commons, or for a Committee of the House, to turn its attention to this subject generally. It would be quite out of order to discuss that now, but it may be that we ought to have a simple commentary of an official kind bound up with any piece of complicated legislation which, without being the legislation itself, may none the less be referred to as an authoritative exposition, something that is drawn up by the persons in different parties who really have followed the 1771 Debates closely. For example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Shaw) and the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday), and one or two others on this side, with two or three Members from the other side, could to-day state quite uncontroversially what it is which this Bill does in such a way as to make it intelligible to plain people. If we could not substitute that for our Statute, at any rate it would be a valuable accompaniment of it.

I have wished in the first instance, to make this respectful submission to the House on the subject of the form of the Bill. I think there have been 15 Unemployment Bills since the Statute of 1920, and nobody can possibly try to piece together what is in this Bill, in order to show what the result is, unless he is prepared to collect and to put markers in at least five volumes of the Statutes, which I have gathered here and brought to the House to show hon. Members what is involved. It really is the greatest delusion to suppose that the lawyer element desires the present system. It is far more useful from the point of view of understanding and developing statute law that it should be in terms which can be plainly understood, for no form of legal controversy is so trying, or is so much objected to by any member of the profession who is really trying to do honest and careful work in it, as this miserable business of tracing these things out from statute to statute under a running fire of comment from judges as to why it is that Parliament behaves in so curious a fashion. I do hope the Minister of Labour will be able to give us some practical satisfaction on this point. We really ought to have, if not in the form of a consolidating statute, then in the form of a White Paper, something which puts the present law of unemployment insurance, be it good, bad or indifferent, inside the folds of a single piece of paper. I mean of a single pamphlet, so that any one of us when asked about the subject has not got to trace things from one volume to another.

I do not wish to occupy time on what are matters of form, important as they are, without saying one or two words on the matters of substance connected with this Bill. It seems to me that the big criticism which may fairly be made of the way in which this Bill has been pre- 1772 sented and is being carried through the House by the Government is that from first to last the topic has been treated as though it were purely a Departmental question. I notice from the back of the Bill that Ministers who are alleged to be supporting the Minister of Labour are Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. McNeill, now Lord Cushendun; in other words, the Ministry of Health and the Treasury are recognised as Departments which ought to be specially concerned with this Bill. How much have we seen of the Minister of Health or of the Treasury in the course of the discussions on matters of principle in this Bill? The fundamental misfortune, I think, is that accomplished, diligent and helpful as the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour and his Under-Secretary are—I think we ought to acknowledge the assiduous attention which they have given to the matter in the House—the mere fact that the Prime Minister thinks it right to put this Bill in their charge without requiring other aspects of the question to be represented in Debate means that the whole atmosphere of the subject has been improperly presented. The right hon. Gentleman has conducted the whole of the discussions, and I have read nearly all of them, and been present at some, with great ingenuity. We know him to be a very ingenious man. I do not think I do him a great injustice when I say that he has always felt that, whenever possible, he should refer to the Blanesburgh Report, and he has always known that when he was in a difficulty he could quote something which he alleged had been done or thought of or proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston. Those are very natural devices, but quite a different thing from presenting the subject of unemployment insurance as it should be presented to the House of Commons.

May I point out three or four matters which at any rate make me very uneasy about the Bill. This Measure is avowedly presented upon the basis of the Blanesburgh Report, which is of course a very interesting and a very important document. As hon. Members know, I have recently had other special duties cast upon me, but perhaps I may be allowed to say that I trust it is a good omen that the Report of the Blanesburgh Committee was unanimous. I think it is a great achievement that on such a contro- 1773 versial subject as this a Committee should be able to produce a unanimous report. At the same time, when one looks closely into the Report of the Blanesburgh Committee, it is quite plain that the Report itself is based upon an assumption which greatly simplified the task of the members of the Committee, and that is an assumption that there will be an early return to a more normal cycle of trade. I do not wish to say a word in criticism of the ladies and gentlemen who took part in the work of that Committee, but it is manifest, when you read the Report that the assumption I have just referred to explains a good deal in regard to their recommendations. If there is going to be such a drop in the number of unemployed as the Blanesburgh Committee apparently assume, I am sure that we shall all be very much relieved. I hope it may be so. I do not profess to understand the economic theory about cycles of trade unless it means, as Mr. Tony Weller said about the funds, that They go up and they go down, like 'buses in the Strand. That is not a very scientific basis upon which to proceed, and it seems to me that, if the Ministry of Labour produce a Bill based on that theory, they will find themselves in what really amounts to a dilemma. Is the Minister of Labour prepared to assure Parliament that this is a safe way on which to proceed, although I must say the Government seem rather to hesitate about saying so in very express terms? The idea that we can found permanent legislation on this subject based upon actuarial calculations and figures which rest upon that hypothesis is manifestly a very dangerous way of proceeding. That is the first broad consideration which suggests itself to me after considering the Blanesburgh Report and its relation to the Government Bill.

In some other matters of importance the Bill does not in point of fact follow the recommendations of the Blanesburgh Report. I can imagine one reason why we have not seen much of the Treasury representatives in these Debates. The Blanesburgh Report suggested an equal contribution and that the Treasury should provide the sum required. It is all very well to say that the difference is not very great in fractions, but it is considerable when treated as a lump sum. 1774 In this matter the Government are producing a Bill which in that respect does not follow out the Blanesburgh Report at all.

I claim to have taken an interest in this question ever since 1911, and it seems to me that it is a real advantage, if it can be done on fair terms, to make the light of benefit a statutory right from beginning to end. The history of what used to be called uncovenanted benefit is well known to the House, and it is an example of how difficult it was to make an accurate calculation in regard to this question in the days after the War. It was thought by many people, and by some people of very great authority, that though there was this terrible depression which followed a purely temporary boom after the War, uncovenanted benefit could be set up in the sanguine hope that things would so much improve that those drawing it would be able to pay for it later on. That really was a delusion. Improvement is slow. Therefore, we pass into a stage now where the very alarming figure of total unemployment cannot be regarded as something which is purely temporary, exceptional, and abnormal. It is something with which, unhappily, we have to deal as a pressing problem which is not likely to disappear very quickly. That being so, I think the principle involved in saying that we must take this extended benefit and treat it as being upon a statutory basis, whatever that may be, is right, and in the same way I am very glad that we shall get rid, as this Bill will get rid, of the most dreadfully trying and difficult position which is involved when uncovenanted or additional benefit is so largely a matter of judgment either to be given or refused.

I do not believe that it is a good thing for a great Department, with a political chief at the head of it, or persons in a locality, to have to try to decide these things, because matters of this sort should not be within the range of discretion but should come within the range of a statutory right. This seems to me to be a very great improvement if it can in other respects be carried out fairly. I think the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary shows that there is a great deal in this Bill which is not by any means to be rejected as reactionary. There is another matter which nobody 1775 has attempted to deal with satisfactorily from the Government's side. You are changing the boundary which divides the persons who get unemployment benefit from the persons who have to resort to the Poor Law. We are entitled to ask the Minister: How much are you moving the boundary up so as to bring more people outside the range of unemployment insurance and consequently more within the bounds of the Poor Law? It is absolutely right that the House of Commons and the Opposition should have pressed this point again and again. If you look at the Blanesburgh Report and the speeches of Ministers, it will be found that there has been no actuarial calculation to show how far this scheme will pay for itself, and we have no definite guide as to the number of people who will be transferred from one category to another. One estimate is given in the Actuary's Report, and different figures are given from the Government Benches. I do not think it will be satisfactory if the House parts with this Bill without a more definite figure being given by the Minister of Labour.

Therefore I would like to ask: Does the Minister of Labour affirm or deny that the result of this legislation will be to cause a number of people to have recourse to the Poor Law who at the present time are getting unemployment benefit? Whatever the figure may be, it cannot be denied that something will happen in that direction. In the second place, I wish to ask: Is it really the Minister's view in regard to people who are genuinely out of work, and who belong to the class of insured persons, that we are improving their position if we make their maintenance a matter for the rates rather than a matter for the National Insurance Fund? I cannot help doubting whether it is going to be the considered view of the Government as a whole, and the Minister of Health in particular, that this additional burden, the part which is going to be shared, is to be carried, if it is carried at all, by ratepayers, by board of guardians, on the system of the Poor Law, instead of being carried on a fund which, at least, is centralised, and in that sense national.

Those are the considerations upon the substance of the Bill which I have been led to form as a result of examining it as 1776 well as I can. It is no satisfaction to be told that this Bill is going to make the statutory right universal and get rid of the element of additional benefit which stands on a lower plane if the statutory right is a paper statutory right to all insured persons, while, in fact, it is throwing upon the Poor Law, and upon people who are excluded from benefit, a burden of a different sort which has clearly to be met, but met under much more distressing conditions. The Government, let me grant, have improved the Bill in some respects as it has passed through the House. Under pressure, they have made some concessions. I must confess that I do not thoroughly understand the extent of the concession with regard to training centres for juveniles and young people. So far so good. But it appears to me at present to be in a very vague state. They have made, of course, a definite improvement by extending the expired period allowed to the sick unemployed by another year. They have conceded, I think, five less contributions for disabled ex-service men, and they have partially met the storm of indignation—because it was a perfectly genuine indignation—which was provoked by the drastic reduction in the benefit to young people. They have partially met it by their new graduated scale. I do not pretend to have gone into this matter like those who are greater experts and know more about it than I do, but I say plainly that, up to the present, I have not been convinced by that part of the Blanesburgh Report which seeks to make separate provision for the after-War class of young people. But be that as it is, it is plain that the Government do not really, in point of contribution or benefit, carry out the Report, and though it is modified as much as it is, it seems to me to be very doubtful whether or not that was an improvement in the Bill.

It seems to me that Parliament, in dealing with these matters, has to deal with them in a severely practical way and not to substitute expressions of sympathy, no doubt very sincerely held, for a real analysis and examination of the Bill itself. I wish in these matters to be perfectly candid about my own view. I am not one of those who thinks it is possible in this country to legislate in such terms as will secure, as far as money or wages secure such things, that people who have the misfortune to be for 1777 long periods unable to find work should be just as well off as the people who find work. I should not be acting honestly by the House of Commons if I professed to hold that view, because I do not. It seems to me that in the world as we find it, it is necessary that, apart from the other motives for finding work which every man of character and self-respect may be sure always to feel, it is impracticable for a community like ours to put people in the same position, whether they find work or whether they do not. I apply that to all classes. I am not by any means limiting it to what are ordinarily called the wage-earning classes. But, while that is so, we have in the last generation, since I have been in the House of Commons, really moved on the subject of unemployment into a perfectly definite national position. When the Bill of 1911 was introduced in this House by the Liberal Government of that day, no such provision by State organisation against the insurable risk of unemployment had ever been attempted, and step by step the thing has grown, and it has become one of the most important branches of our whole social structure.

1.0 p.m.

It is fallacious to think that you can reduce the burden which the good sense of the community is accepting by any ingenious device which will re-define conditions, because the only result of that would be to throw persons who otherwise might come within the scheme on to the guardians of the Poor Law, which means a further burden on the rates. That would be very bad for them. It is extremely bad, I believe, for the right view of public policy as a whole. It throws the burden on the very localities which can least meet it in exact ratio to the extent to which the thing arises, exactly the wrong way about. It amounts, in fact, not to a contribution out of profits, which, after all, is what our direct taxation is, but a contribution out of industry itself whether it makes a profit or not, which is thoroughly unsound. The whole idea that by departmentalising action you can somehow reduce the burden thrown on to the country under this head, is really a delusion, unless it be be taken side by side with a revision of the administration of the Poor Law. I apologise to the House, especially as I have not been here during the detailed 1778 Debates as much as I usually have on Bills of this sort, but I have, none the less, kept very closely in touch with this branch of legislation, and I trust that the House will excuse me for having intervened to make these observations.

§ Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS

I have listened, as I always do, and as we all do, with interest and respect to the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), and, quite frankly, I have been wondering why it was that he put the main case to-day for the party to which he belongs, having regard to the reason which he himself mentioned, namely, the fact that he has not been present to any great extent during our detailed Debates. I think that, if he had been present, he would not have said some of the things that he did say—for example, with regard to shifting the burden, or changing the boundary, as he called it. Some interesting information, which I have mentioned before, was supplied by the Minister in answer to a question, as to what happened to people who were disqualified from benefit. I will repeat the figures if I may. One-third got a job in a fortnight, and only 13 per cent. went to the Poor Law guardians in that period. The right hon. Gentleman is wrong when he says that, if you disqualify certain people, you are merely shifting the burden. All that happens in very many cases—

§ Sir J. SIMON

If the hon. Member will come to Spen Valley I will show him.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

The figures I am quoting are based on a sample taken from districts with substantial unemployment. I am pointing out what has happened in those districts, and I very much doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman has analysed for Spen Valley the kind of information I am now quoting. When he has analysed it for his own constituency, perhaps he will inform the House of the result. I think he would probably find that this challenge could not be supported by statistical information if he went into it.

I rejoice to bear him, with his great authority, condemn this habit of legislation by reference. I believe that the present Government has done a good deal in the direction of consolidation, and I hope that it will do more; but, as I took the liberty of saying on the 1779 Second Reading. the trouble does not lie so much with the Government as with the Standing Orders of this House. I understand that it is not possible to introduce an amending and consolidating Bill the discussion on which can be restricted to the amending part only, without including the whole matter. I do hope, in saying farewell to this Bill for the moment, that it will not be long before we see it back in the form of a consolidating Bill, so that the law will be made clear, as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested.

I am sorry that the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill is not in his place, because he rather suggested that the support which I have given to the Bill was due to the fact that unemployment was not particularly bad in my constituency. He seemed to indicate that my chances at the next Election were rather good, and I was glad to hear it. The curious thing, however, is that I represent in this House 5,000 more Socialists than the hon. Member does, for 18,000 Socialists voted against me, and only 13,000 voted for him. I have, therefore, a good deal of experience of the kind of people who are likely to be critical of me, if my action in this matter has been open to criticism. The hon. Member deplored the fact that an important Clause, namely, Clause 6, had so little time for consideration, but I believe I am correct in saying that he went into the Lobby to vote against a proposal which would have given him another half-day in which to discuss Clause 6.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN

Will the hon. Member try to be accurate for once? We had to choose between the giving of an extra half-day to the Clauses or to the Schedules, and we took it for the Schedules. It was really a case of transferring half a day from the one to the other.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

It was taken for the Schedules, and I was here when we discussed the Schedules. I was the second speaker, and, if I had not got up when I did, the Debate on the particular matter under discussion would have collapsed. The deplorable thing, from the point of view of the Opposition, has been their almost complete inability on some occasions to keep the Debate going, and, 1780 had it not been for some provocative speeches from this side, which provided them with further ammunition, it would have petered out much earlier than it did.

The hon. Member who seconded the rejection reverted, I regret, to what I call the prostitution argument, which I had hoped had vanished from our Debates. After all, it is a very serious reflection on the womanhood of the country. This country is remarkably free from that evil, and always has been, as compared with many other countries. There was a time when there was no unemployment insurance in this country. Was it then the case that the bulk of our young women who were out of work became prostitutes? Of course they did not, and there is no justification for making that suggestion. The hon. Member condemned, and I agree with him, those employers who take on young people because their labour is cheap, and cast them out as soon as they reach a certain age. I regard the extent to which that is practised as deplorable, but, because it is practised, it does not alter the fact that unemployment amongst people of those ages, or just above, is not nearly so high as amongst males generally. Therefore, I think that the fear which the hon. Member expressed in that connection is quite unjustified. Then he accused us of having made reference to workshys and street-corner loafing. I think I have been present during these discussions as much as any other bank-bencher, and I have no recollection of anyone on this side using that phrase. We may have pointed out—

§ Mr. R. MORRISON

The hon. Member has inferred exactly the same thing within the last two minutes, when he said that people who were put off the live register got work in a fortnight.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

That is not an implication that they were necessarily work-shy; it merely implies that the actual opportunities of getting employment, even now, so far as the individual is concerned, are greater than people generally imagine. I recognise, however, and we all recognise, that there is amongst our poulation, as in every population, a small fraction that will take advantage of any scheme. The fact, however, that both we and hon. Members opposite recognise that, is no reason why 1781 we should be attacked on the ground that we have suggested that the general body of workers fall into that category. Of course it is not true.

§ Mr. LINDLEY

I did not say that the hon. Member suggested that the general body of workers fell into that category; what I said was that it was unfairly assumed that there is a greater number of people who are work-shy than actually exists.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

I have not assumed anything of the sort. Suppose that one person in 100 has a rather lower moral standard in these matters than the great mass of self-respecting English people. That means 120,000 people, and 120,000 people with a rather lower standard, if they take undue advantage, can inflict immense injury on the Fund. That is only one per cent. I do not think that anyone will deny that one person out of 100 may possibly from time to time be a little weak, to put it no worse than that, and, realising that fact, we have to draft our legislation accordingly.

Several references have been made to boards of guardians, and it is interesting to examine what happens in different areas. The hon. Member who seconded the rejection referred to what we are alleged to say about Socialist boards of guardians. I have in mind a board of guardians which was presided over for many years, and still is for all that I know, by a member of the Socialist party. It is in the Black Country, where unemployment has been bad. Three miles away there is another board of guardians, the chairman of which is not a member of the Socialist party. The gentleman who is a member of the Socialist party has always had a very high conception of his duties towards the ratepayers, and the proportion of people in his district who are in receipt of relief is one in 100, while in the adjoining district, where unemployment is no worse, it is five in 100. Those are two boards of guardians in the same area, with the same general economic conditions, and the one which is presided over by a Socialist shows a rate of relief only one-fifth of that in the other case. That is because this particular chairman has a high conception of his duties in administering public money, and I only wish that the same high conception could be held everywhere.

1782 The great trouble is the demoralisation that occurs. If the general body of self-respecting people find that there are a few people who are improperly getting Poor Law relief or benefit, the grade just above them in their moral sense, seeing what is happening, say, "Why should we make the efforts that we are making when we find that these people who make no effort can get benefit?" Then gradually it spreads upwards. That is what we are working against, and have been working against, those of us who have been supporting the Government in the Debates on this Bill. I. believe in contributory insurance, and it has been for contributory insurance that I have been speaking throughout the proceedings on this Bill. I remember that twenty years ' ago, when I was an apprentice, in receipt of the large remuneration of 1d. an hour, the journeyman under whom I was working happened to be a member of the Socialist party, and we used to waste a certain proportion of our employer's time in political disputation. Those were the days when old age pensions were being discussed, but were not in operation, and I was arguing then for the contributory principle. I regret that it was not adopted; if it had been adopted we should have had a much better scheme. He, on the other hand, was arguing for a non-contributory scheme. I merely mention that because I have been consistent throughout in believing in this principle of contribution as a sound principle, and a principle which makes people respect to the full that which they obtain. Here is a fund, with 12,000,000 people contributing. The Minister is the trustee, and he has responsibilities to all those contributors. The number of people who have passed through the fund since it became general in 1920 is probably in the neighbourhood of 16,000,000. Of those, two-thirds have probably never drawn one penny of benefit. They are lucky, they rejoice in their good luck, and they are pleased that by their contributions they have been able to help others. But that two-thirds rightly demands from Parliament, and from the Minister who acts on behalf of Parliament, that their money shall not be wasted. Therefore, we are entitled to draw up proper conditions to safeguard the interests of the general body of the workers.

1783 Our people are freedom-loving and have a high sense of pride. The bulk of them will avoid making claims if they can. I have had no protests except one from my constituents during the course of the Bill. Very few other Members have had any protests against the action of the Government in introducing it. The steadily declining enthusiasm of the Opposition is manifest evidence that the opinion inside represents no wide feeling outside. I have always regarded unemployment insurance as a great social instrument. I have always resented the use of the word "dole" as applied to unemployment benefit. I believe in the system. I want it to be a good system. I do not want it to be used as an instrument for the social demoralisation and deterioration of our people. On this Bill, I believe that we have been engaged on the crucial issue of modern politics. Are we going to use our social legislation in order to maintain the sense of responsibility of our people, or are we going to use it in order that they may ultimately acquire the slave outlook—the slave who looked to his master for everything, the slave who belonged to his master? Are the bodies of our citizens to become the possession of the State? I hope not. I believe in the sense of liberty that our people have always had. I believe that they do not want to be demoralised. I believe that they have a sense of pride. I believe that the mass of our people would prefer the kind of Bill which will leave this House to-day to the kind of Bill which would have been passed if hon. Members opposite had had their own way.

§ Mr. R. MORRISON

I presume this is the last occasion on which we shall have the pleasure of listening to the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Williams) on this Bill, and I am sure many of us are sorry. During the progress of the Bill he has filled the part of the Handy Andy of the Tory Government. When no other support has been forthcoming for the Government, when the Minister himself has been almost in a difficulty, you could always trust the hon. Member to rush about and turn up his books and proceed to produce statistics from somewhere to try to help the Minister out. The frequent result has been that he has got the Minister into a greater difficulty. He has a wonderful gift for finding statistics. 1784 On every point that arises he will dive into a book and produce statistics. He reminds me of the old soldier who used to stand on the other side of Waterloo Bridge with a card round his neck bearing the words: "Kind friends, have pity on me. I am an old soldier. Battles, six; wounds, five; children, four; total 15." The hon. Member seems to belong to that category. When anyone rises to question that the effect of the Bill is going to be to throw people off the Employment Exchange on to the guardians, he immediately says "No, that is not so; I have got statistics," and he proceeds to produce figures. Yet he knows perfectly well that there is not a board of guardians in the country that takes the same position. Can he give me a single instance of a board of guardians that has passed a resolution in favour of this Bill? There is not a single one.

Take my own board. It has never been a Labour board of guardians. I do not know whether it will be or not, but it certainly is not now and has not been, and yet it is very seriously concerned about this Bill. It is sending letters to Members of Parliament, because of the number of people who are going to be driven on to them. The members of the Edmonton Board of Guardians know more about what the effect of the Bill will be in their area than the hon. Member does. They point out in a letter to me that, during the past three years, they have disbursed £760,000 in direct assistance to able-bodied unemployed men and have spent another £100,000 in providing work. At present, they are assisting 1,700 unemployed men at a cost of £98,870 per annum, and they are so alarmed now at the further burdens that are going to be put on them by this Bill that they are calling a conference of the Middlesex County Council and other local authorities, and Members of Parliament and representatives of the Ministries of Health and Labour, to consider what steps can be taken to bring pressure to bear on the Government to find employment for those out of work.

Although I have not taken any part in the proceedings on the Bill, and have not been nearly so active as the hon. Member, I have done my share of listening. This, I take it, is the Government's Christmas gift to the unemployed. The Parliamentary Secretary surprised most of us. He usually makes a quiet and in- 1785 dustrious sort of speech, but to-day he seemed to come down here in quite a tub-thumping mood. He seemed to be satisfied that at last the job was nearly finished, and he said that the end of the Bill would be received with satisfaction in every part of the House. I do not think that he can say the same about every part of the country. It may be received with satisfaction that the job is nearly finished, but I do not think it will. He said, as if it were something to be proud of, that we had spent 10½ days in dealing with this question.

§ Mr. BETTERTON

That is the Committee stage alone.

§ Mr. MORRISON

Is there not something seriously wrong with the state of the country when the Government spends 10½ days on the Committee stage of an Autumn Session and not even half a day to deal with unemployment and trying to get people into work? I saw some posters in the vicinity of the hon. Member's constituency the other day asking what the Conservative Government have done and giving a list of the things that they have done. I wonder whether this Bill will be added to it? I wonder whether posters will be put up on the hoardings? We shall see whether the posters which will be issued by the Conservative party as to the things that the Conservative Government have done will include that they have passed this Bill. I doubt it very much. My main objection, which has been stated over and over again, to this sort of thing is that we should regard unemployment as a national problem, and that this Bill will remove thousands from national assistance and put them on to local assistance. In other words, despite the hon. Member's statistics, the Bill is going to throw still further burdens on to the poor and make the poor keep the poor.

I shall be glad if the Parliamentary Secretary—I have not troubled him during the Debates—will bring before the Minister this point, which has not been touched on up to now. There are many injustices in this Bill, large and small, and this, I think, the hon. Gentleman will agree is one. Under the regulations issued under the Milk and Dairies Act, a man is compelled to cease work if a case of notifiable infectious disease occurs in his family. The man has no option. He must leave work imme- 1786 diately; otherwise, his employer would be liable to a penalty. The man is an insured person. There may be scarlet fever, measles, or some other infectious disease in his home, and, because he is employed as a milk distributor, he is required under the Milk and Dairies Order to leave his work. There is no question in such a case of an insufficient number of stamps. He is a fully insured person, but he is informed that benefit cannot be paid to him because he is not available for employment, as he does not comply with the third regulation that he is capable of and available for work in his own occupation. He is not available for work, because, by an Act of Parliament, he is compelled to stay away from work. There is infectious disease in his family, and it would be dangerous to the public if he were to continue distributing milk.

In the co-operative movement, with which I am connected, we have a very large milk trade, although by no means the greater part of the milk trade of this country, and we have had a very large number of cases of men who have had to stand off from their employment, sometimes for three or four weeks, because of infectious disease. They are fully insured and have been paying for years into unemployment insurance, and yet in a case where such a person is deprived by Act of Parliament of his employment he is not allowed to draw insurance benefit. He is put into the position that his employer has to pay his wages and receive no service in return, or the man has to go without wages. I am pleased to say that usually in the co-operative movement we are able to pay wages in such cases for all the time, but that is a business hardship which ought not to come upon any concern. Other firms are not able to do what we have done in the co-operative movement and the man suffers.

The Parliamentary Secretary will recognise that, although this is probably a small point, it is a very real one to the people concerned. Even at this late hour, will it be too late for some steps to be taken in another place to meet the point, or, failing that, would it not be possible for an instruction to be issued to the umpire with regard to dealing with the cases of men who under regulations issued in connection with the Milk and 1787 Dairies Act are prevented from following their employment while cases of infectious disease exist in their family. I should be glad if the Minister of Labour, in reply, would say whether the point can be met in this Bill in another place, or whether it could be met in some other way.

§ Major GEORGE DAVIES

Like the last hon. Member who has spoken, I have in these Debates been a consumer rather than a producer. Now that we are approaching the closing stages of what has been an acrimonious discussion on a contentious Bill, I think it would not be without interest if we reviewed one or two important considerations which have emerged during the Debates. It would have been desirable, if during the discussion as to whether we should apply the guillotine to this Measure or not, the Prime Minister, in addition to pointing out the interminable hours and days that have been taken up in the discussion of the Bill, had also drawn attention to the difference between the columns in the OFFICIAL REPORT filled by speeches of hon. Members opposite compared with the columns occupied by speeches made from this side of the House. More than one hon. Member opposite has taunted us with not having arisen to support the Minister. They know quite well that our action or inaction was guided by two motives. One was that we did not wish unduly to prolong an already unduly protracted Debate, and the other was genuinely to give hon. Members opposite, who we knew were naturally very intensely concerned, a full opportunity of taking part in the Debate if they wished to do so.

§ Mr. PALIN

Which is duly appreciated.

§ Major DAVIES

I am not asking for any appreciation. If there be anything in the criticism that we hear both inside and outside the House that our Debates are tending to become tedious and lifeless, it is very largely due to the lack of a sense of proportion on the part of hon. Members opposite. It does not matter whether a Bill is of first magnitude or of comparatively small importance, or whether an Amendment under discussion is of real substance or a most trivial thing, Member after Member on 1788 the opposite side of the House seems to conceive it to be his duty to himself, to his party, to the House of Commons, and I suspect to his constituents, to get up and to deliver himself of a speech varying in length from 15 to 45 minutes, filled often not with concrete argument so much as with vain repetition of personal and general abuse. It demands a considerable amount of restraint and self-control from hon. Members on this side of the House when we have levelled against us, not as a heated interjection in the course of Debate but as part of a considered speech, the charge that most of the men who come from the class to which the majority of the other side belong —that means this side— live to a large extent by preying upon the girls who are being reduced to this stage. That means girls who are driven on the streets by poverty. It really does call for an enormous amount of self-control and restraint to listen in silence to that kind of personal abuse. It is true that the hon. Member who used those words went on to say that he did not mean to be offensive. If he did not mean to be offensive, all I can say is that if at any time he did wish to be offensive to this side of the House I wonder what kind of charge he would choose to level against us?

I was glad to observe that in the course of an impassioned appeal addressed to us by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Lindley) he did give us some credit for possessing decent feeling and human sympathy. The fact is that in considering a matter like this there are two lines of approach: one through the heart, and the other through the head. It is, of course, natural that hon. Members opposite should regard this matter from a more poignant angle than is common to us on this side, and, naturally, they approach it almost entirely from the heart. However essential it may be that we should not lose sight of that consideration, everyone will admit that in an Assembly such as this we cannot allow sentiment entirely to outrun due legislative deliberation. In discussing the Bill, there is a fundamental difference between the two sides of the House. We approach the question of unemployment as an industrial evil in an endeavour to 1789 provide insurance in connection with it. Hon. Members opposite base their attitude on the slogan, "Work or maintenance." I strongly deny the right of any man, I do not care what may be his position, rank or status, to claim the right to live, the right to work or the right to breathe even. Those three alleged axioms are fundamentally at the bottom of the claim "work or maintenance" Once we went so far as to incorporate that idea into an Act of Parliament, we should be going a very long way towards the time when the unfortunate citizen would feel the grip of the harsh hand of bureaucratic interference and control not only from the cradle to the grave but during the time before the necessity for the cradle has arisen. It is not impossible to picture what the future citizen will have to go through. He will have to get a licence from the Office of Works', and in due course he will have to get an endorsement from the Ministry of Labour.

§ Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope)

This argument is rather far from th