UNEMPLOYMENT.

§ Mr. NEIL MACLEAN

I beg to move, That this House regrets that, instead of making the burden of unemployment a national charge, His Majesty's Government have driven large numbers of able-bodied unemployed persons to seek the aid of the Poor Law, thereby exhausting the resources of an ever-increasing number of local authorities. When the present Government took office they did so with the object of solving the unemployment problem, or, if not solving the problem completely, of reducing unemployment to such an extent that the expenditure, not merely of the Government but of the country as a whole, involved in dealing with it would be lightened. To-day, more than 18 months after the formation of the National Government, unemployment is considerably worse than it was when the Government took office and the conditions of the unemployed people are worse than they were when the Government took office. The Government have made several cuts in unemployment benefit. They have imposed reductions on various classes of the unemployed; the growing mass of misery in the country, and the financial burden on local authorities involved in trying to alleviate that misery and poverty, have reached such a stage that local authorities are now sending deputations to the Government appealing to them to revert to the pre-Election method of the Government of the day bearing the burden of unemployment. Several deputations have reached London from various parts of the country and there is hardly a Member in any quarter of the House who has not been requested to make representations to responsible Ministers with a view to securing some alleviation of the present burden.

A large number of Members of the present Government saw fit in the past to criticise the Labour Government for what they alleged to be its inefficiency and its inability to stem the growing tide of unemployment. But this National Government of which they are members, now finds itself in office with the country in a worse condition than it was at any time during the period of office of the Labour Government. I have before me the terms of a Vote of Censure which was moved against the then Labour Government on 16th April, 1931, almost two 2588 years ago. It was moved by the present Lord President of the Council, and the main objection that he took to statements made by leaders of the Labour Government was in particular to this one: This is the paragraph that I have in mind, and it was spoken just before the election, Then the right hon. Gentleman gave a quotation from a speech by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Lord Snowden, as follows: The problem of the present abnormal unemployment was to restore the great staple industries of cotton, wool, iron and steel and shipbuilding'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April, 1931; col. 364, Vol. 251.] Then he went on to speak of the importance of these trades to the country. I want to ask the present Government, which has within its Cabinet the same distinguished Member who moved that Vote of Censure on the Labour Government just two years ago, whether he or his Government has taken any steps to make improvements in any of the staple industries to which he referred at that time. I would also like to ask the present Prime Minister, who was Prime Minister at that time, whether he has taken any steps, or done anything to secure the support of the Lord President of the Council, to make any improvements in any of those staple industries, whether his journeyings over the face of the earth have had anything to do with an endeavour to bring about the desired improvements, and whether he has satisfied his colleagues in the Cabinet that improvements have been made; and I should like him to give to the House a statement of what improvements have been made that have brought the Lord President of the Council and his followers to support him as they have been doing when, two years ago, they were attacking him because he had not done the things which I have just read out from the speech of the then Leader of the Opposition.

The right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council, when he moved that Vote of Censure, was moving it against a Government that was in a much less effective position in this House than is the present Government. The Labour Government had about 280 Members in this House and was in a minority. However sincere the will may have been to 2589 effect improvements, by lack of numbers it had not the power to carry out any of the things which it might have desired to do to better the lot of the great majority of the people of the country. Can the present Prime Minister say that he is still in the same position in which he found himself when the Leader of the then Opposition challenged him? Is it not the case that at the present time his majority in this House, based upon the support which he received at the General Election, amounts to 500, that he has 550 Members in this House who were elected pledged to support him? If he has the will to carry out those improvements, he has a power that has never been given to any House of Commons in the past, and I challenge him or those who support him to say what they have done to bring about any improvements in the condition of the country.

To those Members who are now visiting him as deputations and pleading with him and the Government to do something for the distressed areas that they represent, I would point out that if they are sincere and really desirous of bringing about better conditions in their areas, instead of moving Amendments to the Motion that we have placed upon the Paper, they should join with us in voting against a Government that has violated every pledge that it gave to the community outside. The present Government is, in my opinion and in the opinion of very large numbers in the country, the real villain of this particular piece. It has reduced benefits, and it has issued regulations, through its Ministry of Labour, that have thrown people off unemployment benefit because of the very contradictory nature of those regulations. Unemployed people have been asked to prove two things, and the two things are so contradictory that if they prove the first, in the main they disprove the second.

According to a statement contained in the final Report of the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance thousands of people have been cast off unemployment benefit who are rightly entitled to receive it, and although that report has been in the hands of Members for several months now, the Minister of Labour has done nothing to correct that violation of the promise made to individuals When they subscribed to the Unemployment Fund. I refer to the regulations issued 2590 under the Anomalies Act, and the statement contained in the report is that they are so contradictory that they have thrown thousands of people out of benefit and cast them upon the Poor Law in the localities. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour doubts that statement, but it is contained in the report. [An HON. MEMBER: "In the report or the Minority Report?"] It is in the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance, but it is signed by men who had the same facilities for estimating the evidence submitted to them by those who appeared before them as had the majority. Further, they published the two sections of the regulations, and I will challenge any lawyer in this House to deny that they are contradictory in their nature and that proof of one means denial of the other. This is what they said: As a result of the regulations, the few who were claiming benefit without any particular intention of wage-earning have been got rid of, but at the price of disallowing thousands of women fully paid-up contributors, genuinely seeking work, and in many cases in financial need of it. They suffer from the industrial depression in common with the rest of the unemployed, and, like them, would be back at wage-earning again if the opportunity occurred. The regulations which they are asked to fulfil before they receive benefit are there also. I submit that the Minister of Labour, by the issue of those regulations and by the fact that he has not seen fit to do anything to correct the anomaly that has arisen from them, has cast as a burden upon the local authorities thousands of people who were entitled to draw unemployment benefit and receive it from the Government. Many Members have received circulars from localities drawing attention to the fact that large burdens have been placed upon them owing to the numbers of people who have been taken off unemployment benefit. Figures have been given showing how the rates have risen and how the amount of money paid in Poor Law relief has increased until all over the country to-day from those areas where industries have been hit hardly by the industrial blizzard, a call goes out from the local authorities demanding the Government to relieve them of the burden of bearing unemployment upon their shoulders. Suggestions have been made by some authorities that they are willing to carry the burden of 2591 unemployment and Poor Law relief to the extent of a 4d. rate. I have here a circular issued from Glasgow which was sent to the Secretary of State for Scotland last year. They submitted evidence to the Commission in which they stated that they were prepared to bear some portion of the burden of unemployment on the local rates. I will not read that circular, except the concluding paragraph: Since the representations were made to the Royal Commission, the corporation has again taken the whole circumstances into consideration, and have resolved that representations be made to the Government to meet the cost of the relief of the able-bodied unemployed. This decision supersedes the proposal put forward to the Royal Commission that local authorities should share the cost. The incidence of unemployment is so unequal and the increase in the number of ordinary Poor Law cases consequent upon abnormal unemployment is so great, that the only equitable course is to make the burden a national one. As the matter is urgent it is hoped that this representation will receive early and favourable consideration. That is a point of view which is now being taken up by the majority of local authorities. When the Prime Minister was Prime Minister of the Labour Government he established a principle that he advocated up to the last General Election of work or maintenance for the unemployed. In the 1930 Unemployment Act of the Labour Government the principle of work or maintenance was established. It is true that the amount of maintenance set out in that Act might not have been all that the Prime Minister and those who supported him at that time desired, but it established the principle that a man or woman willing to work and unable to find it should receive an allowance out of the Unemployment Fund. Many thousands were taken off Poor Law relief and given unemployment benefit by the operation of that Act. When the right hon. Gentleman became the Leader of the present Government and passed the Economy Act, when the Orders-in-Council dealing with unemployment and the respective cuts were issued, when the regulations under the Anomalies Act were issued by the Minister of Labour, that principle was scrapped. The right hon. Gentleman now sits as Prime Minister of a Government denying the very principle that he himself in the many years in which he has stood upon Labour plat- 2592 forms has advocated time and time again. That seems a joke to some of his new supporters. I am certain that it is not a joke and was not a joke to those who in the old days supported the right hon. Gentleman and were among his most loyal adherents.

Many local authorities are in the same position as Glasgow Town Council. Reference was made during Question Time to Stockton-on-Tees. I have the report referring to Stockton, and it is an amazing document. It actually shows that among a number of people who were taken out of an unhealthy slum area and included in what is considered a healthy municipal housing scheme, the death-rate is higher than when they were in the slum area. The medical officer of health for that town gives it as his considered opinion that the high deate-rate is due to the fact that the people in the municipal houses, after meeting the expense of rent, have not sufficient left to spend on food to maintain them in a standard of life to which human beings are entitled. That is one of the most damning indictments that have ever been made against any Government, and it shows that the conditions this Government have imposed on the people are such that a section removed from an unhealthy area to what is considered to be a healthy area find that their death-rate goes up because of their inability to purchase the necessaries of life in such quantities as to maintain them in sound health. That is the problem which the Minister of Health will have to meet and inquire into. If it were possible to make definite inquiries into other localities as has been done in Stockton, it would probably be found that a similar condition of affairs exists.

I submit that the whole situation in the country to-day has become so abnormal that the Government must take action. I understand they have yielded somewhat to the protestations of representatives from the northern districts, though I do not know exactly to what extent those representations have been met. In my opinion it is impossible to meet any situation such as has arisen and is developing in unemployment by merely shoving either the major portion or a large portion of the burden upon the localities. The possibilities of doing so decline as the blizzard continues. Workshops close down, even shops in the main thoroughfares in towns in the depressed areas 2593 have had to close their doors, and it is no longer possible to obtain from those areas the amount which could be raised by, say, a 6d. rate five, six or 10 years ago. When those distressed areas are left to bear the burden of the unemployment within their borders while districts not very far removed escape the main burden, it is high time there was something in the nature of an equalisation of the poor rate in the country, so that districts which are not so closely identified with industry, and therefore are not so severely hit at the present time, may take a share of the burden. The whole nation shares in any general uplift in trade and employment, and I take it that the whole nation ought to assist in bearing the burden of unemployment, and not thrust it upon a few local authorities.

I have figures from Durham county, Glamorganshire, the county of Northumberland, Yorkshire, and so on, showing that right over the country there has been an increase in Poor Law charges. It is not one locality alone that is making this outcry. It comes from industrial towns throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain, and therefore it must be listened to by the Government, and something must be done to assist the distressed areas. The General Purposes Committee of the London County Council has recommended estimates of £3,027,890 for the year 1933–34, of which sum £1,915,025 is in respect of public assistance. The London County Council is having to set aside almost £2,000,000 to meet the cost of poor relief this year. In Manchester the over-spending of the public assistance committee in 1933 which had to be financed out of the 1933–34 rate amounted to £130,369, and the additional requirements for the year 1933–34 were estimated at £108,816. Since the corporation assumed responsibility for public assistance the annual rate charge has increased by no less than £275,000, rising from £365,000 for 1929–30 to £639,000 for the present estimate. I could go on through a list of towns where there have been similar increases.

The demand for taking the burden of unemployment from the local authorities does not proceed from the discredited—according to the Government—Labour Opposition, it does not proceed from Labour town councils or Labour groups or Labour sections in those towns. This 2594 demand is made irrespective of the political views of the localities. We have requests from Tory aldermen, Tory mayors, and Tory councillors, Liberal aldermen, Liberal mayors and Liberal councillors and Labour aldermen, Labour mayors and Labour councillors. All join in the demand that the nation shall bear the burden of the nation's unemployment. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to hear that that finds agreement even on the other side, and I hope that if the Government do not give us some concessions that support will be not merely vocal but will be pedal as well, and that the hon. Member will walk into the Lobbies to assist us.

Next I will give some figures for Scotland, because I feel sure that hon. Members representing English or Welsh constituencies will have figures to give relating to the other parts of the country. As one of the representatives of the principal industrial town in Scotland I will quote figures relating to Glasgow. In September, 1931, when the first National Government took office, the total number of persons in receipt of poor relief in Glasgow was 74,368. In February, 1933, the number had jumped to 117,077, showing an increase of 43,000 in the lifetime of the present Government, and yet we are asked to believe that the Government have brought a certain amount of prosperity to certain areas by their Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council. Even in Edinburgh the numbers have risen from 16,266 in September, 1931, to 26,779 in February, 1933, although Edinburgh cannot by any stretch of imagination be regarded as an industrial town in the same category as Glasgow or Manchester. The same proportions apply to smaller places. They are shown in the county of Lanark. Small boroughs like Hamilton, Wishaw and Motherwell show these increases. With regard to Glasgow, the amount expended on able-bodied relief by the public assistance committee in Glasgow in 1931 was £362,780. In 1932, the figure was £549,046, a jump of between £170,000 and £180,000 in one year. That was the period when the people were being cast off unemployment benefit, and were coming more on to public assistance.

§ Mr. HOWARD

Is that not largely due to the Anomalies Act?

§ Mr. MACLEAN

No; it is not due to the Anomalies Act. If the hon. Gentleman would read the extract I gave earlier, he would find that very large numbers of people who were put on the Poor Law by the Anomalies Act were not put there by the late Labour Government but by his own Minister of Labour.

§ Mr. LUKE THOMPSON

Is it not a fact that the regulations were set up by the advisory committee which advised the Minister and that any disallowances are by the court of referees?

§ Mr. MACLEAN

I had better meet that statement, since that is evidently the impression in the minds of certain people. I have the regulations here. They were issued by the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister of Labour.

§ Mr. THOMPSON

Set up by an advisory committee.

§ Mr. MACLEAN

Let me offer my own explanation, and the hon. Member can take it up with his own Minister. The regulations were submitted to the committee and then were sent back with a certain request to make an alteration dealing with a certain phrase, and the right hon. Gentleman issued them without making any alteration. He is responsible for the regulations as submitted to that committee, and he is now responsible for the regulations which threw thousands of people on to the Poor Law as stated in this report, and who were rightly entitled to receive unemployment benefit. You cannot have it both ways.

§ Mr. THOMPSON

May I be allowed to put this? Is it not a fact that under the Act of the Labour Government, all decisions of disallowance had to go to the court of referees, and whether regulations under the Anomalies Act are put forward or not, the decision of disallowance does not come through the Minister or the insurance officer, but through the court of referees?

§ Mr. MACLEAN

It is quite evident that my hon. Friend has not had many dealings with Unemployment Exchanges. He has not appeared before any courts of referees on behalf of any unemployed men or women.

§ Mr. THOMPSON

But I have.

§ Mr. MACLEAN

If the hon. Member has appeared before courts of referees often, and not shown a greater knowledge of the regulations under which the courts of referees operate, I do not wonder that he lost some of the cases for which he was appearing. The regulations under the Anomalies Act are the regulations which were set up by the present Minister. The Anomalies Act is not operated except through regulations issued by the Ministry of Labour, and the present Minister, one of the hon. Member's own leaders, is responsible for what is happening under the Anomalies Act. If there is any discredit arising because of the operation of that Act, then the discredit rests upon the shoulders of the right hon. Gentleman.

Practically all the authorities in Scotland are making the same request, that this should be thrown upon the nation instead of being borne merely by the localities. If the House will bear with me for a few more minutes, I will give a startling statement that appears in a report issued by the Chief of Police of Glasgow, a fortnight ago. It is a report of the state of crime in Glasgow, and his views upon the increase of crime are rather significant. He states that there is an increase of crimes against property with violence of 3,088 over the previous year, and an increase of crimes against property without violence of 5,933—a total increase of 9,000 in crimes against property. Here are the two paragraphs in his report in which he deals with these significant items: There can be little doubt hut that the increase of crime in the city is due in some measure to the difficult times through which we are passing, and that unemployment is the main factor, especially in the case of crimes involving dishonest appropriation of property. Many of the younger generation have drifted into crime owing to present day conditions. Their parents may be able to provide them with a home and clothing, but are unable to supply them with the pocket money they require for amusements, etc., and as they have never known the discipline of work, they fall into criminal habits as opportunity offers. That is a rather significant report, but it sets out something which very few students of social habits can dispute. I want to appeal to this House. I want to appeal to those who show at least, some regard for the conditions of people outside when they have put down Amendments qualify- 2597 ing, to some extent, the Vote of Censure that is being moved. I want to appeal to them, and to those who intend to support them, to be very definite and very firm in this matter. The Government, or any Government, will yield to the amount of pressure and in accordance with the amount of pressure which is placed upon them. Those outside are helpless to better themselves in the present conditions so far as Poor Law relief is concerned; so they come to the House of Commons.

Many things have been done in the past to assist local authorities. The De-rating Act of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to turn the area of every local authority into what might be considered a fragrant garden; yet de-rating has brought not one penny of relief to any of those districts, but, by taking away from them many rateable properties, has reduced the area over which the rating of the city to bear these burdens might he spread. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not true."] I am not concerned with whether it is said that it is not true. I am only stating my information. [An HON. MEMBER: "Facts."] And the facts are there. They are being placed before this House, and will continue to be placed, namely, that arising out of the methods taken by this Government, arising out of the various conditions of administration which have been set up by the present Government to-day, there are thousands upon thousands of unemployed people, decent respectable people, who never dreamt in their lifetime that they, or any belonging to them, would have to undergo the indignity of taking Poor Law relief. They have been compelled to look upon Poor Law relief now as something to which they are entitled, as they were entitled in the past to unemployment benefit. I am asking the Members of this House, whether they represent rural constituencies, holiday resorts or industrial areas, to vote for this Motion to-day in a manner which will compel the present Government to realise that the burden of unemployment, not being a local problem, but a national problem, ought not to be thrown upon the shoulders of a locality to bear, but that the nation as a nation ought to take its responsibilities, and face the matter bravely and with courage, and pay for those who are unfortunately unable to pay for themselves.

§ The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young)

In reply to the hon. Member who moved this Vote of Censure, I feel that the first necessity is to try to make some mental distinction between those arguments which had some connection with the Motion, and those arguments, very interesting in themselves, which had no connection whatever with it. Perhaps for the sake of greater clarity I might deal first with the—if he will forgive my using the word—irrelevant arguments. He has blamed the Government for failing to find employment for the unemployed. No issue could be greater. Negligence in that matter would, indeed, deserve censure. Upon that issue we shall be prepared to meet the Opposition at any time in any manner, but we must meet it on a specific Motion, which has some bearing on that question, and not on this Motion, which has no bearing on it whatever. He has blamed the Government for failing to adopt the Socialist policy of "Work or maintenance." I can only say that the experience which the nation has had during the years of Socialist administration and the effect of a slow advance in that direction might well make anybody resolve that no further steps should be taken in that direction. He has blamed the Government for an increase in crime—it is the small change, as it were, of Debates of this sort—and every conceivable circumstance which shows a deterioration is laid to the charge of the Government. I will concede to the hon. Member the words which he quoted in regard to the increase in crime. The very words show that there was no foundation for such an irrelevant charge.

Lastly he raised a matter which I confess does concern us. He referred to the Report of the Commission, and made a charge in regard to the insufficiency of sustenance for the unemployed. After the most careful and anxious consideration of that matter, I do not believe that there is any basis sufficient to support the charges and the conclusions drawn by the hon. Member. I invite him to turn to another and more recent authority. If there is inadequate sustenance in any class of the community, it would be shown first of all, we all know, among the children. I invite the hon. Member to consult the last report of the Chief 2599 Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health. There be will find what we must all feel to be of the greatest comfort. It is stated that there is no evidence that deserves attention of any deterioration of the general physical condition of the children of the country. That is a situation which we may consider with pride. We are all conscious that this entails effort and struggle on the part of those who are responsible for the welfare of the children.

Let me turn from those matters to others which were advanced by the hon. Member, and which do actually support the Resolution which he moved. If I may say so, his arguments reveal a little too clearly the tactics of the Motion. In vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. Had he confined himself more closely to his own Resolution and not advanced such reckless and wandering charges against the Government he might have been more successful in his efforts to detach votes. The basis of the Motion of Censure that is contained in this Resolution, and which was supported by the hon. Member, is in the first place that we have delayed, as a Government, to intervene to assist in the difficulties and distresses of local authorities. The accusation of delay in this matter lies ill in the mouth of the official Opposition. What is it that has made the task of the Government difficult and long in this regard? It is that when we came into office we found the whole system of unemployment insurance in the localities lying in a state of ruin and chaos. There was an accumulating—

§ Mr. THORNE

The Prime Minister has gone out. He knew what you were going to say.

§ Sir H. YOUNG

There was an accumulating debt of £1,000,000 per week. We remember the grave statement which was made, calling in question the stability of the British financial system. The restoration of the stability of that system is not a work that can be accomplished in a short time or without great effort. The task of the Government has been difficult; it has been work of patient reconstruction and of the re-establishment of the foundations of credit and stability, in order to begin the construction of the new edifice in which we are engaged. I would fain brush aside the search for 2600 party advantage, the laying of credit or discredit to this side or that, in such a matter as the increase of Poor Law relief. The hon. Member got into sad difficulties with one of the greatest experts in the House, the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Thompson).

Viscountess ASTOR

What is that?

§ Sir H. YOUNG

He knows more about those matters from practical experience than most hon. Members. I leave to the consideration of the official Opposition the question whether it is advisable, wise or judicious of them to raise the consequences of the Anomalies Act, which was their own creation. I want to get away from genial interchange of recrimination to the real bases of the situation. The simple and obvious fact, which we all know in our hearts and minds, is that there has been a grave increase in the burdens of the country in connection with Poor Law relief, and that is causing grave fresh difficulties to the local authorities. That position is due to the great depression and to the great increase in unemployment. We all know that we are confronted with a difficult problem which needs solution. In the search for that solution we are now proceeding. What is the situation? I would call attention to the following conspicuous features: Unemployment, and the giving of help to those who need help, is casting all sorts of fresh strains upon our national system. I use the good old Anglo-Saxon word "help" advisedly in order to avoid other words, "assistance," "relief" and "maintenance," which all have implications which are unfortunately controversial. I am talking of the help which must be given to those who are unable to earn their own living. It has now become a problem of so much magnitude that it is casting a strain upon every aspect of our national life.

We have nearly 3,000,000 unemployed, which probably represents a total of nearly double that number, or nearly 6,000,000 persons, who at one time or another in the course of the year, have to have help. The cost of that to the State mounts up to something like £90,000,000 per year. No part of our national economic life does not feel very deeply the effects of that strain. Consequently, it is not only the economic life which is strained deeply, but new and 2601 heavy strains are cast upon the whole machinery of local administration. As long as the numbers in receipt of help were comparatively small, the work could easily and readily be done by the faithful and assiduous service of those who often gave their lives to the work of assistance as members of the local authorities. Now we are confronted with a completely new social system of help which has become a substantial factor in the life of the localities. That factor has entered very deeply into the life of the communities for which the local authorities are responsible. Those who are engaged in local administration consequently find that the strain which is put upon them of bearing the burden of the very livelihood of those who are members of the same social group, is getting beyond their strength.

More important still is the new strain which is thrown in another direction upon our national organisation, and that is that the magnitude of that factor is straining to the extreme the very ideas upon which our system of public help is based. These ideas have gone through a very great change since public help and Poor Law -relief first came into existence. Hon. Members know how they started. They started in the rugged old Tudor days, which considered that anybody who had not enough to keep himself was, by hypothesis, a rogue and vagabond, and was to be dealt with as such. That was no doubt a historical remainder from the feudal time, when a man without attachment to the land was a danger to society. Gradually, and in the course of time, that rugged and harsh Tudor outlook developed into what we might call the Victorian view, familiarised by the works of Charles Dickens. That was harsh too. There was a presumption that anybody who was unable to maintain himself was in that position by his own fault, and was to be dealt with as if he were an offender against society.

That idea has developed in our changing circumstances and now we are in the position in which we must regard this problem as upon an absolutely different basis. We must get rid of that assumption that anybody who is unable to support himself is necessarily in fault. The conspicuous and outstanding circumstance at the bottom of our ideas in solving the problem is that nowadays that part of the community, or a very large section of it, which is unable to maintain 2602 itself, deserves the same status as that part of the community which is able to maintain itself. We have to accommodate our institutions to that change in the development of our national life. Our economic structure, our administration and the very structure of our ideas have changed and have to be changed in order to bring them into accordance with the conditions and spirit of the time.

Let me turn for a moment from the analysis and the description of the problem with which we have to deal to one or two ideas which must appear to all of us to be basic. As regards the new structure which we must now proceed to build, in order to relate our institutions and our changed circumstances with our changed ideas, the principles that I have mentioned are very obvious and are even humdrum. They can also be expressed in old saws, and the first of these to which I would refer is, "He who pays the piper should call the tune." I believe that it will be agreed by all of us who have given our close attention to this question that in our organisation of help there has been a mischievous feature that has increased in its potentialities for mischief with the increase in the cost of help and the increase in the number of unemployed. That feature is the divorce between responsibility for spending the money and responsibility for raising it. Any one of us who is laying out an extensive business organisation will surely, in the first place, see that care, economy and common sense in the spending of money is ensured, by making the spender confront the difficult and painful task of getting the money that he bas to spend, and of accounting for it to those constituents to whom he owes responsibility. There has been, as I have said, a complete divorce between these responsibilities.

What is the present situation? Take the able-bodied unemployed, who are the centre, as it were, of our discussion this afternoon. The cost of maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed borne by the Exchequer—the direct cost only—is at the present time some £80,000,000 a year. The cost that falls on the local authorities through the rates is only some £6,500,000 a year, and, of that £6,500,000, about £1,750,000 goes for the maintenance of the sick and infirm, children, and so on; so that, in fact, the comparison is between some £80,000,000 found by the State and some £4,750,000 only that is found by the 2603 local authorities. I say that there could not be a better instance of the divorce between the responsibility for getting the money and the responsibility for spending it.

The second principle that must guide us in our new structure is this: In the old days, when this question of public help played so small a part in our economic structure, unexplained differences between the treatment of the same sort of persons in one place and another were not, perhaps, of very much significance, for the simple reason that there were not many of them. Nowadays, when, as I have pointed out, they constitute so large a factor in our public life, the state of affairs is very different. One recognises that it is no longer possible to justify to the country as a whole, and, in particular, to the recipients of help themselves, any unexplained or unreasonable differences in their treatment from place to place—in other words, that unnecessary anomalies are no longer tolerable. Let me not be misunderstood as saying that we ought to have a system of cast-iron uniformity in the country as a whole. Every practical administrator knows that there is nothing less desirable than that. There are great differences between place and place. To mention only one, the differences in rents may make it quite impossible to apply any common scale or standard over the whole country. On the other hand, it must be recognised that it is impossible to continue, now that this matter bulks so largely in our daily life, any system which does not enable us to secure a reasonable measure of uniformity, and reasonable freedom from irritating, unexplained anomalies. These considerations to which I have referred will he understood by the House as pointing to some system of more centralised administration, of more centralised control.

Let me deal now, before I come more closely to the question of practical proposals, with the important financial aspect of the matter. This brings me closely to the attack made upon the Government by the hon. Member in his opening speech, on the ground of failure to assist the local authorities. I have already said that the existence of the problem is recognised, but let us get that problem into a right perspective. Let us remember, in the first place, that what we are 2604 dealing with here is simply the question of the nation's left-hand pocket and the nation's right-hand pocket, and let us see, if possible, what arrangement of expenditure should be made with respect to the relative rights of the two pockets. It is not an indifferent question; it is, of course, a very important question. If we attempt to take more money out of the left-hand pocket than there is in it, that pocket will be in a state of local bankruptcy.

In approaching this question, I would like to emphasise another aspect of it. It is a question of the relation between the nation's two forms of taxation, rates and taxes, and we shall never arrive at any reasonable solution of it in the interest of the nation as a whole unless we approach it in the spirit of co-operation. We recognise that bad times are casting a heavy new burden upon the whole nation; they are casting a heavy new burden both on the ratepayer and on the taxpayer; and what we have to do is to put our heads together and see that these two burdens are distributed justly between them. That can be done by co-operation. It will be achieved with wisdom by co-operation; it will not be achieved with wisdom by a mere spirit of reckless competition. As I have said, we must try to get this question into perspective—financial perspective.

There are some circumstances to which I must refer, in order that the House may see the matter in its true bearings. Of late, the point of view of the local authorities has been developed with very great vigour and force, and with a large measure of truth; and the other side of the question must also be put, in order that the taxpayers' interests should be justly balanced with those of the local authorities. As to this distribution of burdens between Exchequer and rates, the House must realise that, in providing finance for the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed, the Exchequer charge during the last few years has enormously increased. That is well known to all those of us who follow these matters. What may not be so well known is that the rate charge for the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed has remained practically the same during those years. I will give a concrete fact to demonstrate that. The cost of out-relief for the able-bodied borne on the 2605 rates for England and Wales—in this year about £6,300,000—is not, in fact, greater than it was in the year 1927–28, whereas, during the same period, the Exchequer charge has increased by being multiplied no less than seven times. In fact, the rate charge for the maintenance of able-bodied unemployed at the present time is not greater than it has averaged since the War. Let me turn from that question, and consider the actual burden upon the rates and upon the taxpayers. I would like again to compare the year 1927–28 with last year, 1932–33—

§ Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman—

§ Sir H. YOUNG

Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to proceed. It is well known to the House that one interruption during a statement of figures may produce absolute confusion. I am comparing the year 1927–28 with the year 1932–33, as regards the total burden on the rates and on the Exchequer, in order that we may see how we ought to adjust the balance. Between those two years, the whole burden of national taxation increased by £59,000,000, to £732,000,000; but during that period the whole burden on the local rates did what? It decreased by £20,000,000, to £146,000,000. As I shall explain in a later part of my observations, it is not my intention, and it is not for the moment necessary for my purpose, to argue that there are not grave problems to be considered as between the central Exchequer and the position of the local authorities, and, particularly, of the depressed areas; but, in order that we may solve those problems according to the right measure and in the right manner, we must bear in mind these leading factors as regards the relative position of the two.

§ Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS

Do the hon. Gentleman's figures refer to England and Wales?

§ Sir H. YOUNG

Yes. Now I would pass on to the question of the constructive programme of the Government for dealing with the situation. In the first place, in view of the suggestions which I have seen from certain quarters—quarters in which pleasure is taken in representing that the Government of this country, whatever may be its, political complexion, is always in a state of panic and hurry— 2606 let me make it clear that what I have to say as regards centralisation, as regards the acceptance of central responsibility, has been the basis of the Government's deliberations ever since they started to solve this problem. There has been no hasty decision, no decision simply in response to recent representations from the distressed areas. The work that is proceeding is a difficult work, which will take time to complete. We are preparing a structure the right building of which will be of infinate moment to our future national life. It must take time; it must be tested in every stage; but, since the work was begun, many months ago now, it has proceeded throughout upon the assumption which I will now state to the House.

Before the end of the Session, we intend to take action. The Government will introduce a Bill dealing on a national basis with the problem of assistance for those who are in need of assistance, including those who, having been insured against unemployment, are no longer so insured. I cannot at this time anticipate the contents of the Bill in detail, and it will not be possible to do so, any further than I am doing now, in the course of this Debate; but I can give the following broad outline and the leading principles on which the Bill will be based. The essence of the matter is that we have to provide for large numbers of persons such as I have described, who, seeking work, are unable to find it for themselves, and who, even on the most hopeful calculation, are faced with the disheartening prospect of a continuance of that condition. Meanwhile, they suffer from the deteriorating effects of idleness. To mitigate that evil as far as possible, it will be a primary purpose of the Bill to make a close connection between the work of giving help in money and the work of promoting the physical and mental welfare of the unemployed, and, in particular, to protect them, as far as is possible, against the ill effects of idleness, by training, by occupation, and by recreation.

As to the important question of administration, it is recognised, and has been recognised throughout our deliberations, that the increasing burden of work on the local authorities which I have described, the lack of uniformity in local standards to which I have referred, and the fact that by far the greater part of 2607 the cost is already borne by the Exchequer—it is recognised that all of these circumstances require a greater measure of national supervision and control. The Bill will establish such a measure of control. In particular, it will redistribute and define the functions of local authorities and the central Government in relation to assistance from public funds, whether the funds of local authorities or the funds of the Exchequer. One of the bases of this redistribution of responsibility between local authorities and the central Government will be that the central Government shall accept responsibility, both administrative and financial, for assisting all the able-bodied unemployed who need assistance. The acceptance of this responsibility by the central Government will necessitate a readjustment of the present block grant paid to the local authorities by the State, since they will be relieved of a liability to which they have hitherto been subject. At the same time, we shall take the occasion of these financial readjustments to make some allowance on a regular basis for the special necessities of what are commonly described in this connection as the distressed areas. In the embarrassing wealth of Amendments to this Motion, I find it difficult to give a prize among so many, but the Amendment that has been put down in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Thompson) appears to the Government to be in accordance with these principles to which I have referred, and the Government propose to accept it.

I desire to deal a little more closely with the position of the distressed areas. Here, again, my first word must be one which will be less welcome to the representatives of those areas—though I do not think it should be so—by way of bringing this problem into the right perspective financially. It has been stated in the course of this Debate that the distressed areas are little interested in the state of the country as a whole and that what they desire to emphasise are their own difficulties, and quite rightly so. They receive no lack of attention and sympathy in emphasising those difficulties. They are personally known to me, being the greatest anxiety that can confront a Minister of Health at the present time. It has been my duty to make myself personally acquainted 2608 with them by conference with the authorities on the spot, and no words are necessary to impress upon me what those difficulties are in Lancashire, on the Tyne, in South Wales, and I will hastily add in other districts, because I have got into trouble on previous occasions by not making my catalogue complete. In order to put this problem into its right perspective, I would draw attention to this circumstance, that what is true of the rates of the country as a whole is also true of the rates of those areas. I take 51 specially distressed areas, and I find an interesting comparison between those two years to which I previously referred, 1927–28 and 1932–33. What has happened to the average poundage of the rates in the areas during that period? Has it gone up? As a matter of fact, it has gone down substantially.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS

How did re-assessment affect it?

§ Sir H. YOUNG

I will deal with those circumstances afterwards. My hon. Friend is anticipating the blow. The blow, such as it is, has not yet been dealt. There is a fact that we must know in order to get the true aspect of the problem. It is that between those years 1927–28 and 1932–33, the average poundage of those 51 specially distressed areas has gone down from 22s. 3d. to 16s. 9d. Let me add at once that I do not produce that figure as a conclusive proof that the distressed areas are in no difficulty. Of course, there are many circumstances which must be taken into account on the other side. The assessments are one, but there are more important circumstances still. A circumstance that leaps to the eye is that it is not the poundage of a rate that matters so much as the wealth of the neighbourhood on which the poundage falls. During that period the resources out of which the rate has to be paid have diminished. It is because in the depressed areas, owing to the increase of unemployment and owing to the stagnation of their trade, the resources have diminished more extremely than in the rest of the country that those areas are depressed. That is what constitutes a depressed area.

There are other circumstances. There is the circumstance of de-rating. De-rating conferred great advantages, and that is recognised by everyone who has 2609 followed the distribution of trade in the country. It has conferred the great advantage of diminishing the hindrance put in the way of trade in depressed areas by diminishing the burden of rates upon trade. At the same time, it had a repercussion of disadvantage. It narrowed the basis upon which the rates had to be levied and it thus tended to accentuate the burden upon the distressed areas. These circumstances undoubtedly constitute a case for special consideration for these areas. There is another circumstance which weighs even more, and that is the fact that behind economics there is always the psychology of human beings, and these depressed areas are suffering from a sense of mental depression, a sense of the enormous weight of the burden which they are having to bear, and a sense of the long, hard road which has to be passed before they can return to prosperity. There is a mental, psychological burden weighing upon them. We cannot evaluate it in money, but it is important that a nation regarding its general health should do what it can to remove all sense of heartbreak from those parts of the country which have suffered the greatest distress.

I have referred already to the inclusion in the long-term scheme which the Government will introduce of a special consideration for the depressed areas. We have to recognise that we are constructing a big and a difficult structure. Its promotion, its adoption by the Legislature, its construction—all these things will take time, Meanwhile difficulties do not wait, and this is a difficult year. It is proposed, therefore, to deal with the immediate question of the difficulties of the depressed areas in this year, pending the introduction of the general scheme, in a manner which I will now describe. The House knows how I have approached this matter in consultation with the depressed areas in the past.

Last autumn I accepted a suggestion as to this problem which was proposed to me on behalf of those areas themselves, and I undertook to obtain the concurrence of the Association of Local Authorities and the London County Council for the ante-dating of the investigation of the working of the unemployment factor in the block grant formula under the Local Government Act, 1929. I have proceeded since then with the 2610 collection of the necessary statistical material. I completed its collection and obtained the nomination of representatives of the associations and of the London County Council to undertake the investigation. At that stage the Report of the Royal Commission came along and had to be considered. It dealt at length with the problem of persons no longer entitled to unemployment benefit and still needing public assistance, so that it had a vital bearing on the major difficulty of the distressed areas, and the special course of action which had been proposed to me by the areas themselves to meet that difficulty had of necessity to be deferred until the Government had considered the whole problem and come to the conclusion as to it which I have announced. The announcement of that conclusion clears the way for the completion of the negotiations which I had then undertaken.

After discussion with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I propose to deal with the immediate needs of the distressed areas, as compared with the Government's permanent plans, in the following manner. I propose to carry to a conclusion as quickly as may be the investigation of the working of the unemployment factor in the block grant formula. It is almost completed. Secondly, I trust that the more fortunate areas will be found to be ready, as a purely emergency measure of a temporary character pending the introduction of the long-range plan, to make some contribution out of their share of the block grant for the first year of the second fixed grant period—that is 1933–34—towards helping the hard-pressed areas. The Government will then propose, on their part, to bring a greater measure of relief to the distressed areas by providing an additional contribution from the Exchequer equivalent to one-half of the sum which they anticipate may reasonably be provided for those areas by the less heavily burdened local authorities through a suitable modification of the distribution of the block grant.

That completes what I have to announce as to the immediate intentions of the Government, the long-range plan, the process to which I have referred, and this plan for the relief of the immediate necessities of the depressed areas. As I draw my observations to a conclusion, 2611 let me return to what I said at the outset. We are not dealing to-day with the greater and more important effort for the provision of work for the unemployed. We are dealing to-day only with what I will call the Red Cross work, while the real battle is being waged on another part of the Front. The President of the Board of Trade will, as a matter of fact, have an announcement to make later in the Debate affecting a very interesting aspect of the provision of work which I believe the House will hear with pleasure, but that is not the main purpose, perhaps, of the Debate. The main purpose of the Debate is to initiate this great work of reorganisation. Let me not under-estimate the novelty of some of the ideas that will be introduced. I have shown how, in course of time, our old ideas are no longer adequate to our needs. We shall have to set our minds to a great effort. I am confident that when, 10 years hence, this plan being completed, we look back upon its completion, the verdict will be that the National Government dealt with a national problem in a national manner supported by the unity of the whole nation.

§ Mr. GRAHAM WHITE

The Motion before the House raises what is clearly one of our most difficult domestic problems. I do not know of any statement in recent times which has been awaited with greater interest, indeed, I might say with greater anxiety, than that which we have just heard from the Minister of Health. I would like to say at once how cordially we welcome the broad statement which he has made. Towards the end of his remarks he referred to the various Amendments which appear upon the Order Paper and said that he hardly knew to which to award the prize. We are not interested in the distribution of the prizes, but I think that we may be allowed by the House to express great satisfaction at the adoption of a principle by the Government which the Liberal party adopted many years ago and has since constantly advocated. It is a matter of profound satisfaction to the House that the Motion on the Paper and all the Amendments to it have running through them the same principle, and I hope that the House will with unanimity now adopt that principle and bring its time, know- 2612 ledge and intelligence to bear upon the practical measure which we have been promised to bring the principle to fruition. The Liberal industrial inquiry which concluded its labours in 1928 gave very great attention to this particular matter. The executive committee—it is not without significance at the present time—comprised my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), the present Foreign Secretary, and Sir Walter Layton and a number of others. Those right hon. Gentlemen were in agreement at that time, and, no doubt, will be in agreement on this matter today, and it is satisfactory to know that right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen in other parts of the House agree on this particular subject.

I will now pass to one or two observations upon the statement which we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman. He drew an inference from the general incidence of the rating for the whole of the country, but it was hardly an accurate basis on which to make a sound calculation with regard to our special needs at the present time. If the unemployed were in fact equally distributed over the whole of the country, and if our rating system was based upon comparable assessments, the problem would be the same in dimension, but it would be one which would be theoretical rather than practical. It would hardly matter whether the money which has to be raised for the maintenance of the unemployed was raised by rates or by taxes. But that we know is not the case. It is rather interesting to observe, in passing, that the problem which is of such urgency and which has long been a matter of urgency is another illustration of the fact that the major troubles of the world to-day arise from the fact that units of government are in the main misfits internationally and nationally. Owing to the fact that unemployment is not co-existent with any local boundaries, the problem has assumed the terrible dimensions which we have been called upon to consider at the present time. It is not only the fact that large numbers of people who have previously been in receipt of unemployment benefit have been transferred to the rates which has created the difficulties of the areas which are known as depressed.

2613 The Minister was not making any exaggerated statement when he said that fresh strains were making themselves felt upon our industrial system, I sometimes ask myself whether those who live in the south of England, in the comparatively prosperous areas, have any idea what conditions are like in the northwest, north-east, in South Wales and in other parts where the difficulties have been so great. I wonder, for example, whether they can visualise the human problem which is represented by the fact that in Liverpool we have 80,000 people who are in receipt of relief. Can they contemplate with equanimity the difficulty of the financial problem which the maintenance of those 80,000 individuals involves? Last year the City of Liverpool had to call for a sum of £87,000 in addition to the original estimate for the maintenance of the unemployed, while for the current year they have had to add to that figure—

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS

In receipt of relief because of unemployment?

§ Mr. WHITE

Eighty thousand in receipt of relief—public assistance. They had to call for a supplementary grant of £87,000 as additional maintenance for those who have to be maintained. For the current year they have to call for no less a sum than £393,000, making in all an addition of £480,000 for the current year's expenditure over and above that of the previous year. That led to an increase in the rate last year to the sum of 16s., which is somewhat less than the minimum figure mentioned by the Minister in respect of the distressed areas. But I do not myself find the same satisfaction from the drop which has taken place. It is satisfactory that it should have dropped, but it merely represents, not a drop to a satisfactory figure, but from disaster to calamity. We can only hope that the process of reduction will be continued. The City of Liverpool only avoided an increase of rate this year, which would indeed have been a calamity, by an act of faith, I suppose, in the Government or in the Ministry of Health, and I am glad to think that that act of faith has not been altogether unjustified.

Taking the Merseyside area as a whole, in the adjourning borough of Bootle, conditions are exactly the same. It is 2614 merely a matter of degree. There the amount of money which has to be raised for the maintenance of the wholly able-bodied unemployed has risen from £6,856 in 1930 to £44,252 in the estimate for the current year. In my town of Birkenhead the conditions are the same. There we have had an example of the working of the block grant which we have been informed this afternoon is to be re-investigated and reorganised. This year Birkenhead, as a result of the operation of the block grant for the new quinquennial period, is to receive a sum of £500 less than was received before, although the number of unemployed has risen from 6,000 to 16,000, and although the amount which has to be raised for the maintenance of able-bodied unemployed, as distinct from other forms of public assistance, has risen from £6,834 in 1930–31 to £37,150, estimated for 1933–34. This area, at all events, will hear with satisfaction the statement that there is to be, not merely the extra grant from the Exchequer, but also a revision of the block grant. I would ask the Minister whether they cannot deal a little more specifically with the actual amount of the extra grant which is to be made.

§ Mr. LOGAN

It is problematical.

§ Mr. WHITE

It does seem somewhat indefinite. We do not wish our satisfaction in this matter to be qualified, and would like to have more definite information on the point as to the actual amount which is to be made available. Broadly speaking, I think that the scheme which has been outlined commends itself to us. It has had a long period of incubation. It was in July of last year that the Minister first informed us that it was his intention to review the block grants. He has, as he has said, had time for mature consideration, and we will give such help as we can to the further practical consideration of the Measure when it reaches the House. Speaking for myself, I heard with particular satisfaction the proposal that the Government intended to link up the granting of assistance by the State with a scheme for the physical welfare of the people.

We ought to direct our attention, not merely to the way in which the money is to be raised and the equity with which it is to be distributed, but also to the question whether out of the colossal sum 2615 which we have to spend, we are getting the greatest value, or whether, by thought and application, we cannot devise some methods which are better. I remember one of the earlier speeches of the present Prime Minister on this very subject. I think it was before he became Prime Minister for the first time. He dwelt at some length on the dangers of Governments choosing the easy path of maintenance and doles rather than devoting themselves to constructive, hard thinking which would diagnose the diseases from which society was suffering and bring about a better state of things. In these days we are obliged to concentrate upon the raising and provision of money rather than upon the more constructive things. It has been a burning question whether the able-bodied unemployed should be a local or a national responsibility, and if that matter is now settled by the House it will set free the energies and time of Ministers and others for the consideration of problems of greater constructive value.

I particularly welcome the proposals which have been made to link up the expenditure upon relief with the provision of schemes for physical welfare, and, I hope, education. It has always seemed to me to be a form of national insanity that in a time when our labour market was so overstocked we should, year after year, allow it to be flooded with hundreds of thousands of juvenile competitors of adult labour. In the year 1932 there passed into the labour market from the schools over 292,000 juveniles, and the Minister of Labour, we understand, is engaged in conferences and consultations with various interests with the idea of creating more labour on the basis of reorganisation of hours and by other means. That is a big task and one which the country has to face and which the world must solve, having regard to the enormous development of machinery in these modern days.

I suggest that my right hon. Friend and the Minister of Education should devote special attention to the fact that if there is to be enforced idleness that that enforced idleness should be concentrated upon those who are of an age to benefit from it, and in whose case training and education can be most fully utilised. If conditions remain comparable to those 2616 in which we find ourselves to-day we could bring great relief to the localities as well as to the national exchequer by reorganising our system of training and education. I need not remind the House that the average cost of maintaining an adult in unemployment benefit or any other form of benefit is approximately 22s. a week, including dependants. For that sum it would be possible to maintain two juveniles in education and give them allowance for whole time, or to provide part time occupation for four juveniles. The Minister of Labour could himself decide what effect that would have upon the unemployment fund and how many people would be likely to benefit. I suggest that as a matter which should be considered urgent by the Departments concerned, and I should like them to give the House the benefit of their judgment on it.

Before passing from this matter I should like to refer to a suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs when he spoke on unemployment on the 15th February. Dealing with schemes of employment which might be adopted by municipalities he said that he would make a suggestion to the Government, that in the case of a municipality which was proposing to put in band housing schemes, or any other form of work, such as land drainage and the like, the Government should say: "We will give you a proportion of the dole money for every man you put to work." That is to say, the money should be used not for subsidising unemployment but for subsidising employment. Those who are familiar with the scheme which the late Lord Melchett proposed in 1922 and the criticisms of it, and those who are familiar with the disastrous consequences which followed the development of the Speenhamland principle in the early part of the last century, and those who have followed the interesting experiments in Germany in subsidising work by means of the dole, will naturally approach this matter with some caution, but I would invite the Minister to refer again to the proposal of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs and other proposals and see whether with careful safeguards and the work judiciously controlled, there is not there means which would help the municipalities and at the same time help the national exchequer.

2617 We welcome the adoption of the principle of the maintenance of able-bodied unemployed by the State, a principle which we have advocated for years past, and we hope that the measures which will shortly be brought before the House will be adequate to give effect to the proposals and to bring relief to those districts which are suffering so acutely at the present time. There is every reason to believe that in the elements of this House, in all quarters of it, not only on the Government side, but on the Opposition Benches and on these benches, there is agreement upon that principle. Although we shall no doubt be at variance upon some aspects of the proposals which may be made to the House, I think there is here an opportunity for the whole House, without regard to party matters, to help the nation in this very serious matter in these difficult times.

§ Mr. GREENWOOD

I do not rise to offer any words of welcome to the Minister, nor do I offer him any words of congratulation. Until I know far more about these vague and evasive proposals no word either of congratulation or of welcome will fall from my lips. We have had a speech this afternoon on the plan of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of saving the plums to the end. There was a, long and irrelevant preface to vague proposals which may mean much or which in the hands of the present Government may mean little. Still, I am glad to have lived to see this day. It is good to hear a Minister denouncing work or maintenance and then embracing that principle within five minutes, and saying that we must adapt ourselves to new times. I welcome that statement. In his very sketchy history of the Poor Law system, with which no doubt he has familiarised himself during his 18 months of office, the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, of which my right hon. Friend on this bench was a member, of which commission the majority and minority alike came to the conclusion that the Poor Law was no place for the unemployed. Now we are going to see a change made.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the strains and stresses of our national life. These proposals emanate from the strain that has been put upon the loyalty 2618 of about 200 supporters of the Government. We should not have heard anything about this scheme on this particular day if it had not been that the Government's life has been made a burden by their own supporters. This is not an act of voluntary grace on the part of the Government. This is what we all know it to be, a capitulation to the pressure of their own back benchers. I am delighted that some can exercise pressure from the back benches. That is the real truth of the situation.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the long and anxious consideration that has been given to this problem. The whole policy of the Government has been to drive the unemployed on to the Poor Law. That was deliberately intended, and it has succeeded. Even if we leave out of account the heavier volume of unemployment, proportionately there are more people on the Poor Law than before, because of the Government's own policy. To say that they have been administering this principle for 18 months and succeeding in driving more and more people on to the Poor Law and that at the same time they have been giving long and anxious consideration to a reversal of this policy and the establishment of a new one, does not seem to me quite to fit. At least we have got some way along the road by the acceptance of the policy of centralisation. There is to be a long-term scheme and something to deal with the temporary question of the difficulties of the distressed areas. That is an afterthought. There was nothing about it in the King's Speech. It has been forced upon the Government. The dog is to be fed on half of its own tail.

I have suspected for a longtime what was in the Minister's mind when he has examined the unemployment factor. It was in order to take some money from the better-to-do areas and to give it to the poorer areas, but he dare not carry out that principle completely. He has had to provide a little State money, but there has been no indication whether it will be £1,000, £100,000 or £1,000,000. I am satisfied that it will not approach the sum of £1,000,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not going to give him one penny more than he need give him, so that I am afraid a small sum will be available, and as for the rest the distressed areas are to live on charity. They 2619 are to be left to the charity of other areas. There is no reason why a national burden should not be spread over, but under this scheme the principle will not work fairly. If you take London as a whole it will compare very favourably with the North-East Coast or South Wales. In this scheme London, which will mean the East End of London, will have to contribute to help the necessitous areas of the North and elsewhere. I did not notice great enthusiasm on the part of the Government supporters when the assistance to be given to the necessitous areas was announced by the Minister.

Now as to the larger problem. Before the end of the Session the Government will introduce a Bill. This Bill was promised in the King's Speech, in the unemployment insurance scheme. We are going to get the Bill this Session. It will come up for public discussion during the summer and may reach the Statute Book perhaps a year from now. It is very unlikely to reach the Statute Book any earlier.

§ Mr. THORNE

There may be a Dissolution before then.

Viscountess ASTOR

In that event the Bill will not be introduced.

§ Mr. GREENWOOD

The right hon. Gentleman could not tell us the details of the Bill. I do not suppose that he knows them himself. I believe that the Government have arrived at certain general principles, so general that they mean nothing to anybody in this House. I listened with care to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. His principles were so general that I must say for myself, and I think I may say for my hon. Friends on these benches, that we do not find very much light in the Bill so far. We are to have central control. The functions and responsibilities of local authorities are to be divided, reorganised and re-distributed. The able-bodied unemployed are to be dealt with by the central government, administratively and financially. As a principle we accept that. We have always stood for that, ever since the days when my right hon. Friend signed the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law. And, indeed, in the days of Mr. Keir Hardie in this House, this party always stood for central responsibility for the 2620 maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed. That is very good so far as it goes, but I must say that I am not sure that this is the kind of Government that ought to do it. I have little faith in their generosity of spirit or their generosity of heart; they are a pretty hard-fisted Government—

Viscountess ASTOR

What about their heads?

§ Mr. GREENWOOD

—as their administration of the unemployed has shown. Until we know on what principles that scheme is to operate and at what standard the unemployed are to be maintained and under whose direct authority, and whether in any association whatever with the Poor Law, we cannot assent to any principles that have been adumbrated to-day by the right hon. Gentleman. We are inclined, moreover, to ask for as early a statement as we can have on the actual principles of the Bill, a little more fully expressed than they have been to-day. The right hon. Gentleman is apparently going to take over from the Poor Law the able-bodied unemployed. He made play with the figure of £4,500,000—a mere nothing. One-quarter of all the money spent in Liverpool goes into poor relief; that is not important. The right hon. Gentleman is going to say to the local authorities: "We are relieving you of £4,000,000." When he talks to them about it he will say what an enormous sum he is going to relieve them of, when they are even now making a contribution to pay him. Of the £80,000,000 which came out of the national funds, only a third is provided by the State.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS

The £80,000,000 all comes from the Government.

§ Mr. GREENWOOD

It is the State. The right hon. Gentleman is going to get the local authorities to pay the £4,000,000; then he is going to them for a redistribution of the block grant. I never heard of such a piece of intellectual and political dishonesty in my life!

Viscountess ASTOR

The means test.

§ Mr. GREENWOOD

We have enjoyed the Noble Lady's absence from this House very much. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of a readjustment of the block grant. That block grant has nothing whatever to do with the Poor Law; it 2621 never has had anything to do with the Poor Law. The Poor Law has never been a State-aided service in this country. Local authorities have never received money from the State for the maintenance of the unemployed under the Poor Law. The block grant was not intended for that purpose at all. It was made up of entirely different elements, which we have discussed in this House ad nauseam. Now the block grant is to be pared down; money is to be taken from the local authorities because they have been relieved of a burden which they never ought to have had to bear.

That, then, is no doubt going to become the basis of this assistance to the distressed areas. We accept the principle of central responsibility for the unemployed apart from the Poor Law, provided that it will work on reasonable and fair main lines. We are not prepared at this stage to accept a pig in a poke, nor do we think that the right hon. Gentleman's offer of assistance to the distressed areas is likely to be of any real assistance to them. The problem is far more complicated now than it was three years ago. The old distressed areas are more than ever impoverished; they are impoverished and depressed, and their condition is indescribable. To them you have added the new distressed areas, and I venture to say that if it had not been for the Manchesters we should not have had this measure to-day. It is the new depressed areas which have forced the pace. They are feeling the pinch now, and this miserable offer to pay half what you cannot steal from the other local authorities is not going to meet their necessities. It cannot meet their necessities. I should imagine that, when the details are put before the local authorities in these distressed areas, they will receive the right hon. Gentleman's proposal with a certain coldness, as being inadequate to deal with the situation. I should imagine that the right hon. Gentleman will not find it too easy to get those local authorities who appear to be rather better off to give up some of their money to help their weaker brethren. That is his trouble.

Our attitude on this question is that the local authorities are to-day entitled to every penny that they are getting out of the block grant, and it would only be further injustice in what I think is a quite unjust system—the present block grant 2622 system—to take money away from the local authorities and give a microscopic amount to other local authorities who are in serious plight. I should imagine that the distressed areas, whose distress will increase so long as this Government remains in office, will have to look to a successor to this Government to get their grievances redressed.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS

From the right hon. Gentleman we have had more heat than light. Nevertheless, I think he has some justification for saying that the sketch which we have so far had of the scheme is not very detailed. In these circumstances, it is not much use commenting, or attempting to comment, with any precision on what the effect will be. Offhand, no one can tell what effect the weighting according to unemployment is going to have on the grants to some areas; how much it will diminish the grants to some and how much it will increase the grants to the others. Until that has been worked out, no one can tell what the extra grant will cost the Government. Most of those who will speak today will speak in the hope of getting something extra for their districts. I am reasonably certain that my district will be a paying district, and my people are entitled to consideration because of the money which will be taken from them. The rates in Croydon will go up in order that the rates in other places may go down. I live in the London County Council area. I am quite satisfied that the rates in the borough of Wandsworth, where I live, will go up as a consequence of this Measure. The rates in the borough of Poplar will go up as a result of this transfer, because London is one Poor Law area. The whole of London is in the same area. For this reason, the rates of Southwark, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe will all be increased as a result of to-day's decision, and we must recognise that fact. I am rather more perturbed about the later consequences of this proposal, because to some extent some of the distressed areas are distressed because of their own past financial policy. There are a great many areas in this country which deliberately raised the cost of local government to such a pitch that they have driven industry out of their boundaries.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD

Tell us one of them!

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

Just one moment; let us first examine one of the curious situations. I am sorry the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. White) has gone, because, though he represents Birkenhead, he put in some time talking about Liverpool, which is separated from Birkenhead by the river Mersey. Now, in Birkenhead in December there was a great deal of unemployment: 35.4 per cent. of the insured working people then were out of work. Liverpool, which the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. Logan) represents, in common with his colleagues of the other party, had 29.6 per cent. of its insured workers unemployed. A far larger proportion of people were out of work in Birkenhead than in Liverpool. Liverpool is one of the cities which I know very well and with which much of my early life has been connected. It is grumbling at the heavy burden that it has to carry in respect of the Poor Law. Why should Liverpool, which has less unemployment than Birkenhead, have nearly twice as many people in receipt of Poor Law relief, in relation to population, as Birkenhead has? Why is it that Liverpool is paying out, in relation to its population, twice as much money in Poor Law relief as Birkenhead, though Birkenhead has more people out of work? Those who study the Order Paper will have observed an Amendment standing in my name—which will not be called—in which I draw attention to this curious anomaly. Take two districts—I take them because they are the first two in the list I have here: one is Barnsley, in Yorkshire; the other is Barrow-in-Furness, in Lancashire.

§ Mr. LOGAN

Does not the hon. Member know that there are 10 Tory Members in Liverpool to one Labour Member? That might be an answer.

§ Miss RATHBONE

Does the hon. Member not know that the Liverpool Corporation has always been run by Tories?

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

I do not see that that has anything to do with it. Let us just contrast the state of affairs in these two towns. At die end of December they had, roughly, the same proportion of unemployment; just over 33 per cent. of their 2624 insured workpeople were out of work. In Barnsley they were paying poor relief to 907 persons out of over 10,000; in Barrow they were paying it to 299 only. It is a very extraordinary thing that three times as many people in proportion to the population were receiving payment from the public assistance committees in Barnsley as in Barrow-in-Furness. We have had some reference to Manchester. I see opposite to me my hon. Friend the Member for North Salford (Mr. J. P. Morris), who is to a substantial extent responsible for the decision that the Government have announced to-day. Let us contrast these two important cities, separated by a less pleasant and a narrower stream than that which separates Liverpool from Birkenhead. In Manchester unemployment is serious, but not nearly so serious as in many of the other large cities. At the end of last December just over 17 per cent. of the insured workpeople of Manchester were unemployed. On the other side of that not very pleasant river, in Salford, there were nearly 25 per cent. of the insured people out of work; half as many again in proportion were out of work in Salford as in Manchester. Yet the people in Manchester were giving Poor Law relief, in proportion to population, to twice as many people as the ratepayers of Salford. Economically, the two are the same city. You cannot tell when you are passing out of Manchester and entering Salford. They are supported by the same industries. They are, however, two separate municipalities, and therefore have separate policies. They are two Poor Law authorities, and the one with the far higher degree of unemployment is relieving proportionately far fewer people.

I think that those of us who are going to be called upon to pay the piper must have some explanation of these extraordinary anomalies. The Noble Lady opposite represents one of the distressed parts of the South of England. Unemployment is very heavy in Plymouth: 22½ per cent. at the end of December. I have taken all the figures for the end of December, because that is the period to which my Poor Law figures relate. There were 22.5 per cent. unemployed in Plymouth and 22.9 per cent. in Hull; both cities are on the sea, and their unemployment is substantially the same. The public assistance committee of Plymouth 2625 is rather more careful than, I think, it would be if the Noble Lady were the only Member.

Viscountess ASTOR

You are not going to draw me; get on with your speech.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

They relieve only 356 people out of each 10,000 of the population at Plymouth; but in Hull they relieve 680 out of every 10,000 of the population. It is most extraordinary that these great ranges of difference appear. Take a part of the world where things are more prosperous. Take the city of Birmingham, with a relatively low level of unemployment, 13½ per cent. Then travel a few miles to Wolverhampton, a town of very similar characteristics, with the same kind of industries and not quite so prosperous, with 24 per cent. of the people out of work. What are the relative proportions being relieved? Roughly they are the same in the two towns, which are 14 miles apart. Unemployment in the one is half as great as in the other.

As a matter of fact unemployment is only to a partial extent responsible for the poor relief expenditure that is involved. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite have spoken to-day as if there had been a gigantic transfer of people from the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour to the Poor Law. But that is not so. People are rather misled by the fact that the figures published by the Ministry of Labour relate to the individuals who themselves are receiving benefit, but the figures of the Poor Law authorities relate not only to the persons relieved, but to the whole of their dependants. Obviously the proper thing is to take the persons who are themselves concerned as distinct from the dependants. Broadly speaking, for every person who has been disallowed benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Act only one in six reaches the Poor Law.

§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton)

The Ministry of Labour figures are the figures of those registered for employment.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS

I am fully aware of that fact. No one has more frequently drawn attention to the fact that the number registered as unemployed has nothing to do with the numbers receiving benefit. I have said that the number of those receiving benefit is diminished.

§ Mr. CAPE

When a man is on the unemployment benefit scheme and has a wife and three c