§ In respect of each week following the first week of unemployment:—
- in the case of a workman engaged in building or construction of works, 6s.
- in the case of a workman engaged in mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, or construction of vehicles, 7s.
§ No workman shall receive unemployment benefit for more than fifteen or such other number of weeks as may be prescribed either generally or for any particular trade or branch thereof within any period of twelve months, or in respect of any period less than one day.
§ No workman shall receive more unemployment benefit than in the proportion of 2104 one week's benefit for every five contributions paid by him under this Act, or in such other proportion as may be prescribed either generally or for any paticular trade or branch thereof.
§ In respect of each week following the first week of unemployment:
| in the case of a workman engaged in building or construction of works | 6s. |
| in the case of a workman engaged in mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, or construction of vehicles | 7s. |
§ During any period of unemployment exceeding three days at the rate of 7s. per week, and a proportionate part thereof for part of a week.
§ I acknowledge that the President of the Board of Trade has met me more than half way in inserting 7s. instead of 6s.; but, in the opinion of myself and colleagues and a large number of people who come under the Bill, a week is far too long a period for a man to be out of work before he becomes entitled to unemployed benefit. Therefore, with the object of getting over that difficulty, I move my Amendment. I do not know whether the President of the Board of Trade has met us with regard to a proportionate part of a week.
Mr. TYSON WILSONAt any rate I think the period during which a man is unemployed should be reduced from a week to three days. If that is done, I think it would bring the Bill into line with a good number of societies who now pay unemployed benefit from the first day. It may increase the cost, but, at the same time, I think the people who are brought under the Bill ought to some extent to be considered.
Mr. BUXTONAs regards the 7s. there is no difference between us. That, by a subsequent Amendment, I accept. The real point is this, and it is a practical one. The proposal in the Bill, from the point of view of the unemployed men, is a better one—to have a week's waiting rather than that the unemployed benefit should date from the beginning of the unemployment, or after three days, which is really the proposal of my Friend. 2105 Apart from the question of the man himself, and from the point of view of administration, it would be very difficult, because, after all, we must go in these matters, where a Government Department is handling money of this sort, through certain formalities in order that there may be an absolute check on those who are seeking the benefit in regard to the question of unemployment against malingering. A State Department has to exercise greater care and discretion in this matter than a trade union, which has necessarily the personal element to bring in as against the malingerer. Therefore, from the administrative point of view, I think six days is really not too long for the various formalities which necessarily have to be gone through. Another point raised by my hon. Friend affects the question of the trade unions. He says with perfect truth that most of the trade unions give unemployed benefit from the first day, but I would point out to him that the administrative question does not arise in their case. But might I put it to him in this way. We are as anxious as he is under the Bill that encouragement should be given to the trade unions, or, at all events, that they should be put at no disadvantage; and surely it would be an advantage to them if they were enabled to give this benefit before the first week, which they can do under Clause 79, and have a refund than if the State did it, and therefore putting the State in the same attractive position as the trade unions. And from the trade union point of view, I think it would be to their disadvantage if this Amendment were accepted.
I come now to the question of the man himself, which, after all, is the most important element. My hon. Friend said that it was hard on a man who was out of work for a week that he could not receive any payment for his first week. I agree with him, but, after all, in a case of this sort you have the fund and the contributions; and as far as the contributions go you have your benefits, and you have to have a certificate that you can give certain benefits. The benefits we can give are 7s. a week up to a given number of weeks, possibly fifteen; but we have taken power, assuming the actuarial elements are underestimated, to reduce the benefits either in amount or in the number of weeks. I put it to my hon. Friend that it is as broad as it is long, because a man can have his unemployed benefits 2106 during the first week, but if he does so his benefit will have to be reduced at a later period of his unemployment, or the number of weeks during which he receives benefit will have to be reduced. That must be so, because the fund is balanced as far as we possibly can balance it, and if you put an extra charge on it at one end you must take it off at the other.
From the point of view of the men in whom my hon. Friend is interested, I would put it to him whether it is not easier for a man to get through his unemployment in the first or second week, whereas in the later weeks the real pressure begins to fall upon him. Under my hon. Friend's Amendment, they would receive unemployed benefit during the first week, and that would necessarily be curtailed to the extent of considerably more than a week at the other end, if the man was out of employment for some time. It would be a greater advantage if he were to be deprived of his unemployment benefit during the first week, in order that he might draw full benefit at the other end. Therefore, from the administrative point of view, from the trade union point of view, and from the point of view of the benefit to the man himself, I hope my hon. Friend will not press his Amendment.
§ Mr. BARNESSir, we feel very strongly about this Amendment and I think that the President of the Board of Trade has made a speech which at all events has not been satisfactory so far as I am concerned To take his first point as to the administrative part of the scheme, he says there are certain formalities to go through, and therefore the longer you have to go through them the easier to administer the scheme. Therefore, if you extend your week to a month you will get over your difficulties altogether. But that does not carry it very far.
Mr. BUXTONI did not say that. I did not use the argument that my Friend puts into my mouth. I did not say that the longer we had the better we should do it. I said it is necessary to have a certain number of days, limiting them as far as we can. If you have a Government scheme to prevent malignering you must have a limit.
§ Mr. BARNESI did not wish to deal with the hon. Gentleman unfairly, but it is a fair inference from his speech that the longer you extend the time the longer you have to go through the formalities. Let me take up a point with regard to this. It is quite true that the union has paid 2107 the benefit as from the first day, and I agree with him that there should be a period during which the unemployed should be paid, because then that would leave the union position more attractive than the position is under the scheme, without the union. I agree with that. Shall we say that three days is a fair number of days to go by? In the first instance, as my Friend points out, it makes it correspond with the number of days in Part I. for the man to wait for his sick benefit. But there is another thing about it. The union would stand to gain, but if the union is to pay from the first day we shall pay from the first day, but it is quite obvious that the union will have to make up that out of its own funds. Now we say that if we get the second three days of a week paid for it is quite obvious the union is going to gain in having less to make up for that man who is in the union as well as under the provisions of this scheme. But now I come to the point about the man himself. The President says that certain actuarial calculations have been made, and that the funds will only go a certain length, and that therefore if you are going to have the benefits in the first week you cannot have them in the last. But is not that rather unfair to the man who is in and out, and who is never out of work for three months? After all it is the exception for a man to be out of work for three months.
We are all given to drawing the long bow in talking about a man being out of work, but that is all mostly rhetoric. It is perfectly true so far as these trades are concerned that it is the exception for a man to be out of work for three months, and therefore when the President argues that if you do not pay the man for the first weeks you are going to pay him for a week longer, that is all very well, but if the man is out fourteen weeks he will get thirteen weeks out of that fourteen. But, as I say, there is not one man in 50 who is out so long, and therefore we want some better provision made for the man who, after all, has to suffer a short period of unemployment for a week or two or whatever it might be, and I hope the President will reconsider this matter and let us have a change which will give the union the same benefit which an approved society has now under the sick part of the Act. In fact, it will not give him so much, even if you adopt my hon. Friend's amendment, because as the President says the Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed to make up the approved society in cases where sickness 2108 lasts beyond a certain time in respect of the first three days' sickness. We do not ask that here. All we ask is that the unemployment should stand from the termination of the third day.
Mr. BUXTONOne word in order to give the financial result of this proposal. As the Committee knows, there is a much larger amount of unemployed in the first week than in the longer period, and therefore my Friend did not quite follow my argument that if you give the unemployed benefit during the first week you will have to reduce the benefits or the number of weeks. I will give the figures in the engineering trade and in the building trade. So large will the additional charge be on the fund that actuarially we should not be able to raise the 6s. to 7s. It is a very large financial question, and it is even possible that there will be probably a deficit, and I wish my hon. Friend would look at it from that point of view, because, as I have pointed out more than once, you must either have it in meal or in malt but not in both, and I am sure my hon. Friend would not wish the benefits to be reduced, and he would wish the building trade to be raised to the position of the engineering trade. This is really a financial question.
§ The CHAIRMANDoes the hon. Member press it?
§ Mr. BARNESSeeing that later on after the Bill has become an Act it will be possible to give additional benefits, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. BUXTONI now beg to move as to the 7s., raising the building trade group figure from 6s. to 7s. When the Bill was first introduced it was divided into two groups, because our actuary certified that it was more difficult to know in regard to the building groups what was the real percentage of unemployment for a certain number of years. But it was represented to us that if we were to take a longer period, till the next quinquennial valuation, the building trade would show an equal unemployment, and it would be equal to that in the shipbuilding and in the engineering trade, and under those circumstances, though it is a considerable financial sacrifice, I am glad to be able to adopt the 7s. But that will cost more money later. There is £30,000 a year, and as against that on the new Clause 70, 2109 by re-casting that Clause, we save about £70,000, partly from the employer and partly from State grant, and we shall get something like £30,000 or £40,000 in regard to the juveniles, and that will leave us with a financial balance of rather over £100,000, which our actuary thinks will be sufficient to put us on a sound financial basis. I have very great pleasure in moving this Amendment.
§ Amendment proposed: To leave out,
| in the case of a workman engaged in building or construction of works | 6s. |
| in the case of a workman engaged in mechancial engineering, shipbuilding, or construction of vehicles | 7s. |
§ Mr. HOAREThe President of the Board of Trade made a statement just now which has thrown me into some apprehension. He said that under the series of Amendments of which this is the first the Government is to make £30,000 or £40,000 a year out of the inclusion of juveniles. I should like to see how that is to be done. I do not at all want the Government to make this large sum at the expense of these young persons. I would much rather the Government had not made that money, and that the young people should have come in with better benefits than are implied in these Amendments.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. GOLDMANI beg to move, after the words "any period of twelve months," to insert the words "from the time when last he became unemployed."
I should like to draw the Committee's attention to what the Sub-section really means. It prescribes that no man should receive a benefit for more than fifteen 2110 weeks within one year. The point I should like to raise is as to when does this period date from? Supposing a man falls out of employment on the 1st January and he remains out till the 1st March. Having spent the first fifteen weeks he has to wait for another year before coming in for his next fifteen weeks, and my Amendment is to say that the fifteen weeks shall date from the time he was last unemployed. That is the point of my Amendment, and I beg to move that.
Mr. BUXTONThat is it would date from the first application, and he would have his fifteen weeks from then. The words really are unnecessary. They are really covered.
§ Mr. GOLDMANThat satisfies my point and I withdraw it.
§ Amendment by leave withdrawn.
§ Mr. GOLDMANI beg to move, on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton, at the end of the same paragraph to insert the words "provided that where any workman has two hundred contributions or more to his credit he shall be entitled to such further extension in the number of weeks benefit as may be prescribed."
The point is that if a man has been paying contributions for a period of four years, and he then suddenly finds himself unemployed, and having those four years to his credit, he should not be limited merely to the fifteen weeks unemployment benefit, but in that case, supposing he is unemployed for a longer period he should have the right of drawing on the fund to the extent of his credit. It seems to me an eminently reasonable proposition that where a man has made all these years' contributions and never drawn upon them, and suddenly comes into a state of trade depression and unemployment within the fifteen weeks, he should be able to continue to draw benefit to the extent of the amount that stands to his credit. I beg to move accordingly on my hon. Friend's behalf.
Mr. BUXTONI hope I shall be able to satisfy my hon. Friend that his Amendment would be undesirable from an actuarial point of view. This has been calculated by the actuary on the grounds of certain benefits and contributions, and if in certain cases you allow a man to have a longer number of weeks than fifteen, that upsets the calculations on which the 2111 actuary has calculated it in regard to the solvency of the fund, and any additional benefits must be either met by reduction of benefits in another way or by an increase of contribution. There is a certain fund to go round, and you cannot make it larger by giving certain benefits to certain persons without other people losing them. That is really a practical answer to the proposal of the hon. Member.
§ Mr. GOLDMANI am sure my hon. Friend would not like to over-burden the fund, particularly after what the President of the Board of Trade has said, but it does seem to me it would have been a very fair proposal, though I will not press it.
§ Amendment by leave withdrawn.
§ Amendment proposed.
§ Mr. PETOI beg to leave out the words "or in such other proportion as may be prescribed either generally or for any particular trade or branch thereof."
I have noticed that the learned Solicitor-General regarded this principle of the one-in-five as a sort of bed-rock basis for this part of the Bill, and I think, therefore, that that takes any alteration in that principle of one week's benefit for every five weeks' contribution.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Another Amendment proposed:
§ After the words "any period less than one day," insert the words, "provided that where any worker has two hundred contributions or more to his credit he shall be entitled to such further extension in the number of weeks' benefit as may be prescribed,"—[Mr. Goldman.]
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Further Amendments made: Leave out the word "time" ["computation of time under this schedule"] and insert instead thereof the words "periods of unemployment."—[Mr. Buxton.]
§ Leave out the words "and fulfilled such other conditions."—[Mr. Buxton.]
§ Question, "That this schedule, as amended, be added to the Bill," put, and agreed to.