§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £734,430, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for the Salaries of the Staff and other Expenses of Labour Exchanges, including the Contribution to the Unemployment Insurance Fund and Repayments to Associations pursuant to Sections 85 and 106 of the National Insurance Act, 1911." [NOTE.—£300,000 has been voted on account.]
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI wish to call attention to Item (I)—"Repayment to associations (1 and 2 George V. Cap. 55, Section 106), £100,000"—which shows an increase of £30,000 over last year. The Statute referred to is the Unemployment Insurance Act, and gives power to the Government to make, under very stringent conditions, certain grants to societies for the purpose of unemployment charges. In many instances these societies are trade unions; in 466 others they are not. The conditions require certain payments from the members themselves. The Sub-section is as follows:—
The Board of Trade may with the consent of the Treasury and on such conditions and either annually or at such other intervals as the Board may prescribe repay out of monies provided by Parliament to any association of persons not trading for profit, the rules of which provide for payments to persons whilst unemployed, whether workmen insured or not, such part (in no case exceeding one-sixth) as they think fit, of the aggregate amount which the association has expended on such payments during the preceding year or other prescribed period exclusive of the sum (if any) repaid to the association in respect of such period in pursuance of an arrangement under the last foregoing section and exclusive in the case of payments which exceed 12s. a week of so much of those payments as exceed that sum.
There are other conditions with which I need not trouble the Committee; the important point is the "not exceeding one-sixth" provision. The facts are, I understand, that quite outside these two sums of £70,000 last year and the estimate of £100,000 this year a sum of between £50,000 and £120,000 has been paid by the Government since last August to societies of that kind. I understand that over £50,000 was paid to trade unions in connection with the cotton industry in Lancashire alone. The details of the other payments we have never had, and I do not know to whom the remainder of the £120,000 has been paid. I submit with some confidence that these are absolutely illegal payments, and that the Treasury in acting as they have done have acted absolutely ultra vires. I feel that I am taking the hon. Member (Captain Pretyman) personally, to a certain extent, at an unfair advantage, but I am addressing him merely as representing the Board.
The matter is not a new one. The Estimate for £90,000, which was explained as being for £120,000, less £30,000 which they had made by way of profit in connection with Labour Exchanges. That Estimate was brought in in a way which I and other Members criticised very strongly at the time. It was pressed upon the House, but after a very heated Debate it could not be got through, and it was withdrawn for that evening. The reappearance of that Estimate was closely watched. It was on the Paper once or 467 twice, but some of us were generally ready to discuss it, and the result was that the matter never came on at all. That is not the way the House of Commons ought to be treated. Whether our criticisms were right or wrong, the matter ought not to be dealt with in that way. If a Supplementary Estimate was considered necessary, why was it withdrawn? I have heard privately that the money has been paid in some way under the powers of emergency legislation, and that that Supplementary Estimate has simply been allowed to be buried without a word of notice to this House. The money has not been accounted for here at all. We are now asked to pass another £100,000 for the same purpose. It is not an increase of £30,000 at all, because not only was a sum of £70,000 taken last year, but the amount I have mentioned, between £50,000 and £120,000, has been spent in addition. Has it or has it not been spent? If it has been spent, it is not fair to put an Estimate forward in this way. I am not debating so much the desirability or the necessity of the Estimate. It may be perfectly proper or perfectly improper. What I complain of is that an Estimate should appear here for the same object as that Supplementary Estimate which has never been passed by this House at all. I submit that we have knowledge that a very much larger sum has been spent, and that the matter ought to have been brought before the House in the proper way.
§ Mr. CHARLES DUNCANI can assure the hon. and learned Member opposite that nobody was more sorry than I that events kept me away on the occasion when the Debate to which he referred took place. If Members of the party with which I am associated had been present a different complexion might have been put upon the matter. I am not quite sure what his complaint really is—whether it is that action was taken to enable the trade unions to meet the unparalleled difficulties they had to face, or whether it is purely in regard to the form in which the matter is dealt with.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONMy complaint is that a sum of between £50,000 and £120,000 has been spent without appearing on these Estimates at all.
§ Mr. C. DUNCANI have some little experience in connection with a union of nearly 150,000 members. A considerable number of my members were 468 thrown out of work when war broke out. As a matter of fact, the number of people unemployed doubled each week for four weeks. Obviously, if that had gone on for any considerable period, there is not a trade union in the country but would have been bankrupt. Their rules are drafted to deal with industrial difficulties, and the war is not an industrial difficulty. The unions were necessarily bound to meet their obligations and to pay their members who were thrown out of employment, not because of any slackness of trade, but because the result of the War with regard to industry had been such that it had thrown everything out of gear.
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At any rate, so far as I am concerned, I would have no fault to find with what has been done. I compliment the Government on having done it. I would further say this: that the conditions under which this money has been spent were drafted with a very keen regard to the Government's money. Those conditions were that before any of this money could be paid to members of the unions, they themselves must pay a weekly levy to show that the matter was serious and urgent. The result of that was, of course, that many unions were very badly hit. Some even were not in a position, from the poverty of their members not being able to pay a levy by being thrown out of work, to take advantage of the money, and owing to the stringent conditions laid down by the Board of Trade. I have no fault to find, but in my judgment the Board of Trade has taken scrupulous care indeed of the money of the country, and have seen, so far as they are concerned, that each side of the halfpenny was scrupulously examined.
§ Captain PRETYMANI think there is a little confusion in the mind of my hon. and learned Friend about this. I quite understand his indignation if he thought that the money had been surreptitiously added, without the consent of the House, to a sum which had been already voted. That is not what has happened at all. This £100,000, or £70,000, in two successive years is a sum normally required, in varying amounts in peace time, to cover certain special expenses of associations which are concerned with unemployment insurance. The money to which he refers, £80,000, and as to which he has raised a question, is not money in the same category at all. It is not a normal sum. It is not on the same Vote at all. It is a 469 special Grant given to certain bodies referred to by the hon. Member for Barrow to meet special distress in certain cases caused by the War. It was brought forward, not as an ordinary Vote, but as an Emergency Vote of Credit. I was not present in the House, but I understand—and I think if my hon. and learned Friend looks up the Debates he will find—that the matter was debated, and, in that Debate, the hon. Baronet for the City of London took part, expressing his satisfaction with the Vote. I understand that my hon. and learned Friend did not question the object of the Vote at all, but only its form. I have no doubt he is quite in agreement that part, or one of our objects, during War time has been to avoid distress. This was simply a question of War relief. Of the normal expense of the associations referred to a maximum of one-sixth was given by the State, really a War relief grant for special purposes. I believe it was particularly for those engaged in the cotton and furnishing trades, which at that particular moment were very hard hit by the War. I think I am correct in saying, and that my hon. and learned Friend will find out that I am correct, that the two things are not on a par at all. The form has been as duly observed in the case of the Emergency Vote of Credit as it was in the normal Vote to which he has referred.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI am obliged to my hon. Friend for his explanation, but I would like to point out to him that he has been absolutely misinformed, and I am sorry to say it. The matter was not brought up as an Emergency Vote of Credit at all; it was a Supplementary Vote which was brought up.
§ The CHAIRMANI did not intervene before because the hon. and learned Gentleman was using the term Supplementary Estimates to back up his question as to whether or not this Estimate was correct; and, of course, he was entitled to do so. But he has now started to go back upon the question pure and simple as to whether such an Estimate was presented and withdrawn or otherwise. He has been told that there is no such element in the present Vote. It is only the present Vote we are now discussing.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI was endeavouring to point out to my hon. Friend in charge that there was a Supplementary Estimate; that it was not an Emergency Vote of Credit. Of course, it is a separate 470 thing. There was an ordinary Supplementary Estimate of the ordinary type, not for anything different, but exactly for the same purpose and, indeed, proposing in the exact words a Supplementary Estimate and exactly for this purpose. It was not an Emergency Vote of Credit at all. I am going to read the words from the OFFICIAL REPORT. The heading is: "Labour Exchanges and Unemployment Insurance.—Class VII." That is the same Clause we are busy with now, and the same heading. It is the ordinary Supplementary Vote to this particular Vote. It goes on to say:—
Motion made and Question proposed,'That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £91,000, be granted to His Majesty to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st March, 1915, for the Salaries of the Staff and other Expenses of Labour Exchanges, including the contribution to the Unemployment Insurance Fund and repayments to Associations, pursuant to Sections 86 and 106 of the National Insurance Act, 1911, and certain additional repayments to Associations.'"—[OFFICIAL RETORT, 4th February, 1915, col. 188, Vol. LXIX.]I take it the Act referred to is the same as that to which we are referring now. It refers to the same Vote and the same Section. The Vote was in the ordinary form of Supplementary Estimates, which, I am sure, my hon. Friend has seen many hundred of times.
§ Captain PRETYMANI do not think that was voted.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI say that it was discussed over all these pages of discussion. I am not in the least dealing with the object of it. There was a great divergency of opinion.
§ Captain PRETYMANWhat date was that?
§ Mr. RAWLINSONFebruary 4th, 1915. The matter was discussed at some length, and the final result was it was not voted. I moved to report Progress, but subsequently withdrew that Motion. Subsequently, however, a Motion to report Progress was agreed to by the Government, the representative of the Government agreeing to it for reasons given. From 4th February the matter has never been mentioned in the House again, and that is how it stands. From the point of view of the House of Commons, it is, I submit, a very serious matter that this fresh Vote comes up without any reference to that previous Estimate. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree with me that it is not a satisfactory way to put Estimates before the House. What I am objecting to is the form in which the present 471 Estimate is put before the House, without mentioning in any way the fact that that sum, which has never been voted by the House of Commons, has been spent for this particular purpose. As to what it was spent on I do not even know now.
§ The CHAIRMANI think the whole purpose of the hon. and learned Gentleman is to go back on the question of the original Vote, which he is really not entitled to do under the present Vote.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONWhat I am saying at the present time is that, before the Committee is asked to vote a Vote of £100,000, we ought to have absolutely clear details as to the amount which has been latterly spent upon this very purpose, the purpose I read out, and to whom the money has been paid during the past two years, or whatever the time may be.
§ Captain PRETYMANI really cannot see that there is any great disagreement between us. I understand the difficulty we are in, and I will look into the matter afterwards. The matter, as the hon. and learned Gentleman was kind enough to say, has rather taken me by surprise. I have been obliged to speak from information rather hastily obtained. If I had known the question was going to be raised, I could have spoken more positively. I understand what has happened is this: That at a subsequent date to 4th February, following the proceedings to which he had referred, the Supplementary Estimate was withdrawn by leave of the House, on the understanding that it would fall under the Vote of Credit. My reference to my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London was perhaps a little beyond the mark in saying that he expressed approval of the Vote, but it was understood that he at any rate did not oppose. What I believe was thought by those who criticised the Vote was that it should be in a more proper form, and not be introduced as a Supplementary Estimate of the ordinary kind. It was really a relief Grant, and it was subsequently agreed—possibly the hon. and learned Gentleman did not know that—that as a Vote of Credit to meet distress—not to be mixed up with the other at all—it should be regarded as an emergency Grant coming under the general Vote of Credit.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONIf the right hon. Gentleman will look into it I shall be glad, and I will bring the matter again on Report.
§ Captain PRETYMANI will look into it.
§ Mr. HODGEUnfortunately, I have been engaged in a business of national importance, and I am not quite sure as to the Vote we are at present discussing, but I understand that it is with respect to unemployment insurance, and that this is one of the items that comes under this Vote. I should like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that one of the necessities, so far as administration is concerned, is the facilities for registration for those who are in receipt of that benefit at the Labour Exchanges. It is very essential to prevent malingerers, or people seeking to defraud the fund, that there should be as perfect a system of registration as possible. I understand that within the last week there has been a proposal to close one of the exchanges where that registration can be done. That is the sub-office of Morriston. It will be a very grievous thing, so far as my own society is concerned, if that takes place. I believe it to be a most important sub-station and I hope that before it is closed proper investigation will be made.
§ Captain PRETYMANI will look into that.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONMay I ask a question on a subject which was raised in the House of Commons yesterday as to insuring houses against attack by Zeppelins?
§ The CHAIRMANThat would be out of order. This is a Vote dealing with Labour Exchanges and unemployment insurance.
§ Question put, and agreed to.