§ (1) If any male person at any time registered under the principal Act changes his profession or occupation he shall within the appointed time notify the change to the local registration authority, and for that purpose send or deliver to that authority, by post or otherwise, his certificate of registration with his new profession or occupation noted thereon, and there shall be supplied to him a fresh certificate of registration, and the change shall be noted in the register.
§ For the purpose of the foregoing provision any male person registered under the principal Act at the date of the passing of this Act whose profession or occupation at that date does not correspond with his profession or occupation as specified in his certificate of registration, or if his 898 profession or occupation is not so specified with his profession or occupation as on the date when he was registered, shall be deemed to have changed his profession or occupation as on the date of the passing of this Act.
§ The appointed time for the purpose of the foregoing provision means, in the case of a person who changes or is deemed to have changed his profession or occupation on or at any time within twenty-one days after the date of the passing of this Act twenty-eight days from that date, and in the case of any other person seven days from the date of the change.
§ (2) Any male person who has lost his certificate of registration, whether he is required by this Section to send his certificate of registration to the local registration authority or not and whether the loss occurred before or after the passing of this Act, shall, as soon as he becomes aware thereof, notify the loss to the local registration authority of the district in which his place of residence is situate, and for that purpose obtain, fill up, sign, and send or deliver by post or otherwise to that authority, notice in the prescribed form of the loss, and there shall be supplied to him a fresh certificate of registration.
§ Mr. KINGI beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "his" ["changes his profession or occupation"], to insert the word "regular."
We now come to another question altogether, to the problem of changes of occupation and loss of certificates. The change of occupation which now has to be registered according to the proposals of this Bill is an entirely new idea. The principal Act did not impose any duty upon any person who changed his employment to notify the change of employment, and this present proposal is a very large extension. I called attention to it on the Second Reading, and I think I had some sympathy in the House for some of my remarks which went to show that it is not going to be a very easy thing to know exactly how far a man has to go in registering himself afresh when he changes his employment. Near where I live in the country there is a man I know very well, and whom I employ from time to time, perhaps for a month or two. I remember that this man a little time ago was working at the harvest. For two months after wards he was working with a threshing machine. For two months after that he was engaged on mending roads. Then a 899 little later that man was working for two or three months in cutting wood in the copses, and making wooden bands, for binding ammunition boxes. For two months after that he was again working on the farm. There is clearly a man who is constantly changing his employment. Is he to go every two months and register afresh? What I have described is what he does almost every winter, and I should like to know whether that man is to go and alter his registration form and get a new card for each different employment. Ms case, of course, is only typical of those, of a great number of working men. A large number of working men have seasonal employment that they take up at different times of the year. Many men, too, in industrial life, in factories, go from one employment to another. Many men in the building trade will be in that trade one part of the time, and in mines for another part of the year. What does the President of the Local Government Board intend with regard to the working man—not an uncommon case at all—who constantly changes his employment?
I suggest by this Amendment that a man should be registered in respect of his regular employment. Most of these men who are in industrial life, who are changing their status and position from time to time, would tell you that they are one definite thing more than another. They would say that they bad one regular employment. Whether it be a worker on the land, a building-trade labourer, or whatever it might be, almost all these men, if you asked them, would give you one employment as their regular, preferential employment. I, therefore, propose in this Amendment that you should make the position clear by saying that a man should register afresh when he changes his regular employment. I think that is an intelligible and quite sensible way of getting out of what is really a difficulty.
Mr. FISHERI do not think this Amendment would add anything whatever to our knowledge or to the strength of our proposals.
Mr. FISHERI think it would be dangerous to adopt that, and to put that word in before the words "profession or occupation," as it might limit them.
§ Mr. KINGWill not the right hon. Gentleman give some answer to my very definite inquiry as to whether a man who habitually changes—once or twice a year, say—from factory to mine, from mine to agriculture, or from one factory to quite a different kind of factory, or whatever it is, is to register afresh, or whether he is not? The right hon. Gentleman has never answered that question.
Mr. FISHERI think that in all probability where men are engaged in two separate industries at different seasons of the year—there are a great many of those men in the country who at one period of the year are engaged in one occupation and at another period of the year are in another occupation—they will have to register both occupations, and will have to put down that they are employed in two occupations. What is intended, obviously, is that where any change of occupation is likely to extend over any considerable length of time there is a duty put on the man to notify that change of occupation, but where a change is of a very temporary character, obviously it would be quite worthless from our point of view for the man to notify his change of occupation. Obviously there would be no pressure put on him to notify a change of that kind, and I need hardly say there would be no penalty. The whole object, and the real object, of this is to place at the disposal of my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Service as much information as he can possibly acquire of the occupations in which men and women are engaged so that he may see where it is labour is employed, where it is that he may possibly be able to transfer labour, and in what way he might utilise the man-and woman-power of the country to the fullest possible extent. There is no idea whatever to harass people who are sometimes engaged in one occupation, but are repeatedly changing to another occupation, who are temporarily casual labourers, as it were, taken on here and there for three or four days at a time. There is no intention either to harass them or to put them to the difficulty of constantly notifying the local registration authority that the change has taken place in their particular occupation. We hope that we may gain substantial benefits from this, but it is only intended that changes of a somewhat permanent character should be 901 notified, and not those which would not be of value to my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Service.
§ Amendment negatived:
§ Mr. KINGI beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "occupation" ["changes his profession, or occupation"], to insert the words "as registered in his certificate of registration."
Mr. FISHERIf the hon. Member attaches importance to this Amendment we may be prepared to accept it, as I am informed by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service that he does not think the Ministry will lose anything by this Amendment. Without the words suggested there is possibly not felt to be any obligation on the part of persons engaged in one form of employment to notify that they are changing into another form of employment where that change is just temporary and not of a permanent character. What is desired is not so much the notification of a temporary change as the notification of a change of a more or less permanent character.
§ Mr. KINGI really do attach some importance to this Amendment. I think it would make things work better. Take the case of a man who requires in the season to change his employments. Let him put each one of those employments down)n the register; then he would not need each time he goes over from one or another to have to notify the fact.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThat covers the next Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. KINGProbably it does. I shall then move the next, at the end of Subsection (2), to insert,
(3) Any male or female person employed in any agricultural work for wages shall not be deemed to be included in this Section."
In the course of the Second Reading Debate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board referred to the peculiar case of agriculture. There was the point, as the President of the Local Government Board knows, as to whether any concessions were to be given to agriculture. I certainly think some concessions are needed in respect to casual workers. I do not think it would be the 902 best to register persons who are working in the hayfields. Many of the farmers are getting casual labour from day to day, or certainly week to week, at harvest time. You ought to make some concession, and not render it necessary for them to register each time.
Mr. FISHERI cannot accept this Amendment, which practically exempts from the operation of the Clause the people referred to. The hon. Member desires that this provision should not apply to any male or female person employed in any agricultural work for wages. But they may be permanently employed in some particular form of agriculture, and they may, for some reason or another, go into munition works or even into aeroplane works. We have heard of them going into other kinds of works. If this Amendment were accepted it would be a loss, because it is this kind of knowledge to which my right hon. Friend the Minister for National Service attaches great importance. To accept this Amendment would be to deprive him of a great deal of information which might be of considerable value.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.