§ 47. Lieut.-Colonel HILDERasked the Prime Minister in view of the fact, which 827 is frequently coming to light during proceedings in the police courts, that the unemployment dole has the effect in many cases of encouraging idleness, can the Government, in conjunction with the local government authorities, devise means by which some form of work can be exacted in return for the payments made under this head?
§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara)I have been asked to reply. We have taken every care to deal with cases of abuse brought to light by police court proceedings or otherwise, but in the present state of industry the recipients of unemployment benefit are unavoidably idle, except in a small number of cases. As an evidence of the care taken to see that funds, urgently needed for people unemployed through no fault of their own, shall not be dissipated by improper use, I may say that during the period 3rd March to 13th May, some 90,000 doubtful claims were referred to the chief insurance officer, who disallowed over 60,000. In about 13,000 of these cases, appeal was made to Courts of Referees, who allowed benefit in about 5,000 cases. Again, out of 935,500 cases dealt with under Section 3 of the 1921 Act—the Emergency Section—27,000 were rejected by the Employment Exchanges, and 345,000 doubtful cases were dealt with by the Local Employment Committees, who disallowed some 41,000, and allowed benefit for the full period in 175,000 cases for less than the full period in 129,000 cases.
Mr. J. JONESWill the right hon. Gentleman undertake to speed up the machinery, so that the men may not be kept waiting five weeks for benefit?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAI can assure my hon. Friend we will do all we can, but the numbers now are overwhelming, and the staff is very heavily worked.