§ Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 16th November, proposed the Question," That this House do now adjourn."
§ Mr. BUCHANANI wish to raise a question of which I have given the Minister of Labour notice, concerning the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act, and I want to raise two particular questions which relate to Glasgow, and concerning which the Glasgow experience, I think, will be the experience throughout the country. The first question is one concerning the Regulation which is now being administered, and which has been administered for some time, relating to a person making application for unemployment benefit where he has not worked for a reasonable period during the past two years. I understand the answer may be that this Regulation was introduced during the Labour Government's term of office, but, if so, I want to say that it certainly was introduced by the Labour Government, and there is nothing lost in admitting it. I myself, along with the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen), approached the then Under-Secretary to the Ministry with regard to this question, and were told that the Act dealing with the two years period was not meant to operate in areas which had for a long period 408 been suffering from unemployment, but only in areas where trade had been comparatively good and where it was thought that men and women would have a reasonable opportunity to find work. At that time there was no idea of carrying these regulations into areas in which it was admitted that it was impossible to find work.
Last Wednesday I put to the Minister of Labour a question, and whatever charges were made on the last occasion about figures being faked or being wrong, I am sure on this occasion he will not charge me with exaggerating the figures. I asked him how many persons who made application for benefit for eight weeks in Glasgow and how many had been refused under the Clause dealing with not having a reasonable period of work during the past two years. I think he said in round figures something in the region of 40,000 had made application, and 2,600 of them had been disqualified because of not having a reasonable period of work in the last two years. That means that 6 per cent. of applicants for employment benefit are now being cut off in a shipbuilding area. It is a question of the whole area being idle. Men are now being struck off under this Regulation, which was not meant in its operation to apply to areas which had over a long period of time widespread depression. The committee at present have also other Regulations, such as not genuinely seeking work. I have a question to-morrow asking how many persons have been disqualified in connection with other reasons, and one was the question of not genuinely seeking work. I understand that the procedure in the Exchanges is, this: The first thing a man has to answer is, Is he genuinely seeking work? If he has proved that he is looking for work, that during his period of unemployment he has searched here and there, after they have gone to the extent of gathering recommendations of one kind or another, they bring them to the committee and they cannot turn them down because they are bad, because they are rotters, because they are lazy, for, having submitted abundant proof, they must accept them. But they turn round and when the man has proved these things say, "You have not worked for two years," heedless of the fact that there has been no opportunity for it, and 409 that he has been unable to get work. Therefore he cannot have benefit.
I want to ask the Minister how do his figures compare with the administration of this class with the figures of his predecessor? Is it not a fact that they show on the administration of this class a tremendous increase in the disqualifications under this heading as compared with the administration of his predecessor? Let me quote the Southside Employment Exchange. I have always made it a practice never to go near him in connection with the question of unemployment cases. I have always gone to the local manager, unless there was some question of principle involved, because I find I get quicker treatment. I get more, or at least as many, cases in connection with unemployment as any Member of the House. I represent almost the poorest district, or one of the poorest, in the whole of Scotland, and I live within three minutes' walk of the Employment Exchange. One can well understand the work my wife has to put in while I am here speaking.
In the time of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, I never had a single case disqualified for not having worked a reasonable period during the two years, because the management of the South side Employment Exchange stated then that a man had not only to be idle for two years, but it had to be proved there were opportunities to work in his industry during the two years. I want the right hon. Gentleman to face this issue. I see the Secretary for Scotland beside him. He and I are representative largely of the parish council on the South side. The predominant part of his division is covered by the Govan parish council. If you are going to cut off these men, they must live. Society has not yet descended to the state when we are to say human beings are to die. The right hon. Gentleman is either going to refuse these people, and put terrible burdens on the local authority, or grant them benefit.
There is a further issue. Take married men with children. It does not really matter to them if the money is refused at the Employment Exchange, for they march to the parish council and get the benefit, the amount they get there being exactly the same as it would be from the Employment Exchange, and, there- 410 fore, they do not care, because, after all, the thing that matters is income, and not where it comes from. But take the single person. How does the right hon. Gentleman expect single persons who are deprived of any income to live? Does he think that because a man has been two years out of work he is a bad man? If he is a bad man punish him, but do not refuse him the means of livelihood. If the Minister of Labour is going to keep on administering the Act in this fashion, it raises the most grave consequences. I listened to-day to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for E. Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson), with whom I usually agree, but I must say I can raise no enthusiasm about the Women's Police Bill for different reasons. Most of these things are to protect women of an unfortunate class. I often think it would be much better if you prevented women getting to that, instead of appointing policemen to look after them when they are there. Here you have withdrawn from the female population the means of living, because they have been out of work a considerable time. The Secretary for Scotland and the Undersecretary, who know the subject, cannot get away from the fact that the withdrawal of benefit raises the gravest moral problem in our great cities.
11.0 P.M.
I hope the Minister is not going to tell me this is an insurance scheme. If it bean insurance scheme, run it as such, but you must accept responsibility for some counter-proposals to keep these poor people alive. I could have quoted individual cases, not one but 20, but it is not my job to do it. I could tell of men of good character, men who fought in the War, men who have rendered good service in the past—men engaged in shipping. They have walked about to find work, and cannot find it. It might be argued that a man who has been out of work for two years is, therefore, a bad man. Let me put to the Minister the experience of an ordinary man out of work. I remember when I was younger being out of work for eight or nine months. What did I find? I found that the longer I was out of work the harder it became to get a job. When I was in work, and there was a chance of some of us going to be dismissed, and were dismissed, we always liked to get a job as 411 quickly as we possibly could, because, when a man is out of work, he finds that his craftsmanship depreciates not only amongst his fellows but amongst the employers, and the longer he is out the harder struggle he has to get a job again.
I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether this close administration with which he is proceeding is more hard and more cruel even than that of his predecessor? Why is it you have an increase in the figures in the City of Glasgow? Why are you operating the Act in such a way that the men cannot find work? The Government must really either give them work or at least give them some maintenance. I would put a question to the Secretary for Scotland, and I apologise for not giving him notice of it, but during the Debate on unemployment the Minister of Labour definitely stated that there was no unemployment in the building trade in Glasgow. He afterwards modified that statement to the effect that there were no idle plasterers. But last Wednesday there were in Glasgow 8,000 unemployed persons in the building industry. Included in that number it was said there were bricklayers. More to my surprise the right hon. Gentleman stated definitely that there were no unemployed plasterers. But an answer last Wednesday showed there were 17 unemployed plasterers in Glasgow. The right hon. Gentleman was somewhat bitter or, at least, very critical, and cynical, in relation to some of our speeches, because some of our figures were not correct. But he himself, with all his opportunities to be quite correct in his figures, seemed to err.
I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has taken any steps, through his Department, to secure that that unemployed labour shall be used to its full resources in providing houses for the people? I would ask that these poor people should have elementary justice. These folk are as good men as any in this House. One marvels, not so much at their badness, but at their goodness, and how they have remained so good and so clean throughout all their trouble. It speaks a lot for their kindness of disposition and goodness of heart. I hope the Minister of Labour, in his reply, will say to us that these 2,500 people in Glasgow, who have been disqualified, will be 412 given some measure of hope during this terrible winter time. We can give hope to the people abroad. We can give hope to people of the Irish Free State. Why not the people whom we know? Why not give them some hope? Why not extend to them at this Christmas season some hope? At least if the right hon. Gentleman cannot give them work let him give to these poor people what sympathy he can in the shape of at least the minimum benefit that can be secured to them.
§ Mr. HARDIENow that this subject has been raised, I want to draw attention to what is taking place, as a result of the Government's method of getting money for the supposed scheme for widows' pensions, and the cruelties which are following on the sweeping of people from the Employment Exchanges without —as it appears to us—adequate reason. I put before the Minister the necessity for the Exchanges finding out the real causes why people are dismissed from employment. The cruelties which are being perpetrated in that way could only be described properly if one had time to go through each case and to read all the letters recounting the hardships suffered. If the case were fairly faced by the Government, they would say to us, "Very well, we know we are sweeping cases off the Exchanges without good reason, but we want to sweep them on to the parish councils." If they would say that we could understand the methods they have adopted, and especially this referee and umpire business which refines the cruelty in such a way that when we meet these cases in our own constituencies we feel something rising in us that we do not like to feel rising.
I would refer to the case of the young woman worker who is living at home, and the specially refined cruelty of the Minister himself when he exercises his discretion as to the income going into that home. What he has done, so far as Glasgow and the rest of Scotland are concerned, is to reduce everything to the level of a parochial officer's investigation. Every means are being adopted by the Government to try to degrade, if possible, the helpless people who are unemployed. There is the degradation of having the parochial officer, or someone of that status, coming to the house to make 413 investigations, going into the neighbours' houses to see whether the statements made are correct, and trying to find out whether the income of the home is not sufficient to maintain either a son or a son and daughter. Take the case of the unemployed youth, with all his fresh young ideas, all his mental forces in full swing, with his fine physique and his desire to get something to do. We crush everything that is good in these youths by making them feel that they are thrown back upon the poverty of the home. The youth, with his ideas, ought to be allowed to do something to add to the income of the home.
With regard to the dismissals of the Employment Exchanges, they adopt the most, arbitrary methods. I will cite as sin instance a case which I have just sent back to (he Minister. It was the case of a woman working in an infirmary. After three months' constant employment she asked to be relieved for the afternoon, giving a week's notice. She got the usual form handed to her in an envelope when she was going out. She gave it to the gateman, thinking it was all right. The permission was not for the afternoon but for two hours, though she took it as being for the afternoon. When she came next morning she was dismissed. But the people in the Employment Exchanges take no notice of this: they take no notice of the reason why the woman finds herself unemployed. The Employment Exchanges are becoming more inhuman every day as far as the unemployed are concerned. You have got to be like us, knowing the men all your life, and then hearing the statements, made to them in the Employment Exchanges, to realise how inhuman this machine, which was supposed to help, is becoming. The Minister himself claims to have a fair and just outlook in human relationships. That is why I am making this appeal to him to let it become the spirit of the Employment Exchanges.
§ Mr. LAWSONI am glad to have the opportunity of joining with my friends on this occasion in pointing out to the Minister that, wonderful and striking as was his explanation of this matter last week, the fact remains that those of us who live in our divisions in great industrial areas—and I live in the same house as I did when I worked at the mine and 414 among my old friends—are having very lamentable evidence of the result of his administration and particularly of the recent Regulations he has issued. During the Recess and during the week-ends we have coming to our homes young men who are having their unemployment benefit stopped because it is said that there is a certain amount of money coming into their homes. It is an unfair thing that the parents, who have toiled hard all their lives, should be compelled to keep a young man out of their scanty income, an income that is not calculated on a basis of holidays or luxuries, but merely upon the basis of an elementary existence. It is hard upon those parents—indeed it is a shameful thing—that after they have brought up their boy, and he has become an asset and ought to be helping them, that just because he loses his employment they are deprived not only of his income but are compelled by the Regulations of the Minister of Labour to keep him.
I want to ask the Minister to consider a case such as that in my area. The two black areas for unemployment, as he knows, are in South Wales and in Durham. In Durham there are 12 collieries idle. I could take him round places where there is a great block of collieries idle and where for square miles there is scarcely one man in employment. The effect is that the relieving authorities are practically bankrupt. Yet at a time like this, in an area like that, the Minister lays great burdens on the guardians, burdens which they certainly cannot carry. I know the Minister will demonstrate In his own satisfaction that, there was a decrease in unemployment and that really the extent to which he has taken people off the registers of the Employment Exchanges is not so bad when you take the whole country into consideration. Yet, what do we find? That the amounts of Poor Law relief last week have gone up by leaps and bounds. It was a collosal increase in the amount of relief that had to be granted up and down the country. There is very clear indication that the Government have made up their minds that there are going to be no works of relief of any kind. I have had an instance of that: The guardians in my own Division are coming here to-morrow to meet the Minister of Health. They are bankrupt, 415 and they are dependent on the Minister to keep them going during the next week or two. Our people do not want relief; they want work. I hope that more and more from these benches we are going to have emphasis laid upon the fact that these people want work.
We want to see the men we have known so well, upright men, my own neighbours, strong, straight, up and down men, who neither drink nor smoke and to -whom it is a positive pain to be unemployed provided with work; and yet, at a time like this, the policy of the Government is to take away all possibility of relief. The Minister of Transport met the county council representatives in my district, and practically he said to them: "Yes, it is a good scheme. It is a main road, which is absolutely necessary in the interests of providing work and also in the interests of traffic, but I am sorry we can do nothing in the matter; in fact, there are going to be no more relief works.' If that is going to be the policy of the Government, then not only the people in my Division and up and down the country will be affected, but I shall be in exactly the same position myself. There is no unemployment benefit for your young men, no relief for bankrupt guardians, and no relief works. Do the Government think that can continue without trouble? I am the last one to advocate trouble, but I should have very little respect for my people if they sat silent under such treatment as this.
§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland)I will answer as briefly as the time left me will allow the various points which have been placed before me. The last speaker referred to the hardship inflicted upon young persons living with their parents who could support them, and as an instance he gave a case within his own knowledge where there was scarcely one person employed in a whole block and he said that my Rules placed a great hardship upon the Guardians. May I point out to the hon. Member that where there is only one person employed in a block of houses the Rules which I made cannot and will not be applied quite clearly, in the circumstances, because—
§ Mr. LAWSONI took a certain part of the division, and I gave a particular case.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDThen let the hon. Member give me a concrete case, which would be worth a dozen such sentences as that. Quite obviously, where you have a block of houses in which only one person is in employment, it is perfectly impossible and inconceivable—and is not done, to disallow the benefit to young persons who are living with their parents in such a block. I have had a careful examination made of one complaint that has recently been brought to my notice—I do not say it is typical, but it is the latest case I have had. The hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) talked about, the refined cruelty of examining into the means in such cases. The special case brought to me was that of a family of seven and in the case of one of them benefit was disallowed. It was brought to me as a case of hardship. When I examined it, I found that there was £9 2s. per week coming to other members of the family in that house. Does the hon. Member call that a case of refined cruelty, and ought I not to examine into the means in such cases?
§ Mr. HARDIEI am not saying that that is hardship, but I am speaking of cases that come within any personal knowledge.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDI am giving a concrete case that has been brought before me as apart from these general accusations. Now I will take the statement of the hon. Member. He says that in the Employment Exchanges in Glasgow now they take no cognisance of the reasons that there have been for unemployment. That was his statement, as nearly as I could take down his words. These cases for extended benefit come before the Rota Committee, and in most cases in Glasgow, as the hon. Gentleman is, or ought to be, as well aware as I am, the majority of the men who do good service voluntarily on these rota committees are representatives of the workmen. I should like the hon. Gentleman to make that accusation up there, that these workmen take no cognisance of the reasons for unemployment.
§ Mr. HARDIEI am just stating a case where the reasons for dismissal have not been considered by the Umpire.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDThis is not a case of the Umpire, but of the Employment Exchange and the rota committees, and I should be glad to hear the hon. Member make that accusation against these committees in Glasgow— that the workers' representatives sitting on the rota committees and coming to the decisions to which he objects, are people who take no cognisance of the reasons for unemployment. He will find that they, just as much as I, resent entirely any such statement being made about them. With regard to the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan)—
§ Mr. MARCHBefore the right hon. Gentleman leaves the rota committees, may I ask him to say how many of the rota committees have offered their resignation because they cannot administer the Act?
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDAt the present time there are seven who are not fully functioning and, if I am right, there are two or throe of these who are not functioning at all and for whom officials have to act. The recent deputation of the Council of the Trades Union Congress that came to mo said that they themselves were advising these committees, under the circumstances, to continue their duties.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDMay I allow them to settle their consciences with the Council of the Trades Union Congress. With regard to the question that the hon. Member raised, let me put to him quite briefly the answer. There has really been no difference as between my predecessor and myself in the treatment of Glasgow. There are two Clauses under which there may be disallowances, as the hon. Member knows quite well. I have not with me the figures for this particular class of disallowances—
§ Mr. BUCHANANI can give them to you now.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDI have the figures that I gave to the hon. Member, but I am not putting that case at all. That refers to the general character of the applicant's industrial history, whereas 418 the other Clause—making reasonable efforts to obtain employment—applies to what has happened, perhaps, more recently. That is the real difference as between Glasgow and the rest of the country—
§ Mr. BUCHANANI am not saying that Glasgow is worse than the rest of the country.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDI know. There is no difference in this between Glasgow and the rest of the country. Although he sits for a Scottish constituency and I do not, perhaps I am a greater friend to him than my predecessor was, as indeed happened in the Committee upstairs, when I closured many other cases, and it was left to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) to closure the Scottish Amendment.
§ Mr. BUCHANAN; I know that.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDIn regard to this case, the applications from Glasgow to me—that being one of those towns that are hard hit by the industrial depression—are greater in proportion than the applications from the Kingdom as a whole. The disallowances in Glasgow are only the same in proportion as the rest of the country. Therefore, even judged by the figures, the treatment of Glasgow has given full allowance to the depressed condition of trade in the ship-building industry there. What happened was this: I know the trade has been hard hit. I will give, the hon. Member any figures I can with regard to Glasgow afterwards to show him the situation, and I recognise fully that the hon. Member at any rate does try to settle cases with the local Exchange officer before bringing them to me. In the treatment of the most distressed places, I have gone upon the principle I laid down 11 months ago in Glasgow, and that is that careful consideration ought to be had, in the question of disallowance, as regards the state of employment and the chances of getting work. I was questioned up there 11 months ago, and I said exactly the same as now. There is a difference between the general labourer and a plater or a boilermaker in a depressed trade. If you have a general labourer there is such a much greater turn in and turn out of work that you could reasonably ex- 419 pect him to get a certain number of weeks work in the last year or two years. With regard to the general labourer that is true, but it may not be true of a man, however skilled and with however good an industrial history, in a trade that has been so hard hit as the shipbuilding industry, the iron and steel trade and one or two others. It is precisely for that reason that I have said to one insurance committee after another, "Take those circumstances into consideration when you are actually dealing with cases." If my hon. Friend will ask the members of the Employment Committee in Glasgow—
§ Mr. BUCHANANI have a letter from the vice-chairman.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDHe will find out exactly what I said to them. He will find that it is exactly what is also laid down in the codified instructions which have been issued. Perhaps I may read those instructions?
§ Mr. BUCHANANI know them very well.
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDThe instruction reads:
No definite period of employment can he prescribed for the purpose of this condition. The test varies between different claimants in different districts. In the districts where employment as a. whole has been good, notwithstanding the general 420 depression, a higher standard will be required than in districts which have been subject to severe depression. Each ease must be determined on its merits and in the light of individual and local circumstances, including both the normal employment of the claimant and the opportunities of obtaining such employment, and, in the absence of such employment, the opportunities of obtaining other employment. The Committee, with their intimate knowledge of the industrial conditions in their respective areas, will be in the best position to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.The rest of the instrument is on exactly the same lines. What the hon. Member will realise if he will go into it is that every care possible has been taken to try to meet the circumstances of the case in deciding both on the point whether the claimant has been making every effort to obtain work, and also, what it a similar but slightly different condition, as to whether he has obtained a reasonable amount of work under the circumstances. That has been the custom throughout, and as far as I can sec and as far as I know it has been administered by the different employment committees in a way which, I think, has shown consideration for all the circumstances. and that good administration has resulted.
§ It being half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Order of the House of 16th November.
§ Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'Clock.