§
Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for reducing in respect of certain servises the charges on public funds and for increasing, by means of the payment into the Exchequer of certain sums and otherwise, the funds available for meeting such charges, and to amend accordingly the law relating to unemployment insurance and certain other matters and for purposes related or incidental thereto, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of a contribution under the Acts relating to unemployment insurance of such an amount as would be produced if, so far as relates to exempt persons, the rates of weekly contributions on the basis of which the said amount is calculated were the same as respects the part (if any) of the extended period after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, as the rates applicable theretofore.
§ Resolution read a Second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ Mr. SNOWDENThere is no desire on this side of the House to delay this Resolution, but I should like to say a few words upon its history. This Resolution will, I suppose, regularise the, Second Schedule to the Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. After that Schedule had been in the Bill for some time, the Government evidently discovered—and the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour yesterday confessed—that some mistake had been made. Accordingly certain Amendments were placed upon the Paper for the purpose of altering the part of the Schedule affected and repairing the mistake. This Money Resolution, however, goes back to the original position and the mistake will not be rectified. The reason of the Government for these repeated changes of policy is now perfectly clear. A sum of about£28,000 a year is involved in this Resolution, and it simply means that in order to avoid a Report stage on the Economy Bill, the Exchequer is to be penalised to the extent of£28,000 a year for several years to come.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY ORDERS OF THE DAY. to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton)After January, 1928.