UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT. (Hansard, 11 February 1926)

§ Mr. LANSBURY
I am sorry that on has to take this sort of opportunity for dealing with what I think is a very serious state of affairs in connection with unemployment insurance. I think also I 1403 ought to tell the Minister for Labour, that many of us on these benches think there ought to be some means by which his Department can tell us the number of women entitled to standard benefit, that is, women with stamps on their cards who are disqualified from the moment of unemployment from any sort of relief from the fund or any sort of payment from it. I have tried on two occasions to get from the right hon. Gentleman the number of women so disqualified, as apart from those who apply for standard benefit, but he tells us there is no way of giving us these figures.
It is time that this Department devised some arrangement by which that could be done, because I do not believe the House has given the right hon. Gentleman or any officials of his Department the right to say to a woman that, after the first week she is out of work, she can be considered a person not genuinely seeking work. I put to the right hon. Gentleman a question to-day or yesterday and it was with reference to a number of women who had informed me that they had stamps on their cards and, incidentally, were told that the stamps only counted for days. His answer to me is not that the women were applying for extended benefit, but that they were not genuinely seeking work.
I have not had the opportunity because I have not had the time, and if I had the time I have not had the means, of going to the Employment Exchange and thoroughly investigating these cases. I know in several cases of which I have been told—and I will subsequently read out the statement of the women—that they are entitled to standard benefit. They have all of them been asked at the Exchange what was their trade, and they said they were in the fur trade. Every year there is a slack period in that trade. One would have thought that when it came that the women would automatically get that for which they had paid. It is that point to which I want the right hon. Gentleman to direct his reply. If I have been misinformed and these women should only have applied for extended benefit, I shall have something to say of the manner in which they have been treated. But it would be a different argument from the one I am putting now. I have been 1404 writing through all the months to the right hon. Gentleman about individual cases and would not have bothered the House if it were not that I have had nearly 25 women down at my house on this subject and have been asked by them to go outside the Exchange myself and get information from the women's standpoint.
It may be that they are liars. The right hon. Gentleman must demonstrate that Remember that they are all engaged in the fur trade, and the bulk of them have been out of work for several years. They have received no payment at all, but right from the beginning have been told that they are not genuinely seeking work. All of them have challenged me to go to their employers and get the record of their employment.
I might as well clear up another point before I read out their names, and that is the treatment which they receive at the hands of the officials. I am not a person who having had to do with officials all these years believe of necessity every story that is told of officials. I had two of these women in my house who told practically the same story. Here is one story. She was asked: "Have you a father?" and she replied, "No, I am living with my mother." "What about her, cannot she work?" "No, my mother is old." "It is time she did." That statement was made in the presence of other women who heard it.
Another statement is that a woman was given a paper on which her money was put down. This was handed to her when she went to get the money, but the paper was subsequently taken away and torn up, and she was told it was a mistake. Another woman who is separated from her husband, and who keeps her two children, was told: 'Your business is to get a summons against your husband and make him keep the two children." But they have been separated for three or four years. The point is that if these women have paid into the insurance fund—and if their stories are true that they have the stamps on their cards and have not exhausted their benefit—no one has the right to ask any of these questions. The right hon. Gentleman in his reply to me simply says that they are not genuinely seeking work. He also says that they have been referred to the referee. Here, again, he knows that unless they have an 1405 organisation behind them they have no right of appeal to the umpire.
If I have been misinformed in this, I shall be glad to be told so, because I shall try to get the women to go to the umpire and take one case as a test case. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman in my questions to have an investigation into these women's cases and the statements they have made in regard to the people at the Exchange. I shall be perfectly willing to await the result of any proper investigation. I beg to assure the House that I would not dream of bringing up these statements if they had not been verified by at least a dozen women, who came to see me, not altogether, but on two separate occasions.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
On a point of Order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to organise amongst his fellow Members a deliberate count-out of this House?

§ Mr. LANSBURY
I shall not object if the Members of this House are so little interested in a matter of justice to a considerable number of women. The responsibility is on the Members, not on me. They will not do me any discredit by walking out, and I shall not complain in the least. All these women are Jewesses, but whether they are Jewesses, or foreigners, or foreign-born, has nothing to do with the question. If they have paid in their money they are entitled to their benefit:
Leah Reuben.—The statement I have got in regard to her is that she has been paying in and drawing nothing for about three years. She has been six weeks out of work. "Money sent down." What she means is the paper was sent down, but the manager has torn it up.
Rebecca Cohen.—Started three years ago paying in. Six months ago had some out-of-work benefit. She has 24 stamps. She has been out of work eight weeks and not paid a penny.
Rachel Landsman.—Has been seven years at one job. I think she is one of the women who was told she was not genuinely seeking work. She has stamps. She has had nothing at all since she has been out of work. This is the woman the manageress told to summon her husband.
1406 Rachel Cohen.—She has been a contributor for four years. She was last out of work two years ago. She has been out of work 10 weeks and has not been paid a penny.
Dora Mattison.—She has been in about four years. Her last benefit was over 12 months ago. She has been three weeks out of work and not got a penny. The manageress told her that her stamps counted only for one day.
I have all the rest here, but they are on the Order Paper. I will not continue, in order that the Minister of Labour can give his reply.

§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland)
I will reply as briefly as I can on the general principle. It is that whether people have stamps to their credit or not, from the point of view of standard benefit they have to be genuinely seeking work. That was a statutory condition in the Act of my predecessor. That has to be ascertained, and in a matter of doubt the case is sent to the chief insurance officer. There is an appeal from him to the Court of Referees, and, if the Court of Referees be in doubt, they can allow a further appeal to the Umpire. I want justice to be done in cases like this. The most important point really is that to which the hon. Member has referred—the alleged unfair or reprehensible treatment at the Exchange. The remark he quoted is, of course, a sentence which in itself would be to my mind absolutely reprehensible, if actually made.
As the hon. Member knows, it is a very difficult matter to deal with, but I am more anxious than any one in this House to see that the administration is as considerate as possible. The hon. Member has made a serious charge. I told him that I would have an inquiry, and I started it yesterday before I came to the House to answer his question. In a matter like this it is necessary that I should have the question probed as carefully as possible. I repeat that when anybody, on prima facie evidence of this kind, makes the statement which the hon. Member has made, it is necessary to get to the bottom of it and to see that the administrative action is as considerate as possible at the Exchange.

§ Mr. LANSBURY
I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. As far as these women are concerned I understand that the matter goes to the chief officer. These 12 women were employed in a seasonal occupation, and someone has decided that from the moment they are out of work they are not genuinely seeking work. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should carry this investigation further and go to the Exchanges and find out how many women have applied for standard benefit and how many have been refused.

§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND
I am going to try to ascertain the whole facts, and then I will communicate with the hon. Member. Whenever it is a case of standard benefit I have always considered that there is a presumption in favour of the claimant when he has a sum standing to his credit, but even so, there has to be primâ facie case that the person is quite genuinely seeking work.

§ Miss WILKINSON
But in seasonal work all the firms are out together.

§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND
It all depends on the circumstances. In seasonal trades there is a different set of circumstances to be borne in mind. I say, with regard to all those cases, and particularly as regards the Exchange, I will do my best to have the matter thoroughly sifted, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

§ Mr. MAXTON
Would the right hon. Gentleman make his investigation very thoroughly, and try to find out if at this Exchange the words "not genuinely seeking employment" are interpreted in exactly the same way when the claimant is a woman as when the claimant is a man?

§ Captain WEDGWOOD BENN
Could not the right hon. Gentleman see his way to give some better guidance as to what these words "genuinely seeking work" really mean? I have many people coming to me producing what to me appears to be conclusive evidence that they have spent hours tramping the streets seeking work, and yet they could not prove it to the committee. Some guidance from the right hon. Gentleman would be very helpful, particularly in cases of standard benefit.

§ Mr. NEIL MACLEAN
Is it not the case that the Act itself, even the right hon. Gentleman's own Act of last year, lays down specific grounds with regard to the number of stamps in a given period required to qualify a man or woman for unemployment benefit, and if the man or woman has those stamps upon his or her card, is not that a sufficient guarantee that the individual is genuinely seeking employment?

§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND
No.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
Why not?

§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND
That does not follow. A person may be genuinely seeking employment weeks or months after he has run out of standard benefit, while it is quite possible that a person may not be genuiiely seeking employment, and yet have stamps to his credit.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
I am taking up the case put by the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) that they have stamps and yet are refussd any standard benefit.