HC Deb 11 April 1932 vol 264 cc598-632

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL

The Parliamentary Secretary referred on Friday to the Blanesburgh Committee's Report, and pointed out that the basis of subsequent insurance was the recommendation of that committee that normal unemployment in the post-War years was not likely to exceed 6 per cent. of insured persons, and it was on that erroneous estimate of the prospects of unemployment that the contributions of the employed persons, employers and the State were based. We now find that persons who have been insured for many years axe suffering penalties, not because of anything that they themselves have done, but because of the unwarranted optimism of those who sat on the Blanesburgh Committee. The hon. Gentleman has referred to three or four cases. The number of the cases to which he has called attention in any Debate has not gone beyond three. I have not heard anyone speaking for the Government refer to the insured person who joined insurance and commenced paying contributions in 1912 and has been paying ever since on his own behalf, and who will have an aggregate of nearly £50 to his credit. It is possible for a person to have, with the employer's and the State contributions, nearly £50 to his credit and yet, after unemployment of 26 weeks in one insurance year, when he will have received a sum of no more than £20, his benefit will have ceased and the State will have profited to the extent of £30 on his contributions. That should be borne in mind always when we remember the kind of treatment that is being given under the means test.

The larger percentage of workpeople who have to undergo the means test is drawn from those special classes of industry which were the first to be insured. We find, for example, in engineering, a percentage of unemployment running up to 60 per cent. of the insured workpeople. The highest percentage is to be found in the industry which avers the very first to be scheduled for insurance purposes, and the lowest percentage is often to be found in those industries which appear very much later in the scheme. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give fresh consideration to that point, that there are already men who have paid a larger measure than the whole of the benefits they have received and yet, because of the way in which this Bill has been worked, they will find themselves liable to have their benefit stopped, while there should still be a large sum standing to their credit in the fund. The unfairness of the Bill altogether lies in the fact that the incidence of the means test varies so much. There are people who were among the first to be insured, and who have been the most regular contributors, who are now liable to have their transitional benefit stopped. This incidence bears heavier in some industries than in others. There is, in addition to the industrial incidence, the geographical incidence. This means test will be applied in the main against men engaged in certain industries and resident or occupied normally in certain districts, and a glance over the results of the application of the means test so far will show that in certain areas, because of their peculiar industrial experience and of the character of the industries which have been built up there, they have suffered enormous deprivations while other areas, where the character and disposition of the industries are different, the percentage of disallowances is very much smaller and the effect of the means test is very much less harsh.

I should like to say a word or two with regard to the very unfair and unjust attack that has been made upon habits of thrift. The persistence of this saving habit and the tenacity with which savings and possessions have been retained during adversity is significant not only of the permanence of this habit of saving, but also of the high level of self-respect which has withstood all the demoralising influences of unemployment. The Minister gave figures on Thursday relating to centres so widely spread and so different in character as London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Wigan, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Blackpool, Bolton, Brighton and Eastbourne, representing geographically almost the whole of England and part of Wales, embracing a total of almost exactly 500,000 unemployed men. Analysing the results of the means test, one finds that in London full benefit is paid to 57 per cent. of applicants under the means test, reduced benefit to 22 per cent. and benefit was disallowed to 21 per cent. In Birmingham full benefit has been given only to 34 per cent., reduced benefit to 45 per cent. and total disallowance 20 per cent. In Cardiff full benefit has been paid to 78 per cent., reduced benefit to 13 per cent. and total disallowance 4 per cent. When we come to Eastbourne, where there is not a very large body of unemployment, we find, strange to say, that the percentage of those who draw full benefit is exactly the same as in Cardiff—78 per cent.—20 per cent. get reduced benefit and 2 per cent. complete disallowance. Taking the whole of the 500,000 in the places I have named, the figures are, full benefit 47 per cent.; reduced benefit 39 per cent.; and no benefit 14 per cent. Fourteen per cent. of 500,000 is a figure of nearly 80,000. Coming back to the figures for the whole country, on the same day we were told they showed that 1,400,000 initial applications have been made, and the percentages are almost exactly the same; 200,000 have received no benefits, 500,000 have received reduced benefits and over 700,000 have received full benefit.

The sole justification for the means test has been the exercise of national economy. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary where these 200,000 people have gone. They have made their applications and have been turned down. Where do they appear next? Do they appear on the list of registered unemployed? Do they appear on the list of those drawing parish relief? It is difficult to trace them. It will require time to trace them, but there is very strong ground for suspicion that a large number of these initial applicants have already made their appearance on the figures of the Poor Law authorities because, by a very strange coincidence, the number of people who have gone on to the Poor Law is almost exactly equal to the number who have gone off transitional benefit.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson)

Will the hon. Member give me the dates to which he is referring?

6.0 p.m.

Mr. GRENFELL

The period during which 200,000 people have been denied unemployment benefit is between 15th November and 20th February. The 200,000 additional people have gone on to the Poor Law since September last, when the National Government came into office. In the last six months we have had an addition of 200,000 people to the list of Poor Law recipients. The Parliamentary Secretary is not satisfied. He has commented upon the means test on two or three occasions in the past week. He, apparently, thinks that the means test is being applied all right. He has no complaint at all against those areas where the total disqualifications run to as much as 25 per cent. Indeed, he makes no complaint where more than 50 per cent. of the applicants for transitional benefit have either found their claims totally rejected or their benefits reduced. His only admonition is in respect of those areas where sympathy has been shown. Where a means test has been applied with an element of sympathy and understanding, the Minister has chosen to go to those areas in order to quote those ridiculous cases—three only in number. Out of 200,000 people struck off benefit, three only had riled the conscience of the hon. Gentleman. He said to the House that he could find other cases. I will challenge him. He will not find 3,000 comparable cases in the whole list of 200,000 people who have been turned down. I make the challenge, and shall await his reply. The hon. Gentleman has given those horrible examples and his speech has been given the widest publicity in the Press of the country. He owes it to the unemployed and to the public assistance committees to give another impression rather than to give the idea that large numbers of men are drawing unemployment benefit who have no need for it. The truth should be stated, and the truth is that the people who need the money very much are being denied even the smallest measure of assistance by public assistance committees.

I have tried to analyse the position of those people. The Minister of Health told us last Friday that certain maladjustments might be put right as a result of area conferences—a conference in the North, in the South, in the Midlands, and a conference here and a conference there. The conferences are to have the assistance and guidance of inspectors of the Ministry of Labour, and, I believe, of the Ministry of Health. As a result of the conferences, it is expected that greater uniformity will be brought about. I ask the Minister, who has certainlty some responsibility in this matter, how can inspectors of the Ministry of Labour give direction to those conferences unless they have been previously told by the Minister of Labour what kind of direction they are to give? If the Minister of labour is competent to give instructions to those advisers at the conferences, why cannot he give the information to the Committee? Repeated requests have been made to the Government from this side of the Committee during the last two, three or five months. More than one Minister has been questioned, and I will put the question again to-day. What are the Government going to tell those people? What do the Government believe to be the right interpretation of the Orders in Council which they have issued? What do the Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister expect? Do they expect unanimity to be carried through on the basis of the least sympathetic public assistance committee? Do they expect the public assistance committees to be guided by and to follow the footsteps of the more sympathetic committees? Is the process of pauperisation to go on until 1933?

I would like the Parliamentary Secretary and those who sit on the benches opposite, to whichever party they belonged before they pointed the Government, to look upon the problem as the most human problem they will have to face during the tenure of their ill-gotten authority to occupy the benches opposite. I ask the hon. Gentleman to examine more closely the kind of cases which are disallowed. I represent an industrial area. I have spent the greater part of my time in a dangerous occupation. The majority of my friends and acquaintances are coal miners. One-sixth of the men engaged in that industry are injured so seriously every year as to enable them to claim compensation. 150,000 people are injured in that one industry alone, a large proportion of whom suffer long periods of partial disability. They receive compensation at the rate of 5s., 8s., 10s. or 12s. a week. They are unfitted for their own employment, and are unable to get any further employment. They wait month after month in the vain hope of securing employment, and, because of their partial capacity, they are entitled to draw unemployment benefit. Having been unemployed for 26 weeks in the insurance year the people with a small pittance in the form of partial compensation have to appear before the public assistance committee. A man may have lost his hand or have serious internal injuries or suffer from neurasthenia. He goes to the public assistance committee. He is asked what income he receives, and he says that he receives 8s. or 10s. a week in compensation. Does the Parliamentary Secretary, or the Minister, or anybody on the opposite side of the Committee say that the small sum which is due to a man because of his special disability should be taken into account and his benefit reduced?

Mr. PIKE

Why is it given?

Mr. GRENFELL

I am asking the people who are responsible. If the inspectors who are to go round the country are expected to be able to give direction and advice, why cannot the Parliamentary Secretary give that direction and advice to the people equally responsible with him in the House of Commons for the character of the legislation which is passed? Is a workman in receipt of compensation to be allowed to retain any part of his compensation, or is every penny of his compensation to be taken into consideration and deducted from the benefit he would otherwise get? There is the soldier's disability pension. We all know that kind of case. It is the same kind of disability. One is disability as a result of war service, and the other is disability as a result of industrial service, and I do not know where to draw the line between the two. A good deal of sympathy has been verbally expressed in the House of Commons with the ex-Service men, but I have not heard any sympathy expressed by Members on the opposite side of the Committee with workmen in receipt of compensation. I put them on exactly the same footing. If the small sums which are called partial compensation in one case and disability pension in the other are to be taken into consideration, why does not the Minister say so, and why does not he take the responsibility? If it is not the intention of the Government, why do they not tell the House and their inspectors when at those conferences that those two categories of income are to be left outside the calculation?

There is the case of the man who is the owner of the house he occupies. I regard it as a very grave injustice indeed against a man who is, perhaps, occupying a house in which he has lived for 20, 25 or 30 years and for which he is paying by means of contributions to a building society or a friendly society, or by means of a private mortgage. Such an effort to pay for a house is an epic story of struggle, courage and steadfastness. It is a story of self-denial and of hardships incurred in the effort to acquire a measure of justifiable independence and of freedom to indulge in house pride, which is so strong a feature in the lives of our men and women. The desire to own a little house causes years and years of sacrifice. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary, the Minister and other Members of the Government to say whether they will take the responsibility of telling those people that all their sacrifices are to count for nothing, and that now they are to be penalised because of the sacrifices and efforts they have made. There are the people who have a few pounds in the bank. Members of the present Administration have quoted with pride figures relating to working-class savings. For the purpose of political controversy, they have pointed with pride to the thrift of the working classes of this country. They have shown how the possession of house property, shares in building societies and friendly societies, and money in the savings bank are deemed to be worthy of the working class when it comes to political controversy, but when it comes to the application of the means test, the people who have a few pounds in the bank are to be told, "You were wise enough and trustful when you should have trusted, and you have put your money into the savings bank, but because of that we are now going to single you out for special penalties."

Let me mention the case of the father who has grown-up children at work. Does anyone agree that parents who have nurtured and cared for their children, and have maintained a home for them until they are 21 or 22 years of age—some of them in many cases preparing for similar responsibilities in their turn—should be penalised? Does anyone say that young men of 23 or 24 working in collieries or engineering shops earning £2 10s. or £3 a week do not require every penny of that income not only to maintain themselves, but to prepare for the little home to which they wish to invite the young woman of their choice to share, in order that they in their turn may become useful citizens of this country? Does the Parliamentary Secretary or any of his colleagues say that the whole of the young man's income should be taken from him in computating the family income, and that he should not be given the opportunity of saving a few pounds with which to give himself a decent start in the future life he intends to lead? Do hon. and right hon. Members opposite stand for that? If they do not, let them say so. If they do, let them say so. Why is there reticence on the part of those directly responsible in the House of Commons, and why is such concealment to be maintained? Why is it to be left to inspectors who are to go round to those conferences to divulge the intentions of the Government when the people who are responsible in the House of Commons will not take the House into their confidence? The dis- allowances in respect of those who have been thrifty and industrious are to be deplored. It is a tragic culmination of a life of hope and effort when people, who have striven for years, come to the conclusion that thrift does not pay. That is the lesson that the Government are driving home and have already driven home to the minds of at least 200,000 people, and they are driving it home to a larger number of people every day.

An equally deplorable result arises from the conclusion in the minds of a large number of decent working people, that the political machine is being worked to their disadvantage. They believe it, and they have a right to believe it. Hundreds of thousands of people have a right to believe that, a change of Government having taken place in circumstances of stress and confusion, the Government now in office are using political power to the disability of working people whose cases come to be dealt with under this machinery. The Government are creating discontent and despair in the hearts of thousands of people. Those who have for a long time resisted unemployment and all the horrors that unemployment brings, people who have known a good deal of suffering, domestic and industrial hardships in the last 10 or 12 years, have now reached almost the end of their powers of suffering and resistance. They have suffered, and we understand that there is to be no comfort, no encouragement, given to them. I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Lord President of the Council, who. I believe to be sympathetic men, before they finally pass this Bill, will reconsider all the points to which I have called attention.

The unemployed in large numbers are now being treated unfairly. Those who were singled out for special reprimand are those people who have been most industrious and most thrifty. Those who have won their stripes in social life and in the organisation of labour by constant attention to their responsibilities, are now being drummed out of the industrial army and out of the insurance scheme as though they were offenders against all the canons of decency and good conduct. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, speaking recently on the Wheat Bill, used a metaphor which I did not think was well chosen. He appealed to the authority of this House to give the farmers a sum of £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 a year in order to provide them with what he termed a firm platform upon which to stand in the bog which threatened to engulf them. I do not think that was a very good simile, because I did not see the bog or the danger. I would ask those who are representing the Government today, the Minister of Labour, the Parliamentary Secretary, the Lord President of the Council, and every member of the Cabinet, not to find a new platform for the unemployed, but to leave them in possession of that platform that they have built up for themselves. Their little bit of firm ground on which to stand is represented by a few pounds of savings in the savings bank, the interest on the house which they occupy, their small family income or the pension which has been given to them as a result of service in the industrial or the military field. I ask the Minister to tell the Committee whether there is any hope for each of the categories to which I have referred, because I believe that the system as it applies to every one of those categories is an injustice and an offence against people who deserve better from the Government.

Mr. SIMMONDS

Throughout the Debates on this Measure we have had various suggestions for increasing the rate of transitional payment. Whether this is to be done on the grand scale of indiscriminate relief for all, or by further minor modifications of the present Bill, the fact remains that in each and all of those cases an increased contribution from the Exchequer would be involved. If that be so, and I do not think it will be denied in any quarter of the House, may we examine how that increased contribution could be obtained? First, I am sure there will come into the minds of hon. Members opposite, borrowing. But borrowing for current expenditure has already been responsible for exterminating 80 per cent, of the forces they had in this House last summer. No doubt they will appreciate the compliment that I pay them when I say that even if we were to attempt to play with that fire, a like fate might well await us. In any case, we prefer to leave it well alone. The only other practical alternative is by increasing taxation.

Let us not forget what is the aim of these transitional payments. Is it not to ease the lot of the man or woman who has had a prolonged period of unemployment? Is it not the height of folly to attempt to alleviate hardship by means which, in the long run, can only serve to aggravate and extend it? Indeed, as one looks round the whole horizon of the causes of unemployment, there is no single cause within our control, with the possible exception of Free Trade, that has been so responsible for gradually increasing the statistics of unemployment as high taxation. The extent to which unemployment has been increased through the crippling of works and businesses throughout the country is well indicated in the returns of companies who are forced into liquidation each year. When one looks at those figures they are, indeed, dreary reading. In 1926 some 2,737 companies were forced into liquidation; in 1927, 2,703; in 1928, 3,034, and in 1930 the enormous total of 3,113. In 1930, 400 more companies went into liquidation than in 1928. Everyone who is familiar with the economics of trade and industry knows very well that one of the main causes of these large numbers of liquidations is high taxation. Not only has the State been sweeping into its insatiable coffers the money that we need for keeping our works and business premises abreast of the times but it has prevented us from accumulating adequate resources to enable us to weather the storm and the evil day.

Thus we have the logical result of the famous policy of taxing the rich to feed the poor. In all the declarations that we have heard I do not remember hon. and right hon. Members opposite ever explaining to their followers that the only practical outcome of this policy would be that the poor would have to be fed by means of the public assistance committees. Still, with certain glaring exceptions, during the last two years we have lived to learn. The lessons of the last two years have been no more correctly interpreted by any section of people than by the working men and working women. There are to-day not 1,000, but tens of thousands of them who realise that their employers are just struggling along from day to day on a hand-to-mouth basis. What is the attitude of those men and women towards any suggestion to increase taxation for these transitional payments Y They say immediately to every realist in this House and in the country, "For Heaven's sake forbear from piling on the last straw that will break the camel's back, that will cause the works of our employers to close down and throw us into the ranks of the unemployed." I think the Government might emphasise a little more in their policy the fact that they cannot see their way to increase these payments, simply because that increase would mar the whole basis of their policy, which is to reduce the numbers of the unemployed. Therefore, when we support this policy we may fairly claim that we are not showing less sympathy than hon. and right hon. Members opposite, but that we are exhibiting a good deal more sound common sense.

I have felt very much for the Leader of the Opposition during the past week. In the early part of the Session he made a pronouncement on the means test, quite free from any Socialistic doctrine, but just recently he seems to have been getting into hot water. Indeed, they seem to be converting him into a type of political lobster. As the water gets hotter and hotter the policy gets redder and redder. Last week we had a famous declaration from the benches opposite in favour of a policy for speeding up Utopia by indiscriminate relief on a non-contributory basis, in other words, doles for all, at the expense of none. We have heard recently remarks about party discipline as between the bench below the Gangway opposite and the bench above the Gangway, but I did not realise until we had that pronouncement last week that it would be in the end not those below but those above the Gangway who would have to toe the line.

6.30 p.m.

I should like to congratulate the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary on the stand they are taking against what I would call Monmouthism—the determination of one area to sponge on the rest of the country by administering these tests in an unfair manner. Any one in this House who has any sense of fairness will wish the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary full success in quick time in dealing with these cases. I have also felt some uncertainty about the wisdom of hon. Members of this House sitting on public assistance committees in their own divisions—a matter which has cropped up once or twice in these Debates. In Birmingham we insist, very properly, that a councillor shall not sit on a public assistance committee in his own ward, and I strongly urge that we cannot expect the law to be administered with equality throughout the country if hon. Members feel it essential to continue to sit on these committees in their own divisions.

The most important feature that has been evolved in the course of these Debates is the pronouncement made by the Minister of Health last Friday. He gave us clearly to understand that there was a day-to-day collaboration between Whitehall and public assistance committees in order that the various troubles and hardships, of which we have heard so many instances during the last few days, may be adequately dealt with. As the representative of an industrial area, where we have a large number of people liable to the means test, I look upon that as a most important pronouncement. In the past there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding on this subject. On the one hand, the unemployed have been told that this particular phase was not within the competency of public assistance committees, and they have heard at Question Time, and in the course of our Debates, that it was not a matter with which the Minister could deal. But the Minister can do a good deal by giving guidance to public assistance committees without necessarily giving them instructions, and I know that a great deal of guidance has been given to those public assistance committees which are desirous of receiving it. If the Minister of Health and the Minister of Labour will continue the good work of alleviating the undoubted hardship which any test over a large number of people must involve, I am sure that they will merit and receive, both in this House and in the country, a large measure of gratitude, well pressed down and flowing over.

Mr. COVE

This Parliament has been remarkable for the large number of maiden speeches that have been delivered, but in my experience very few of them by the younger Members of the House have been characterised by modesty. If I may say so, the speech to which we have just listened has not been characterised by much modesty. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member opposite will listen for a moment he will know something about it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Modesty!"] Another thing that has characterised the speeches of younger Members of this House has been their reactionary nature. This Parliament is undoubtedly a die-hard Parliament, a Parliament from which we can expect very little sympathy. The younger Members at least have not the same deep and abiding sympathy with those who have been so unfortunate in life as to be thrown out of employment. The hon. Member for Duddeston (Mr. Simmonds) has a remedy—a remedy which we have heard from younger Members opposite more than once in this Parliament, and it is, that if we are to cure unemployment, to relieve these people from the dire necessity of a means test, then the thing we have to do is to relieve taxation; it is taxation that is burdening industry, breaking its back, causing rampant unemployment throughout the country and the terrible poverty which now exists. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear! "] I hear an hon. Member saying "Hear, hear." Without committing myself to that proposition, I will accept it for the purpose of argument, and ask the hon. Member opposite whether he is really prepared to put that policy into effect. If taxation is a burden upon industry, then I invite the hon. Member to come with us and relieve industry of the terrible burden of taxation.

Mr. SIMMONDS rose—

Mr. COVE

The hon. Member will have his chance in a moment. If taxation is breaking down industry, then I invite hon. Members opposite to come with us and relieve industry of that burden. What is the burden? At least two-thirds of the burden of taxation upon industry is the burden of War Loan and War Debt. If there is any sincerity, any reality whatever in the claim that taxation is a burden upon industry, then I suggest that our efforts would be far more fruitful if we reduced the taxation due to War Debt rather than reduce the miserable amount that is paid to the unemployed.

Mr. SIMMONDS rose—

Mr. COVE

I want to finish this part of my argument if the hon. Member will allow me.

The CHAIRMAN (Sir Dennis Herbert)

The hon. Member is getting far away from the subject. It is all very well to suggest that it should be done by a reduction of taxation, but when it comes to going into the specific question as to what taxation should be reduced then the hon. Member is getting away from the subject.

Mr. COVE

It has been mentioned over and over again that we should reduce taxation. The method of reducing taxation in this Bill is by reducing unemployment pay, and I hope it is relevant to suggest that if we are going to get a reduction of taxation by reducing the payment to the unemployed it is also relevant to suggest that there should be a reduction of the huge burden of War Debt which now hangs heavily upon industry in this country. I do not want to pursue it any further. I should welcome a wider discussion on this issue, because it is plain that no effective reduction of taxation can take place unless the War Debt is tackled.

The CHAIRMAN

Order!

Mr. COVE

I do not intend to pursue that, except to say that we on this side totally deny the proposition that taxation is a burden upon industry. I take my stand on the Colwyn Committee Report, and on the statement of Dr. Coates, both of whom have emphatically declared, after the most minute examination, that, after all, you do not pay taxes until you have made profits, and that in itself, disposes of the suggestion that taxation is a burden upon industry. Let me come to the Bill. This is a very small Bill, but to me it raises tremendous difficulties and is full of human import. Small as it is, it is one of the most significant Bills that has been or can be introduced into this House. Why de I say that? First of all, I say it because the Clause which we are now discussing embodies clearly and distinctly the breakdown of the capitalist system to provide a decent standard of life for millions of our fellowmen. It shows that the capitalist system under which we are living cannot provide 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 people with a decent standard of life. It also shows that the Government are being driven in defence of an inequitable industrial system to impose upon our people unjust hardships and miseries.

I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary two questions. In the first place, what is the ethical justification for this Clause? What is the moral justification for it? The only ethical justification is that a man must not get something for nothing. What does that postulate? It postulates that a working man sits down and works his brains, and says "How can I get something for nothing?" It postulates on the part of the working man a desire to exploit other people, to get something for himself for which he has given no return to society. Is that a true picture of the unemployed man? Where is the unemployed man who sits down in that frame of mind? Where is the unemployed man who folds his arms and sits down and says, "I am going to get something for nothing, I am going to get something out of the State for nothing. I am not going to give any work, to render any service to society"? Where is the working man who deliberately says, "I will not give anything to society. I am going to get everything out of society"; something for nothing If ever there was a caricature of the British working man it is embodied in that statement. The working man does not say, "I am going to get something for nothing because I am unemployed." There is not an unemployed man within the knowledge of hon. Members who takes that attitude. The only justification I have heard is that we must stop people getting something for nothing. If ever there was a wrong, a wicked, diagnosis of the economic situation and the moral forces which determines men's actions, it is there.

The unemployed man, in the first place, is a victim of society. He is unemployed through no fault of his own. He is unemployed because of the very necessity for progress in industry. If you absorb every unemployed man it means that you have a static society, no progress in industry, no technical development, no reorganisation. To put it in another way, the unemployed man is the price of technical and industrial progress. He is a symbol of it; he is the product of it. Under the capitalist system of society you have now come to the point where statistics prove that you cannot have progress without having the unemployed man. Rationalisation means increased unemployment. Every new invention means increased unemployment, and, therefore, the unemployed man is the victim of the industrial system under which he lives. Unless you wish to be inhuman and to act in a class-conscious manner, so as to protect class privilege, you have no right to apply not only a means test, but a test which provides no decent standard of life. Something for nothing—

The CHAIRMAN

I have tried very hard to see how the hon. Member relates this subject to the question that the Clause stand part of the Bill. He is now bringing up a matter that is definitely outside the Order under which the means test is carried out.

Mr. COVE

I thought there was to be a very wide discussion.

The CHAIRMAN

As wide as can be allowed, but the hon. Member cannot be allowed to open a general discussion on the state of society.

Mr. COVE

In my opinion, the means test does raise the question of the state of society in a very acute form. But I bow to your Ruling. I have asked the Parliamentary Secretary to justify the means test on ethical or on economic grounds. Why should there be a means test? Is there any reason at all for it in the state of industrial society? I say no. In the Macmillan report I raw figures which showed that the productive power of society had gone up 25 per cent. and the population had gone up only 5 per cent. Society can produce more than it can consume. Since that is so there is no justification at all in the economics of society for this Clause.

The CHAIRMAN

This is the last time that I can ask the hon. Member to confine his remarks to the question that the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. COVE

I am sorry. I was under a misapprehension. I really thought that we were to discuss the matter in a very wide way. I have here the minutes of evidence of the Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance, Part III. It is the report of a special investigation in industrial areas into the subsequent history of persons with disallowed claims to unemployment benefit. I would direct attention to what the report says with regard to unemployed men being a burden on their families. It means the break-up of the family home. There is no justification for that on ethical or on economic grounds. The Government have no right to throw the burden of maintaining these people on to the family, until society itself has established a family income. We have not a family wage at present; we have only an individual wage for individual effort, made by particular persons in a particular occupation backed up by the strength of their trade union. The report, after dealing with help by families and so on, and after showing the bright side of the picture, continues: There is, however, a darker side to this picture of the mutual help rendered by members of a family group to one another. All the reports bring out the fact that the burden of maintaining the disallowed persons was in greater or less degree usually a case hardship to others. That is not the statement of a Socialist speaker. The report goes on: Often the subsidy had to come out of the earnings of a casual worker or out of the benefit drawn by some other wage-earner in the home. In this way the burden was not removed; it was only spread. We shall oppose this Clause. We shall oppose the whole principle of a means test. I am glad that the party to which I belong has now declared its complete opposition to a means test.

Mr. HUDSON

Do I understand that the hon. Member is going to vote against this Clause.

Mr. COVE

Yes. [Laughter.] I mean no. [Laughter.] There is nothing in that. It is all right.

Mr. HUDSON

How is the hon. Member going to square his ethical objection with his conscience?

Mr. COVE

The hon. Gentleman knows quite well that it is not within our power to improve this Clause. That power rests with the Government. He knows that we are bound to accept this Clause to-night, but as far as a declaration of policy is concerned—

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has been completely out of order in a great part of what he has been saying. The Clause only authorises a continuance of this particular legislation in this particular form, in other words to continue these payments, subject to a means test. The hon. Member cannot discuss an alteration of the means test.

Brigadier-General SPEARS

I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary one question. It was a question which I put last Friday, and I should like an answer. It referred to the casual labourer. I pointed out that if a man does an occasional day's work, by the regulations as they exist now a sixth of the total determination of the family must be deducted. That is a discouragement to a man. The suggestion I put on Friday was that, should a man be offered an odd day's work, the deduction of the sixth of the determination should be levied on the man's part of the determination and not on that of the whole family.

Mr. M. W. BEAUMONT

I rise to appeal to the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove). The hon. Member started by reproving my hon. Friend the Member for Duddeston (Mr. Simmonds) for lack of modesty, and then told him that if he listened he would learn something. We are still waiting. I confess that I am in some doubt as to what really are the hon. Member's views on this Clause, because after a fulmination of some 20 minutes he, in the space of half a minute, said, first, that he would vote against the Clause, and then that he would not. His contribution to the Debate can, therefore, have been hardly as valuable as he anticipated that it would be. I do not want to go at length into the complicated question of the means test. That has been thoroughly discussed from all angles. Whatever may be the rights and wrongs of the matter, it is a question on which the last election largely turned. The people of this country gave their decision in no uncertain voice, and if the Government to-day did anything to weaken the policy that was then put forward they would be betraying the trust which they inherited at the election.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. BATEY

I am glad that we are having another opportunity of protesting against the means test. We are not opposing the payment of the £20,000,000 to carry on the transitional benefit. Our one fear is that when we get to 1933 the Government may think of stopping transitional payments altogether. Our second fear is that the means test will continue up to 1933. Whenever we get the opportunity of protesting against the means test we shall make that protest. My regret is that in the Committee stage of the Bill it is not possible for us to move an Amendment that would raise the question of the means test. If we could do so on such an Amendment we would divide the House. As men have gone off transitional benefit they have gone on to the Poor Law. The Parliamentary Secretary interrupted an hon. Friend who made that statement by saying "Give us the figures; prove the statement." I will give him the latest figures for Durham County. In the Durham administrative area the authorities have saved on the means test £2,470 per week, but the public assistance committees report that they are paying in relief, owing to the discontinuance of unemployment benefit, no less than £1,710 per week.

The Parliamentary Secretary last Friday made a statement that rather amazed me. It. seemed difficult to understand at the time, and, reading it again, it seems more difficult to understand. He was dealing with those who, receiving transitional benefit, had a certain amount of funds at their disposal and said: In these circumstances, it is not fair to the honest man that the dishonest person should be placed in a position to get away with it through lack of inquiry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th April, 1932; col. 448, Vol. 264.] Did he mean that? Did he mean that all those who had drawn transitional benefit and who were not really poverty-stricken were dishonest? I will give a case from my own division, about which I received to-day a reply from the Ministry of Labour. This man says: I am a miner. My wife happens to have money.… He has been fortunate enough, more fortunate than most of us, to marry a wife with money. The interest on what she has is £62 a year, and we have the house we live in. She does not save anything. Is it fair that she has to keep me? I married her to keep her. She was British enough to put her money in British stock, so tell them to play the man and be British. The £62 is made up of £60 interest on War Stock and £2 bank interest. Does the Parliamentary Secretary say that that man, who has had his transitional benefit stopped because his wife has £62 a year, was dishonest so long as he was drawing transitional benefit? We, who come from distressed areas where thousands are drawing transitional benefit, resent the Parliamentary Secretary describing these people as dishonest. Does he mean that they are dishonest because they are drawing State benefits? If he does, it applies to far more than these people.

One would like the Parliamentary Secretary to take a leaf out of the book of his chief, because he has given the impression since he became Parliamentary Secretary that he delights in such things as the means test and the stopping of unemployment benefit, and that he takes a thorough delight in them. [HON. MEMBERS "No!"] Yes, he does. That is the impression he has given me. I have seen Ministers dealing at that Box with the Unemployment Fund and with benefit for the last 10 years. He has certainly given me the impression that he is the most heartless and the most stony-hearted Minister who has dealt with unemployment in the last 10 years.

I want now to deal with the statement made by the Minister of Health last Friday. I raised the question as to the promise of the Prime Minister, when addressing his constituency in Durham, to have the means test reconsidered. I said then that one newspaper, in reporting the Prime Minister's speech, put the following heading in black type at the head of the report: Premier Promises to Revise the Means Test. I did not say he promised to revise it but he promised to have it reconsidered. This is the report of his speech: In a reference to the means test he (the Prime Minister) said that every honest and decent workman knew that the whole question had got to be reconsidered. If a better means could be found, the Government was not opposed to doing it. What the Prime Minister promised was that the means test 'would be reconsidered, but the Minister of Health, speaking last Friday, made this statement: The Prime Minister, if I remember rightly, said—and it is the interpretation. also of the hon. Member—that if in the course of administration any notorious hardships were discovered, it must be the immediate business of the Administration to consider possible alternative methods by which they could be removed."—[0FFICIAL REPORT, 8th April, 1932; col. 515, Vol. 264.] That is altogether a different thing from what the Prime Minister promised. The Prime Minister did not say in his speech anything like what the Minister of Health wanted to make out that he said. The Prime Minister gave a definite promise to that meeting in County Durham that the Government would be prepared to reconsider the means test and that, if a better way could be found, the Government would be prepared to adopt it. Have the Ministry of Labour or the Government reconsidered the means test? Have they taken any steps to deal with the principle of the means test which was what the Prime Minister had in mind? Instead of the House being told that the Government had reconsidered the principle of the means test, we were simply told by the Minister of Labour that the Government are in favour of the means test continuing as it is at present till June, 1933. It is not fair for the Prime Minister, who is the head of the Government, to make a statement at a public meeting that they would be prepared to consider the means test and then to do nothing, and far those in charge of the Ministry of Labour to ignore that statement and to go on carrying out the means test on the same lines until June, 1933.

The Minister of Labour seemed thoroughly optimistic that all the Ministry had to do was to wait until the Royal Commission's report was in hand, and then they would be able to consider action with regard to the means test and to unemployment. The Minister is optimistic if he thinks it is possible to receive any help from the Royal Commission's report. My experience of Royal Commissions is that they are set up, they take evidence, and they produce a report, on which generally no action is taken. Royal Commissions are generally set up in order to shelve a difficult question. When, sitting on the other side of the House, I voted for the setting up of this Royal Commission, my intention was simply to shelve a difficult question. My impression was that we were simply succeeding in shelving a difficult question and that the best thing to do was to send it to a Royal Commission and that would be the last we would hear of it. Of course, it is the regular thing the Prime Minister did. In spite of the optimism of the Minister of Labour, I still believe the Royal Commission will not be much help in dealing with this question.

The Minister has spoken from time to time about periodic alteration of the law dealing with unemployment. Since I came into this House in 1922 we have averaged far more than one Bill a year on the subject. If the law relating to unemployment insurance is in a chaotic condition, it is because so many Bills have been passed through this House, and because it is so difficult a problem that since 1921 no Government has been able to bring in a Bill which would clear up the law and make it simple. The Minister also said that the party opposite was in favour of the insurance principle and of getting the fund back on an insurance basis. He was far too optimistic when he said that. It is not possible with this fund as it is and with so many men unemployed—

The CHAIRMAN

This Clause does not deal at all with that point.

Mr. BATEY

It does not, and, therefore, I claim that the Minister of Labour was wrong when he referred to it, but he was allowed to do it. I agree that I am out of order, and I shall not go any further. We are informed that a conference of public assistance committees has been arranged in the north of England, to cover the counties of Durham and Northumberland and to deal with the questions of the means test and transitional payments in that area. I wish to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health what it is proposed to do if that conference fails? The object of the conference is well known. The Government are dissatisfied that so much money is required for transitional payments in the north of England. They think that more people ought to be prevented from drawing transitional payment. They ought to keep in mind that already the inspector has been going round the committees in the county of Durham and saying "You have to deal with these transitional payments on a Poor Law basis and if you do not we will supplant you."

The CHAIRMAN

I must warn the hon. Member that I cannot allow this matter to be gone into on the question which is now before the Committee.

Mr. BATEY

We are dealing with transitional payments and the proposal in the Bill is that these payments should continue until June, 1933. The only object of the conference to which I refer is to deal with transitional payments.

The CHAIRMAN

I understand that it is to deal with the administration of something which is already the law. At present we are merely discussing whether that law should continue or not for a certain period. We cannot now discuss the administration of the means test.

Mr. LAWSON

On a point of Order. We are in practice discussing transitional payments, and, on every occasion when this question has been before us, it has been found necessary for the Minister of Health to give answers and explanations upon these points because of the joint administration by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour which is involved in this matter. Is it not, therefore, permissible to put questions directly relating to the work of the other Department concerned?

The CHAIRMAN

Not on the question that this Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. BATEY

If I am ruled out of order I shall not continue, but the Minister of Health dealt definitely with this subject last Friday.

The CHAIRMAN

The Debate on Friday was not on this question. I must ask the hon. Member to accept my Ruling.

Mr. LANSBURY

I do not wish to question your Ruling, Sir Dennis, but this Clause is really the Bill, and in discussing the Clause we are discussing, in effect, what we discussed on Friday. I suggest, respectfully that we are entitled to argue on the administration of the means test, that the Government ought to provide more money here instead of pushing people on to the public assistance authorities and the local rates.

The CHAIRMAN

I must adhere to my Ruling that what the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) was saying in regard to this conference, is not in order on the question at the present before the Committee.

Mr. BATEY

I will not carry it any further. I content myself with again protesting against the means test, and expressing my satisfaction that this party, small as it is, will have an opportunity of making that protest. I do not know if I am in order in referring to the question of who originated the means test. The statement has been going round the country that the Minister of Health in the last Labour Government was the originator of the test. I consider that is a most unfair statement. [Interruption.] I want to tell the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health that he is absolutely wrong in seeking to lay the blame there. As one who has been keenly interested in this Unemployment Fund over a long period, and who has followed closely the progress of every Bill concerning it for the last 10 years, I wish to say that that statement is one of the most unfair things that I know of. For anyone to attempt to say that the late Minister of Health was the originator of the means test—[HON. MEMBERS: "The Anomalies Act."] That is another thing—

The CHAIRMAN

I do not think that any of these matters are dealt with in this Clause.

Mr. BATEY

I only want to protest against the attempt to saddle the late Minister of Health with this responsibility. The late Minister of Health did one of the finest things that a man ever did in connection with this question, in January, 1930, long before there was any idea of sending the unemployed before the public assistance committees, when he issued a circular urging that men receiving disability pensions should be treated as kindly as possible when before the public assistance committees. [HON. MEMBERS: "For Poor Law purposes!"] Yes, for Poor Law purposes alone, but he is in no way responsible for the means test. The people responsible for the means test are the National Government.

The CHAIRMAN

I must again ask the hon. Member to confine himself to the question before the Committee, which is whether this Clause should stand part of the Bill or not.

Mr. BATEY

It seems most difficult to do so because, if I understood anything, I understood that the Clause raised the question of the means test and I am discussing nothing else but the means test. However, I have said all that I wanted to say. I hope that this party will take every opportunity of protesting against the means test and will not hesitate to divide against it on every opportunity.

Mr. HUDSON

This Debate has wandered rather far from the question that this Clause should stand part of the Bill, but if the Committee will allow me I will try briefly to answer one or two of the more important points which have been raised. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) took me to task for something which I said on Friday. If he will carefully refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will find that when I made the remarks to which he has called attention, I was dealing with the necessity for inquiring into means in these cases, and I said quite frankly that there was a duty to make inquiry in these cases, and it was only in that respect that I said that it was not fair to the honest man that the dishonest man should be able to get away with it for want of inquiry. I said that in the majority of cases the statement of applicants could be accepted, but that there was a minority of cases in which inquiry was necessary, and I would only remind hon. Gentlemen opposite of one case which is familiar to many of us in which 14 applicants stated that their collective earnings were only £15 odd and it was found on investigation that those earnings were over £40. That is the type of thing to which I referred.

The hon. Member went on to refer to the increased cost of the Poor Law in Durham and he alleged that this was due to the operation of the means test. But it is perfectly obvious that no increase of expenditure can fall on the local authorities as a result of the means test. It is up to the local public assistance committee to decide whether a man shall receive transitional payments, up to the maximum of the benefit scale, and if the public assistance committee decide that the man is not in need of such payments the public assistance authority acting as the Poor Law authority will not give him any relief. It is therefore impossible, as I have explained on several occasions, for any extra charge to fall on the local authority as a, result of the means test.

Mr. BATEY

Then, how does the hon. Gentleman explain this return which has just been sent out by the chief officer of the public assistance committee in Durham for the last Saturday in March, in which he gives these figures?

Mr. HUDSON

Whatever may be the cause of the increase in the charge in Durham it is not the means test. There are many possible causes. Men may have been disallowed under the Anomalies Act. There are half a dozen different possible causes, but the means test, by itself, is certainly not the cause, and I venture to assert that the chief public assistance officer in Durham and the chief clerk of the Durham County Council would agree with me. May I deal in passing with the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Carlisle (Brigadier-General Spears). I am afraid that I have not had time to go into the matter fully, but as I understand the position the law lays down that a man who is employed on one day during one week is not entitled to receive benefit in respect of that day. The matter is one which legislation would be needed to cure, but I will go into it carefully and let the hon. and gallant Member know about it.

The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) said he thought it was very bad luck that the good man, the man who had been in steady employment all his life should suffer because of the undue optimism of the Blanesburgh Committee. I would remind the hon. Member that before 1927 when the Blanesburgh Committee's recommendations were passed, substantially, into law, there was a definite limit on the number of weeks for which a man could draw benefit. A man who was unemployed between 1911 and 1920, would only have been able to draw 15 weeks' benefit in any one year irrespective of the number of weeks contributions he had paid. From 1920 to 1927 he would only have been able to draw 26 weeks' benefit, in any one year, however many stamps he might have had before that year. Therefore, he has only really been put back to-day in the position in which he was before.

The hon. Member went on to say that it was very hard that a man who had been in insurance since 1911 and had paid at least £50 in contributions should now have to come and ask for transitional payments. I would point out to him that such a case is impossible under the present Bill. We are discussing here the extension of transitional payments to persons who cannot show 30 stamps in the course of the last two years. There are 52 weeks in a year and 104 in two years, and a man may have drawn about £70 in the course of the last two years before he falls under the provisions of this Bill at all.

Mr. D. GRENFELL

I may have been wrong in not dividing those two, but a man may have paid from 1912 up to 1929 and now come on to transitional benefit.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. HUDSON

He might come on to transitional payments after 26 weeks, but certainly not because of the provisions that we are discussing in this Clause. I will go further and say that the real reason why that man has to be treated so hardly is because of the extravagance of hon. Members opposite. If it were not for the fact that they have, by their actions, both generally and in respect of this particular matter, caused the fund to run into debt to the tune of millions of pounds, we should not have required these provisions. The hon. Member asked what has happened to the 200,000 persons who have been refused transitional payments, and he suggested that many of them—in fact I gather that he suggested that all of them, or nearly all—

Mr. GRENFELL

Some of them.

Mr. HUDSON

—had gone on to the Poor Law. He pointed out that there was a peculiar coincidenece in the 200,000 who had been denied transitional payments and the 200,000 who, he said, had been thrown on the Poor Law for the last six months. My answer to that is the same as that which I made to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) the other day. In the first place, the two figures are not comparable, because the number of persons in receipt of outdoor relief, namely, 200,000, include the whole of the members of a family, and if you want to compare them at all fairly with the numbers of persons who have been refused benefit, you ought to divide the figure by four; in other words, there are only about 50,000 heads of households who have come on to the Poor Law, as compared with 200,000 who have been refused benefit. Again I say that it is obvious that no public assistance authority or committee would refuse a man transitional payment one day and allow him the next day to come along and claim relief under the Poor Law. Therefore, there is no connection whatever between the two cases.

Mr. GRENFELL

If the hon. Member will read my speech in the morning, he will find that I referred to dependants.

Mr. HUDSON

It is impossible to compare the two cases, and—

Mr. LANSBURY

On a point of Order. We are discussing something which I understood you, Sir Dennis, to rule out of order just now. One of my hon. Friends wants to reply, and if the Parliamentary Secretary is in order, we want to be allowed to reply.

The CHAIRMAN

I think there is a great deal of difference. As I understand it, the question at the moment is as to the effect of the means test, not the way in which it was administered.

Mr. LANSBURY

On that point, we do not ask you to stop the hon. Member, but we do want to be able to reply to his arguments.

The CHAIRMAN

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I cannot give these Rulings in advance as to what is or is not in order.

Mr. LANSBURY

That is all very well, but our people have been stopped from arguing in the same way.

Mr. HUDSON

I do not want to pursue the question any further. I am merely trying to give an answer to the question put to me by the hon. Member for Gower, and I have dealt with that point. It is clear that the two figures have nothing to do with each other, and that one is not affected by the other. The hon. Member asked what the Government are going to tell the conference of local authorities, but you, Sir Dennis, would not allow the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) to pursue that subject, and therefore I think I had better leave it.

The hon. Member went on to refer to the question of compensation cases. As he knows, I have every sympathy with the cases put forward. I think a great number of these cases are those of men deserving of the fullest sympathy, in view of the fact that, as the result of their injuries, although they do not get 100 per cent. compensation, nevertheless, owing to the circumstances of the district and their injuries, they stand very little chance of getting a job again. That is precisely the kind of question on which we asked the Royal Commission to give us their assistance and advice, because they are definitely the kind of persons who fall outside the insurance scheme, as a result of the injuries they have received. Contrary to the belief of the hon. Member for Spennymoor, when we get the report of the Royal Commission we intend, not necessarily to act in accordance with it, but to consider it and to bring forward comprehensive legislation. I think I have now covered most of the important points that have been raised in the Debate, and I trust that we may now be allowed to get the Clause.

Mr. McENTEE

In spite of what has been said by the Parliamentary Secretary, I assert that the Poor Law relief figures are going up as a definite consequence of the means test. The hon. Gentleman said that it was impossible that it should be so, but it is a very extraordinary thing that those figures are going up side by side with the administration of the means test. I want to put forward some cases that have come under my personal notice in the actual administration of the means test by members of the same public assistance committees, sitting at different times and in different places. These committees are taking entirely different views as to what their duties are to the people who are seeking relief, and it is well known that in one area a man will be turned down, while in another area within a quarter of a mile members of the same public assistance committee will allow an exactly similar case to receive benefit.

I could give scores of instances, personal instances that have come under my own observation, or that have come to see me with regard to the treatment they have received. They are turned down, and many of them interview a member of the guardians, or myself, or some other hon. Member, or somebody else who they think has an influence with the public assistance committee, and after inquiring into their cases, members of the same committee, sitting as a full committee, will grant them Poor Law relief when they have already been turned down in regard to transitional payment. I can give scores of such cases in the area with which I am most familiar, and I say to the Parliamentary Secretary that there is one direct cause for the increase in the poverty as it shows itself in the area a part of which I represent in this House. After all, I keep my eyes open, and I am familiar with what occurs in my district, which is also the district in which I happen to live, and I know its people. They come to me with their troubles, and I hear of scores of cases such as those that I have mentioned.

When I go to the public and semi-public committees and charitable organisations in the town, I see the same thing taking place there. The numbers of children who are being fed in our schools in Walthamstow have more than doubled during the last year, and everybody in the town who has anything to do with the administration of local affairs attributes it, and rightly, I think, in spite of what has been said by the Parliamentary Secretary, to the administration of the means test. I have figures in my hand dealing with the latest possible three weeks, showing the amount of outdoor relief that has been paid, as compared with the same three weeks last year, and I find that the increase is approximately 16 per cent. The figures, in numbers, are for 1931, 5,067—they are official figures, and there is no question about their accuracy—whereas in 1932 for the same period they were 5,742. In actual money and poor relief in kind, the amount in 1931 was £3,360 and in 1932 £3,880, a difference of £520, or approximately 16 per cent. increase.

In the case of the children who are being fed on the recommendation of the head teachers in the schools in the same area, they have more than doubled, and the amount of milk that is being distributed to mothers and children under the Order of the Minister of Health has had to be increased very considerably. I should have been interested to hear, as the hon. Gentleman said that the means test is not the reason, what in his view is the reason for these increases which we find all over the country. They have occurred in every area where the means test is being administered to any extent, but they do not show in those districts where the means test has not been administered to anything Iike the same extent. If there are causes other than the one that we are suggesting, and if the hon. Gentleman knows what they are, why does he not tell us what they are? If he does not know them, perhaps it is as well to go off on a sideline, as he did, by simply denying the accuracy of our statements and giving no proof at all except his assertion. I am not prepared to accept his assertion, in view of the figures and the facts that I have quoted, which could be multiplied all over the country, in every area where the means test has been administered. You can go to other areas where there are practically no unemployed, and consequently where there is no means test, and you cannot quote any figures side by side with those figures to show that there is any variation in the general rule operating there, but where the means test does operate, you get these varying figures.

As to the people who have been struck off transitional payment, I have noticed in my area that the older people are suffering most. I get them in scores, from 60 years up particularly, coming to me and saying, "What on earth are we to do?" They have reached an age where it is almost impossible to get a job, in view of the conditions now existing, conditions for which the National Government are largely responsible, and they are asking what they are to do. They say, "We go to the public assistance committee, because we are ordered to go there by the Employment Exchange, to have our case considered, and there we get no consideration at all, or practically none. We are not allowed to bring anyone to state our case, and we are without experience of such things." You have to draw all this out of these people, who are generally uneducated men who have worked at casual labour all their life, and they are quite unable to state a case for themselves when they go before a committee. As a consequence, they are turned down without any adequate consideration. They go from the committee and apply to a relieving officer, who generally takes a deeper and more personal interest in their cases than any committee before whom they have gone, and which, after all, has not the time to consider in detail the position of these people. When the relieving officer goes into their cases more deeply than they have been gone into by a public assistance committee, he sends them back, and they get relief from the public assistance committee and the guardians. That is the reason the figures have run up. The Parliamentary Secretary knows it perfectly well. If he does not, he is not familiar with what is happening all over the country as are some of us who are more intimately associated with these people and know them. We have been associated with them all our lives. I am very proud to have been associated with them, because, after all, they are the men and women who produce all that is produced in life; yet they are getting such scant consideration from the people whom they feed, clothe, and house.

I am asking that the means test should be administered in a more reasonable spirit, that greater consideration should be given to the men and women who are seeking to have transitional payments, and that they should not be turned off, as they are being turned off, in great numbers without any reasonable consideration being given to their cases. When fuller consideration is given, generally on the recommendation of the relieving officer who knows more of their circumstances, they get poor relief after they have been denied transitional payments. The ratepayers will be driven to give consideration to the administration of the means test, because, as a consequence of its administration, people are being driven on to the local rates and are receiving Poor Law relief; they are also receiving milk through the public health department with the sanction of the Minister of Health, and children are having meals in the schools with the sanction of the President of the Board of Education. People are also getting help from charitable organisations because those organisations know the conditions under which they live and have greater sympathy with them than the National Government apparently have. It will be impossible for any of us to vote against this Bill because we do not want to inflict greater hardship than is inflicted, but it does not follow because we are not going to vote against it that we do not see the hardship and that we are not doing right in making our protest.

Mr. BRIANT

The question raised by the hon. Member is so important that the Minister should get returns from the local authorities of the number of persons who have been refused transitional payments and who ultimately apply for Poor Law relief. I cannot understand the contention that these people go on to Poor Law relief. The public assistance committee is the body that recommends whether they shall get transitional payments, and, in doing that, they take into consideration the whole of the facts. It seems inconceivable that public assistance committees should relieve the State of the burden of transitional payments and add a burden to their local rates by forcing these people on to Poor Law relief. If my hon. Friends are right, we should know the facts. My hon. Friends opposite are not quite right in saying that the average man is perplexed by having to go before a committee. In London not one case in 20 goes before a committee. The cases are settled on returns made by the applicant.

Mr. HICKS

What about appeals?

Mr. BRIANT

The number of appeals is very few in London. It is not my experience that cases receive scant consideration. In London 40 per cent. of the cases have already applied for poor relief. Their circumstances are known, and it would be a real grievance if the applicants were compelled to go before another body. In London 40 per cent. of the cases have been in contact with the Poor Law before, so that the facts are known to the authorities. It would be a grievance if they had to go to another body who would have to start from the very beginning to get facts which had already been elicited. The arguments of hon. Members opposite are not sound on one or two points, but their point in regard to the number of persons transferred from transitional payments to ordinary Poor Law relief is of sufficient importance to be cleared up. A return should be obtained from every public assistance committee of the numbers of people who have been refused transitional payments or whose payments have been reduced, and the number of such persons who obtain Poor Law relief.