§ 46. Mr. MACLAYasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the acuteness of the crisis has moved from the financial stability of the country and is now centred on the question of continued unemployment, he will take into account the difference in the cost of living between summer and winter months, and endeavour to find some means of increasing the benefit paid to the unemployed during the winter months?
§ The PRIME MINISTERIf my hon. Friend works out the averages of the cost-of-living index figures for the six winter months and the six summer months he will find, I think, that for the past five years at any rate the difference between them is so slight as to afford no sufficient basis for his suggestion.