HC Deb 06 July 1933 vol 280 cc487-8
25. Mr. McENTEE

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Penge public assistance committee are requiring about 40 unemployed men in receipt of public assistance to carry out test work alongside regular wage earners in the preparation of tennis courts; and whether, in view of the fact that test work should not be of a character which would ordinarily be done by labour employed at wages, he will make representations to the public assistance committee in question?

Sir H. YOUNG

I am informed that the men in question are performing test work under supervision in a group by themselves, and that the work which they are required to carry out as a condition of the grant of relief would not have been put in hand for wages. I see no occasion for my intervention.

Mr. McENTEE

Could not this work be carried out, as many other similar schemes have been carried out, by the local council making up the payment of these men to the ordinary trade union conditions prevailing in the district?

Sir H. YOUNG

I do not recognise the relevancy of the supplementary question. The relevant circumstance in this case is that, according to my information this work would not otherwise have been carried out on any ordinary commercial basis.

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