HC Deb 07 December 1934 vol 295 cc2042-5

(1) Rules made by the Treasury in pursuance of section fifty-one of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934 (which relates to superannuation rights of officers or servants of local authorities entering the service of the Unemployment Assistance Board), shall with such modification as may be necessary for making those rules applicable to the case apply with respect to an officer or servant of a local authority with pensionable local authority service who becomes an officer or servant of either of the Commissioners in like manner as such rules would have applied if he had become an officer or servant of the Unemployment Assistance Board.

(2) For the purposes of this section "pensionable local authority service "has the same meaning as in the said section fifty-one.

(3) Any rules modified as provided in this section shall be laid before Parliament.—[Mr. Dingle Foot.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

3.5 p.m.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The object of the Clause is to safeguard the superannuation rights of any local government officer who may be transferred from the local government service to the service of the Commissioners set up by the Bill. As the Committee is aware, Section 51 of the Unemployment Act, which we passed last Session, provided for safeguarding the superannuation rights of these officers if they were transferred from local government service to the service of the Unemployment Assistance Board. All that we are asking is that similar provision should be made for any officer who may be transferred to the service of the Commissioners. I do not suppose there will be many such cases, and I anticipate that most of these taken on the staff of the Commissioners will not previously have been taking part in local government work, but a great deal will depend on the staff that is appointed by these Commissioners. The Commissioners will be a central body, and a good deal will depend on those who represent them in the various districts with which they are concerned. Therefore, it ought to be made easy for them to recruit their staff where they think best. If they wish to appoint someone who has previously been in local government service, it might be that a local government officer would be reluctant to leave the local government service and transfer to the service of the Commissioners if he thought that by doing so, he would lose his superannuation rights. I think it would also make it easier for the Commissioners to recruit their staff where they wished to do so.

The work that is going to be done under this Bill is not merely temporary work. It is true that the Commissioners' functions cease at the end of three years, unless Parliament decides to extend the term, but it is provided, I think, in Clause 6 that after that the functions of the Commissioners may be transferred by Order in Council to the Unemployment Assistance Board. That means that the functions will go on, even if the Commissioners do not, and people who have been dealing with these particular tasks for a period of three years will no doubt still be required, so that it is not as if they were being taken on merely temporarily. The Government have already accepted the principle of this Clause in the Unem- ployment Act of last Session, and I ask them to accept the same principle in this Bill.

3.8 p.m.

Mr. STANLEY

I think the analogy drawn by the hon. Member between this Bill and the Unemployment Act is a rather false one. It is true that in the Unemployment Act provisions on the lines intimated by the hon. Member were inserted to deal with these people, but the difference is that the Unemployment Act set up a Board which was intended to be permanent in its character, and, therefore, it was quite reasonable that the Board should, as in fact they did, invite people to transfer from the local government service to permanent employment with the Board. But these Commissioners, after all, are limited to two years or such further period as from time to time Parliament may decide, and it would obviously not only be unwise from the point of view of the Commissioners, but clearly unattractive from the point of view of the people to be employed, that you should tempt away a man in the permanent service of a local authority with the offer of two years' employment with people who, at the end of that time, might terminate their existence.

Therefore, there can be no question of the Commissioners permanently employing people who are now engaged in the local government service. They may want for a short period or for the full length of their existence the loan of certain local government officials. In that case, it should be for the Commissioner and the local authority concerned to make special arrangements to meet the case so as to make it possible and indeed attractive for him, if the man's position is insufficiently safeguarded, to accept the offer. I do not think there is any reason for inserting a permanent provision of this kind—which is intended for a different class of organisation—to deal with the purely temporary employment which must be the case here.

Mr. JANNER

Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that it will be possible in the event of a temporary transference to the service of the Commissioners for the pension provisions to remain in force? If so, that would to some extent meet the case. Is it possible within a pensions scheme for a man to be transferred on loan to the Commissioners?

Mr. STANLEY

If the position of the man on loan is to be safeguarded, special arrangements would have to be made between the Commissioner and the local authority in order to make up to him anything he may suffer under a pensions scheme.

Question, "That Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.