§ 36. Sir George Broadbridgeasked the Home Secretary whether he has considered the effect of the judgment recently given by the House of Lords to the effect that the practice laid down in the Memorandum on the Truck Acts, issued by the Home Office in June, 1937, stating that an employer is allowed to give food to a workman in part payment of his labour if cooked and eaten on the employer's premises, is illegal; and what steps he proposes to take to secure that employers who acted upon this instruction are not mulcted in damages for having done so?
§ Sir J. AndersonThere is no question of any instruction having been issued by the Home Office in this matter. The memorandum referred to merely set out the law as it stood in the light of judicial decisions prior to the recent judgment in the House of Lords. The practical issues raised by that judgment are of a very complex character, and I am not at present in a position to add to the reply which I gave on 14th February to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor).