§ 29. Colonel Wheatleyasked the Minister of Labour if he will consider giving instructions for more sympathetic consideration to be given to the release under Group "B," both for domestic distress and business interests.
§ Mr. IsaacsAs the hon. and gallant Member is aware, release in Class "B" is confined to cases where it is clearly in the national interest that the individual in question should be released in advance of his normal turn. Applications for release based solely on domestic distress or personal business interests are dealt with on their merits by the Service Departments under the arrangements for compassionate release, and I am assured that they are dealing as sympathetically as possible with a greatly increased number of such applications.
§ Colonel WheatleyDoes the Minister realise that a great many Service men are suffering great hardship, mentally and physically, because they find that whoever they left in charge, mother, father or wife, has now broken down owing to the hard work, that the business is likely to fail and their livelihood after leaving the Service to be lost?
§ Mr. IsaacsYes, Sir, but the point of the Question is that decision on those matters is for the Service Departments and not for the Ministry of Labour.
§ Mr. WalkdenAs the structure of the call-up included hardship committees which seemed to work very well indeed, are there similar committees to deal with hardship or compassionate cases now available to men in the respective Services?
§ Mr. IsaacsThe Services deal with these matters direct, and I do not think the intervention of the Ministry of Labour would be of any assistance on this point.