HC Deb 21 February 1946 vol 419 cc1300-1
51. Mr. Martin Lindsay

asked the Minister of Labour why he advised the Home Secretary to refuse a permit for a foreign domestic servant to enter the country to take up employment with a bedridden woman when the local employment exchange is unable to fill the vacancy.

Mr. Isaacs

The general question of the admission of aliens for domestic work in private households is under consideration, and I hopeto make an announcement in the near future. It would not be desirable to make individual exceptions to the existing rule, in advance of the decision on general policy.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that meanwhile old folk and people running private nursing homes and even hospitals, are, as a result of their inability to get domestic staff, in a real plight? Will he consider again employing female help from the Continent?

Mr. Isaacs

I can only repeat what has been said so frequently about the conditions of those employments. If they were made more attractive more people would go into them.

Mr. Lindsay

Is there any reason, except lack of sympathy and lack of imagination, why these individual applications should not be considered on their individual merits, pending the result of the investigation, which has been going on for a very long time?

Mr. Isaacs

I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not mean there is no sympathy in these cases. Every sympathy is given. [Hon. Members: "No."] I say "Yes," and hon. Members say "No." You can have it whichever way you like. But if hon. Members have individual cases in mind we will gladly see if anything can be done, but we cannot provide for all individual cases in advance of deciding our general policy.

Sir Ralph Glyn

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether any action can be taken on the reports of the British Hospitals Association and the mental hospitals so that ward maids can be provided from those sources?

Mr. Isaacs

Thereis every prospect of the hospitals having attention because they have set up wages improvements. It is the individual domestic personal cases that are the problem.