HC Deb 02 March 1953 vol 512 cc37-40
Mr. Wigg

(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware that Austin workers who cannot work because of the strike in the vehicle building section of the Austin works, but who are themselves not on strike, have been refused unemployment benefit at the Dudley and Stourbridge employment exchanges, and what steps he proposes to take.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. Osbert Peake)

Whether a person who has lost his employment as the result of a trade dispute should be allowed unemployment benefit is a matter for the independent statutory authorities to decide, and I have no power to interfere with their decision. I understand that benefit has been disallowed in some cases in connection with the dispute to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers and that a number of appeals are now pending.

Mr. Wigg

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a considerable number of applicants for unemployment benefit, themselves victims of this strike, have been put to great hardship as a result of having been refused benefit last Friday? Will the Minister assure the House that he is taking all possible steps to speed up the payment of benefit when he is satisfied that it is due?

Mr. Peake

In my reply I explained that the machinery for settling claims has been long established and is well understood. Allowance or disallowance of benefit depends on and rests with the independent statutory authorities over whom I have no control.

Mr. Chapman

Is not it a fact that under the National Insurance Act it is a matter for the Minister in the first place to say that he does not feel that the person claiming benefit should receive it; and that it is when a man has been refused benefit that he can appeal to the tribunal? In other words, it is a matter for the Minister's local officer who has in this case refused benefit. Is it not the case that the people concerned are not the people instituting the strike and therefore, under the Act, they should be allowed their benefit?

Mr. Peake

No, Sir. The insurance officer is one of the independent statutory authorities, and in no way acts on my behalf in these cases.

Mr. Edelman

Would the Minister say under what circumstances those who are victims of strikes, that is to say, who belong to unions directly involved, may be entitled to National Assistance? Will he recall the precedent of a strike a few months ago in Coventry?

Mr. Peake

National Assistance is quite a different thing from insurance benefit. The administration of it is perfectly well understood. Anyone who is in need, and has resources below a certain level can at any time procure unemployment assistance from the Board.

Mr. G. Brown

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again about his answer regarding the insurance officer? Whatever legal fiction the right hon. Gentleman pretends to, the officer is in fact one of his own officers. May I ask whether it is true that there is now a long list of case law established on appeal to the statutory authorities, courts of referees and the umpires? Should not he now give instructions to his local insurance officers so that they do not go on disallowing benefit in contradiction to the case law?

Mr. Peake

I must reaffirm that it is not my business to give instructions to the insurance officers who are part of the independent system of adjudication in these cases. An appeal from their decision can be made to the local appeal tribunal, and in cases of this character the tribunal would sit at the earliest possible moment, or as soon as the applicant's trade union was ready to bring a test case.

Mr. Brown

Is not it a fact that the local insurance officer is a salaried officer of the local employment exchange and therefore directly an official of the right hon. Gentleman's Department?

Mr. Wigg

Will the right hon. Gentleman try to meet us, not on the legal niceties of this business, but on the commonsense grounds of trying to remove some of the harsh effects of this dispute? Is the Minister aware that thousands of men, through no fault of their own, are unemployed? A person sitting in an employment exchange knows broadly which men are entitled to benefit and which are not. There are a few people who are border-line cases, and who, I agree, must be referred to the insurance officer. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do everything in his power to speed up the payment of unemployment insurance where his officials are satisfied it is due.

Mr. Peake

I must make it clear that the law relating to the payment of unemployment benefit in the case of trade disputes has been well settled for a long time. It was last re-enacted in the National Insurance Act, 1946, by a Socialist Government. The hon. and gallant Member will find the conditions laid down in Section 13 of the Act. I have no say whatever in the way these cases are decided. That falls to the independent statutory authorities who are prepared to consider and to hear appeals with the utmost possible despatch.