HC Deb 26 January 1959 vol 598 cc688-9
24. Mr. Hale

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he is aware of the renewed difficulties experienced in the county borough of Oldham by workers, who have been employed on a six-day week and owing to increasing redundancy and unemployment have been compelled to transfer to mills working short time and with a normal five-day week, in obtaining the rate of unemployment benefit to which they are entitled; and what steps he will now take to resolve this confusion.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

While Parliament has placed the decision on individual claims in the hands of statutory authorities, with which I have no right to interfer, if the hon. Member has in mind any general difficulty and will let me have particulars, I will gladly look into it.

Mr. Hale

Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that I have sent him cases? There is a genuine misunderstanding here as to what the position is when a man who, in the present emergency, is compelled to leave a place where, under a Labour Government, he was working six days a week and which is now working only three, to go to a mill which was working five days a week under a Labour Government and is now working only two. There is the question of whether his income is based on a six- or a five-day week. This is a genuine problem that is constantly arising now in Oldham, which has an effective unemployment in textiles of 10 per cent.; an overall unemployment of 7 per cent.; a recession in light engineering and aviation engineering—as well as in textiles—and where the only additional work the Government have provided is the repair of the Preston by-pass.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I am aware that the question of what is known as the full-normal-extent rule can give rise to different interpretations. My invitation to the hon. Gentleman stands. If he has any general difficulty, in addition to those with which we have been in touch, I shall be only too happy to look into it, because I believe that, on both sides, we want these Regulations to work as smoothly as possible.