§ 36. Dr. Brayasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make the repayment of post-war credits dependent on cumulative and not continuous unemployment for six months.
§ Mr. GreenThe present requirement of 26 weeks' continuous unemployment is subject to the modification that intervals up to a total of six days, excluding Sundays, are disregarded, but I do not think that there is sufficient reason for dealing with intermittent unemployment in the way suggested.
§ Dr. BrayIs the Minister aware that in areas of high unemployment chronic unemployment for periods greatly in excess of six months is a very common experience and that his local offices have even advised men to stay off work in order to qualify for the last few weeks of their qualifying period?
§ Mr. GreenI should like to consider the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question; it sounded rather serious to me. He will appreciate that persons receiving National Assistance, in other words, those who prima facie have the greatest need, have only to meet a qualifying period of 12 weeks, not 26.
§ Sir J. Langford-HoltAgain on the question of post-war credits, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that there was a specific promise given in the House by a Chancellor of the Exchequer that they would be paid after the war? Does he realise that, flowing from that undertaking, it is for him to produce reasons why specific categories should not be paid rather than the reverse?
§ Mr. GreenI have already tried to assure my hon. Friend that that is precisely what we seek to do, but it is very 973 difficult, as both sides of the House have found, to produce a category which is absolutely clear and which does not put upon the Inland Revenue, which has no means of making this kind of hardship evaluation itself, an almost impossible task of judgment.