Schedule 3 (Hansard, 24 July 1973)

§ Mr. Dudley Smith
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this we are to take Lords Amendment No. 21, Page 60, line 3, at end insert:

25 & 26 Geo. 5. c. 8. The Unemployment Insurance Act 1935. Section 80.

§ Mr. Smith
This is largely a technical amendment which seeks to repeal a provision that is no longer needed. It is a sensible adjustment to be made.

§ Mr. Harold Walker
The hon. Gentleman says that it is a technical amendment, but it appears to me that it is removing something which, if of little use, none the less provides a facility for unemployed workers. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the facility will still be preserved within the powers under the Bill for the Manpower Services Commission and its agencies?

§ Mr. Smith
I did not realise that the hon. Member wished to challenge the amendment. The Bill already provides for the repeal of various provisions authorising payments out of the National Insurance Fund towards the cost of training courses, the main one being Section 3(6) of the Employment and Training Act 1948. This is because the cost of training policies is fully reflected in the public expenditure allocation. Subventions from the National Insurance Fund do not free more resources for training policies but only complicate counting and are in practice of a rather arbitrary nature.
Moreover, levels of unemployment are affected by other Government measures and there is no reason to single out this one. It would be impossible to make compensatory payments to or from the fund for all such measures. Section 80 of the 1935 Act is another such provision and it is logical that it, too, should be repealed. The need for this did not become apparent until the Bill had left this House and was being considered in another place.
1490 In those circumstances, it is a sensible adjustment—nothing whatever is lost—and it is, as I described in opening, a technical adjustment.

Lords Amendment
No. 17, in page 57, line 39, leave out second "for" and insert "after".

§ Mr. Dudley Smith
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
It might be convenient if we also took with this the following Lords Amendments: No. 18, in page 57, line 40, leave out "substituted" and insert "inserted". No. 19, in page 57, line 42, leave out "for" and insert "after". No. 20, in page 57, line 43, leave out "substituted" and insert "inserted". I can assure the hon. Member for Doncaster that these are purely drafting amendments to remove a technical defect in the Bill which was discovered later and again it would seem sensible to put it right in this way.