HC Deb 09 March 1977 vol 927 cc1431-64

4.28 p.m.

The Chairman

Before I call Government Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which have been selected for discussion together, I understand that it would be convenient if the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) would agree that we could take at the same time his Amendment No. 3, in page 1, line 14, at end insert— '(2A) Any scheme made under subsections (1) and (2) above shall be incorporated in a statutory instrument made by the Secretary of State; and no such scheme shall be made unless a draft of it has been laid before the House of Commons and approved by a resolution of that House.'

Mr. James Prior (Lowestoft)

Thank you, Mr. Murton. That would be acceptable.

Sir Anthony Meyer (Flint, West)

On a point of order, Mr. Murton. You will see that on the Order Paper a number of amendments standing in my name are starred. I handed them in on Monday night, and therefore I am slightly perturbed to see them starred. Perhaps there has been some delay in the transmission system. Could you give me an assurance, Mr. Murton, that you will not be too strict in preventing me from making mention of these topics, which might serve to broaden the discussion of this ludicrously inadequate Bill?

The Chairman

Perhaps I could comfort the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) by saying that he could make some reference to those matters in the debate on the Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Keith Stainton (Sudbury and Woodbridge)

On a point of order, Mr. Mutton. What is the explanation for the delay? If my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) is correct in saying that he handed in his amend- ments on Monday night, I think that I am entitled to be informed of what has happened and why they remain starred on the Order Paper.

Sir A. Meyer

Further to that point of order, Mr. Murton. I am bound to say that I did hand in the amendments on Monday night. I do not blame anybody, but the fact is that they did not arrive until Tuesday morning, and under the rules if they arrive on Tuesday they are starred.

The Chairman

It could be that the amendments arrived after what is known colloquially as cut-off time.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Golding)

I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 7, after 'paying', insert: 'during a period for which this section has effect'. The Bill provides that expenditure on job release is subject to the normal procedures for approval by the House for expenditure proposed in the annual estimates. I understand, however, and I sympathise with, the desire of Opposition Members to subject the operation of job release to more specific scrutiny by the House. The Opposition amendment, however, would entail the introduction of an order containing all the details of any scheme which the Government wished to operate and the order would be subject to affirmative resolution procedure.

I accept that the Bill gives the Secretary of State power which is too sweeping and which ought to be limited in some way beyond what is already provided in the Bill. However, the Opposition amendment itself has limitations. It would prevent flexibility in operation and would stop any Government from reacting speedily to any useful changes which might be suggested.

If the Government had to bring in an order each time they wished to adapt the rules, that could prevent valuable improvements being made and anomalies being removed as they arise. However, I want the Committee to accept the spirit of the Opposition amendment, and the Government's amendments set out to do this.

Our amendments would ensure that the authority contained in the Bill to finance schemes would last for only 18 months in the first instance. It would be open to the Secretary of State to seek to extend his authority for up to 12 months at a time, or to revive it at a future date if a situation arose in which job release was wanted. In each case, he would need to bring in an order subject to affirmative resolution to activate his powers.

This procedure seems well suited to a Job Release Bill. Such schemes must be tailored to meet the needs of the moment, and the House should have the opportunity to discuss their use against the circumstances of the time. I hope that the Committee will accept this proposal as a reasonable compromise between the need for flexibility in the operation of job release, on the one hand, and what could be regarded as too sweeping a measure on the other.

Mr. David Madel (Bedfordshire, South)

The Minister said when he began that he wanted to meet the spirit of our amendment by moving his own amendment. He will know from the Second Reading debate that one of our major concerns, which was expressed throughout that debate, was the need for parliamentary control of the job release scheme.

We note that in Amendment No. 2 the scheme will run for 18 months from the passing of the Act, and there is then what could be called a 12-month roll-on position, provided that a draft of the scheme has been laid before the House and has been approved by resolution of the House, so that as the amendment is now drafted we shall automatically have a debate on this matter.

I want to ask a couple of questions about subsection (2A) in Amendment No. 2. As I understand it, this means that if a person applied for job release 17½months after the passing of the Act, although the Act might not be rolled forward he would nevertheless be paid for the 12 months after the 18-month period had expired. The leaflet referring to unemployed people that the Department has published states that, In addition you must apply two weeks before the date from which you wish the allowance to be paid. I assume from that that someone whose birthday comes at the end of the 18- month period, even if the Act was not rolled forward, would nevertheless be paid for the year following the 18 months.

Secondly, let us assume that 18 months after the Act was passed the Government decided, in the light of the employment situation, to roll on the procedure for another 12 months. I assume that the same would apply, namely that 11½months after the House had passed the resolution it would be possible for a person to make an application and to be paid for the following 12 months, given that the Government did not operate a further period of the scheme. We want to know more precisely what will happen, since this is something of a new departure from the original Bill. Are the Government proposing to give publicity particularly to the effects of subsection (2A) in Amendment No. 2?

We welcome the fact that the Government are to meet us on the question of having a debate and having the matter scrutinised. I accept the Minister's point that as employment conditions change, either for the better or for the worse, the Government may have to alter the scheme, for example, by extending it to the non-assisted areas as opposed to the assisted areas where the scheme now operates. But we want to scrutinise it very carefully and we certainly do not want to give the Minister a completely blank cheque. That was the reason for our anxiety and why we tabled Amendment No. 3.

Nevertheless, the Government have gone some way to meet us in Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, although some clarification of the points that I have raised about the 17½months and 11½months would be helpful to the Committee.

Mr. Golding

Since this point may arise throughout the debate this afternoon, I make it clear that there are two separate issues at stake. First, there is the Bill itself. The Bill is designed to give power to the Secretary of State to draw up schemes such as the present job release scheme, but the Bill is separate from the scheme itself.

The present scheme is operating only within the limits laid down in the pamphlet. This amendment in no way alters the present rules of the job release scheme. The scheme is at present a temporary scheme and we shall have to consider whether an extension is necessary.

The importance of our amendment is that it amends the ability of the Secretary of State to introduce such a scheme. It sets a time limit on the power that the Secretary of State is given under the Bill to draw up such temporary schemes. In fact, the amendment makes no difference whatsoever to the terms of the present job release scheme. I hope that that is clear to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Madel).

Mr. Barney Hayhoe (Brentford and Isleworth)

I should like to return to this point, because parliamentary control is at the heart of the amendments now before us. Even with the Government amendments the Bill does away entirely with parliamentary control as it would normally be exercised in terms of the amount of money that will be paid to an individual, the qualifications that such an individual would need to fulfil, and the length of time for which the payments would be made.

This information is set out in the leaflet, but that leaflet has not been examined by Parliament. It was produced by the Secretary of State or his advisers. He could throw it away tomorrow and produce an entirely different scheme, so long as he could get the approval of the Treasury and the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland. That is the only control that would be exercised.

I wonder whether it is right for Parliament to abandon in this way its responsibility for the details of the scheme merely by giving a blanket authorisation to the Secretary of State and not to be concerned further with any changes or alterations that might be made. The Government have met our comments on Second Reading to an important extent by providing that they must seek the authority of Parliament, through the affirmative resolution procedure, if they want to continue the arrangements for longer than 18 months. That would permit an extension of 12 months.

We unreservedly welcome that that element of parliamentary control is being written in. Will the Government, however, look a little further and agree that it is right that there should be more detail in the Bill about the conditions that must be fulfilled and the amounts that can be paid out.

I do not doubt that there is somewhere a Conservative Bill from the past that makes this sort of blanket provision. In other debates we have acknowledged the errors that our political forefathers may have made in this sense. We must consider, however, whether it is right that when Parliament is dealing with substantial sums of public money it should opt out of control as much as it tends to.

This is not a specific criticism of the Bill. I am raising a more general point and asking whether we ought not to mend our parliamentary ways and make certain that there is reasonable parliamentary control over the amounts paid out, the period for which they would be paid and the qualifications of those who would receive them.

It was with that in mind that we tabled Amendment No. 3. Our intention was that the details of the scheme under which the payments would be made would have to be incorporated into a Statutory Instrument that would be laid before the House. The details would then be attached to the legislation.

I accept the Under-Secretary's point about the lack of flexibility inherent in our amendments. He said that it would prevent a quick change being made to the scheme by the Secretary of State. It would not hold up a change for long. though. The House can find time to debate urgent matters, particularly unemployment. If our amendment were accepted I am sure that ways could be found of dealing with the consequences without creating too much inconvenience or difficulty.

We are dealing here with the question of control by Parliament over public money. We should concern ourselves with the details of how these sums are paid out to individuals. I ask the Minister to consider the matter further and to see whether he can go further to meet us in our objective.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Golding

Expenditure on job release is subject to the normal procedures of approval by the House of expenditure proposed under the annual Estimates. We do not have to look to our political forefathers on this matter. The Employment and Training Act 1973, a very valuable Act, would be well-nigh unworkable if every change in the regulations and in training schemes had to be laid before the House. The parliamentary time for such an exercise is just not available.

I believe that administrative rules should be announced to Parliament and that the opportunity should be given both to the Opposition and to our own Back Benchers to discuss those rules along with any changes that are made. We would certainly undertake to announce such changes in the House. We are prepared at any time to discuss with the Opposition the rationale of any changes. We feel very strongly that there should be parliamentary accountability.

Use of the affirmative resolution procedure, however, is such that Leaders of the House from both sides would find it difficult to honour a commitment involving it. We therefore ask the Opposition to support our amendments and not to press their own.

Sir A. Meyer

The Secretary of State for Employment knows my admiration and affection for him, and if I use strong words I hope that he will not take it as a personal criticism. The habit has grown up among Governments of treating Parliament with absolute contempt. This Bill will be totally incomprehensible to the lay person who looks it up in the statute book. I appears to authorise the Secretary of State to do just about anything that the Treasury will allow him to do in order to create job vacancies and mitigate the effect of high unemployment.

The Bill gives no indication of what is intended, and I believe that something should be written into it to indicate at the very least that, even for the best of motives, Parliament has not entirely adopted the rôle of a rubber stamp for the Government.

The arrangement simply is not good enough. The Government should be prepared at least to accept Amendment No. 3, if only to pay lip service to the idea of parliamentary control. As drafted, the Bill is a slap in the face for our elected institution.

Mr. Hayhoe

The Minister has gone some way to meet us. While I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) about the Bill being a blank cheque, and its effect on someone who looks at it and thinks how extraordinary it is that Parliament should pass something so wide and untrammelled, I do, nevertheless, appreciate that there are some constraints in that estimates must be laid before the House and the moneys paid out in total must be within these estimates. But the individual sums authorised will be a matter with which the House will not have a chance to deal.

However, in view of what the Minister has said about being prepared to come to the House with any significant changes, we believe that some progress has been made in parliamentary accountability, which is important to all hon. Members. We are glad of the assurance that important changes will not be made by Written Answer on the last day of the Session, but will come instead by way of a statement that can be questioned on the Floor of the House. Therefore, I welcome the Government's approach and the broad assurances the Minister has given.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 2, in page 1, line 14, at end insert— '(2A) As subsection (1) operates as authority for the payment of allowances during a period it also operates as authority for payment of an allowance after the expiration of the period to a person whose application for an allowance has been approved in the period. (2B) This section has effect—

  1. (a) for the period of eighteen months beginning with the passing of this Act, and
  2. (b) for such subsequent periods as the Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument provide for it to have effect.
but no one order shall provide for this section to have effect for more than twelve months. (2C) An order under this section shall not be made unless a draft of it has been laid before the House of Commons and approved by a resolution of that House.'—[Mr. Golding.]

Mr. Fred Silvester (Manchester, Withington)

I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 4, at end add— '(5) No provision shall be made enabling a person to qualify for the allowance if that person is unemployed at the time when the application for the allowance is made or during the seven days immediately preceding the first payment of the allowance.' This brings us back to the debate we had on Second Reading whether the scheme should apply to people currently on the unemployment register or whether it should be limited to people who are surrendering their jobs and making them available to people from the register. It is inevitable that we should put down an amendment to achieve this end, even though on Second Reading the Government gave no indication of giving way.

The effect of this measure is essentially to make it easier for people to move into a job. Some people are happy to retire a year early and make their jobs available to younger people. That is unexceptionable and it is the accepted principle on which this Bill is based. Therefore it seems illogical to apply the scheme to someone who has no job. If such a person comes off the unemployment register through the scheme, no one is better off as a result. It was argued on Second Reading that the reason for this is to reduce the pressure created by the presence of these people on the labour market and to facilitate the mobility of jobs.

I asked the Parliamentary Secretary a question about the number of people in the pre-retirement age group who were employed from the register. The figures were not available for the precise age group of the last year of employment, but he gave me some figures from a sample conducted among one group of people over 60 and another group between 50 and 59. Among those over 60, 2 per cent. were placed in jobs, and among those between 50 and 59, the figure was 8 per cent. It must follow that if we take the last year of employment—59 for women and 64 for men—the figure would be very small indeed. The figure of 2 per cent. for those over 60 compares with a figure of 10 per cent. in that age group who are unemployed. For those between 50 and 59, the 8 per cent. compares with 12 per cent. unemployed. Even on these inadequate figures there is substantial evidence that the problem of placing people in this age group is very small compared with the overall situation. Therefore the argument that it is necessary to reduce the pressure caused by this age group is clearly unproven.

Because of the way in which the scheme has been devised one can see the advantages for someone to move off the unemployment register and take up job release. By taking up job release a person will receive £23 a week. The present rate of unemployment benefit together with an earnings related supplement for a single person is £25. Those figures are very comparable and if the benefits are not earnings related one might even gain from job release. If one has a job the advantage or otherwise of the £23 a week depends on one's current earnings and the arrangements for pension. On the face of it, the advantages are weighted in favour of the unemployed taking up job release rather than the employed.

We must add to that the fact that the scheme is limited to the assisted areas. One of the reasons for this is that it would cost a lot more to extend it nationally. We have heard time and again in this House that there are patches of very severe unemployment in other parts of the country with people suffering just as much as in the assisted areas. Therefore, if the money is available for this scheme, it is preferable that it should be allocated to people who are prepared to surrender a job in an unassisted region than to juggle with the figures of unemployed in the assisted regions.

I am not trying to be beastly to the Government but the fact is that as it stands this measure will simply transfer these people from the current unemployed register to job release. It is not as if the unemployed will disappear. They are still unemployed, but they will become, as it were, unemployed (job release).

Mr. Jim Craigen (Glasgow, Maryhill)

But surely we do not include retired people in unemployment statistics?

Mr. Silvester

That is quite true, but the object of retirement is different from this situation. We are talking about people who, under the existing situation, are defined either as employed or unemployed because they are within the normal age of employment. One can remove all sorts of people from this category by using various criteria, but up to now we have been talking of economically active age groups and that is a perfectly reasonable stand.

To summarise these arguments, we shall not benefit someone who is currently on the unemployed register in the sense that we are giving him a job by applying the scheme to the unemployed. The money that we are making available could be better spent in other areas on other people.

One can see that this assessment is right when one understands the latest figures from the Department. Of the 8,261 applicants who had applied by 4th March, 71 per cent. were from the unemployment register and only the other 29 per cent. had a job to give up. That clearly cannot be the object of the exercise, so the Government must make some adjustment.

5.0 p.m. The matter can be taken a stage further. The Under-Secretary kindly gave me some information about the way in which the figures were being calculated. On Second Reading we were concerned about the difference between the 78,000 people mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum and the 65,000 whom it was expected to remove from the register. I now have to hand the explanation of who those 13,000 people are. They are those who may be described as having drifted out of the rules, in the sense that they are not people who were taken, as was expected, from the unemployment register but people who are either not catered for because the employer did not then take on anyone else, or school-leavers who were unemployed but were not already on the register.

Those 13,000 people will all come from the employed, not the unemployed, side. On that calculation, 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. of those who currently have a job under this scheme will not be replacing those on the register. That is on the existing figures. In months to come, that ratio of 71 per cent. to 29 per cent. may change, of course.

Therefore, in another way I am underlining our basic proposition. This scheme has a good deal of good will. It is based on a sensible proposition, and one that will get wide support in industry as well as in this House, but it seems silly to us to arrange the scheme so that about three-quarters of its financial provision goes to those whom it is not primarily designed to help.

Mr. David Knox (Leek)

I support the amendment so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester). It would help to make the Bill more effective. Like my hon. Friend, I sympathise with the concept behind the Bill, which is a sensible way of dealing with a difficult situation. However, as drafted, it means that most of those who will benefit will come off the unemployment register.

It seems as though the Government's main intention is a reduction in the numbers of registered unemployed rather than the creation of vacancies for younger unemployed people. The amendment would put much greater pressure on the Government to make the scheme known among people in employment and thus lead to the Government encouraging such people of the right age to vacate jobs.

It is far too easy for the Government merely to move people from the register into the scheme and thus appear to be improving the unemployment figures. As my hon. Friend rightly said, the chances of those in the age group covered by the scheme getting a job are not good. It is not likely that at that time in their working lives, they will find other work. Therefore, if the job release scheme is concentrated in practice on those on the register rather than on encouraging people to vacate jobs, it will not make the sort of contribution for which I would hope.

Sir Anthony Meyer

When the Government face unemployment totals like those we have at present, temptation for them to think up some scheme is irresistible: "Don't just sit there. Do something". Every kind of device has to be thought up. I do not blame them. Democratic responsibility requires them to be seen to be doing something. There is always the danger that any scheme will seem a gimmick. Indeed, the whole of the job creation programme, laudable though it is, is always open to this kind of accusation. Under the present measure, the revelation that 71 per cent. of those applying are already unemployed themselves lends an air of gimmickry to the scheme.

I am sure that the Minister knows his Russian history. The Empress Catherine the Great had a First Minister, and incidentally a lover, called Potemkin, who was anxious to impress the Empress with what he had achieved in bringing prosperity to the outlying regions. He used to take her on great journeys through Russia. He had a little team of men precede the imperial party by one day who would erect along Catherine's line of progress magnificent facades of villages complete with gaily-dressed villagers who would cheer the Empress as she travelled through. The moment that she had passed, the facades were pulled down, taken ahead of her again during the night and erected the next day further along the imperial route. The Empress returned enormously impressed, but in fact not a village had been built.

The same process seems to be at work with the unemployment register. People are just being shifted around to make the statistics look better. The Government would do well to reconsider those provisions, which enable people who are already unemployed to come off the register in a totally bogus piece of job creation. If they removed this obvious cheat from the Bill, its reputation would be enhanced and it might mitigate the damage to the whole job creation programme.

Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis (Morecambe and Lonsdale)

I support the amendment. The operation of the scheme is being distorted by this provision of transfer from the unemployment register. If it does no other disservice, it tends to distract attention from the worthwhile aspects of the scheme and conceal the fact that the scheme has had a far smaller response than many of us had hoped. We might therefore be prevented from considering what should be done to make the scheme more attractive.

I hope to be able to say a little more about cost on the Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will reply then, if he cannot do so now, to this question. Does the fact, as I understand it—no doubt he will correct me if I am wrong—that a surprisingly reduced proportion of registered unemployed actually claim benefit enter into the calculation of the cost of the scheme?

I still find the cost puzzling. If one were just replacing unemployment benefit with the job release payment, the net cost would be nil. If the calculations to which the Minister referred in a letter to me take into account the replacement of unemployment benefit as a deduction from the gross cost, it would not affect the cost of the scheme. But, if some of those transferring from the unemployed register are registered unemployed who are not in receipt of unemployment benefit, there is a sizeable addition to the net cost.

I know that this is not an easy question to rehearse, but one of the things that puzzles the Department and my hon. Friends is the shortfall in the numbers drawing unemployment benefit compared with the numbers of registered unemployed. I understand that the Department is investigating that.

If allowance has been made in the costing for quite a number of those transferring from the registered unemployed to the job release scheme to be people who are not drawing unemployment benefit, that transfer represents a net cost in full to the job release scheme.

I shall now get back in order because I have been giving notice of a matter that the Minister might wish to reply to on the debate on the clause. That is another argument for dealing with this category of people separately and for not wrapping them up with those who create a job opportunity. Those of us who are interested in the project had not thought that the scheme would provide a lay-by into which those that are already on the unemployed register could sidestep. We thought that it would provide job vacancies.

It would be better if action were taken to ensure that the scheme concentrates on what it was meant to do—to get people into jobs who are young and active and who would remain unemployed if someone did not make way for them. That is the purpose of the scheme.

Perhaps there is a need to tidy up the unemployed register, but that may distort the cost and be responsible for creating the puzzle why the net cost exists when some of us feel that there should not be a cost at all but a saving.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Golding

I know more about the problems of the unemployed than about Russian history so I cannot follow the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) in his story.

The amendment gives me difficulty. It is directed to the details of the present scheme and it would write into an enabling Bill a specific provision. We would resist the amendment on that ground alone, but I shall not rest my argument on that. Let us consider the arguments that are directed to the rules of the scheme itself. I reiterate that the Bill, with or without the amendment, would permit a scheme that provides for the unemployed or that provides for their exclusion. The Bill does not of necessity mean that the unemployed are included in the scheme.

As Opposition hon. Members probably know, this afternoon I intend to make a reasonable number of concessions on the rules relating to the scheme. However, this is not one of them. We strongly believe that the present rules are fair. That does not mean that we are not disappointed that more of the unemployed have not taken advantage of the scheme.

Hon. Members have argued for an adjustment in the proportions, and I accept what they have said. We shall look carefully at ways in which we can increase the numbers of those in employment taking advantage of the scheme.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—who apologises for leaving the Chamber because he has had to go to an important Government meeting—wrote to many employers, trade unions and others asking that greater publicity be given to the scheme as it effects the employed. I accept criticism about the inadequate take-up of the scheme by the employed. But that does not lead me to agree that we should exclude the unemployed. The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Knox) said that older people are not likely to get jobs and that was also the burden of the argument by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester). That is an argument for including the unemployed in the scheme because the Bill does not only provide for the creation of job vacancies. Clearly set out in Clause 1 is the phrase: …otherwise mitigating the effects of high unemployment". One of the effects of high unemployment is the difficulty that women of 59 and men of 64 experience in finding employment. There is an argument, in assisted areas where unemployment is high and people have difficulty in obtaining work, for removing them from the competition for work.

Sir A. Meyer

The Title of the Bill is the Job Release Bill. It is not the "Unemployment Statistics Obfuscation Bill."

Mr. Golding

We shall return to the Title of the Bill later. Opposition hon. Members on the Front Bench take the matter more seriously than the hon. Member for Flint, West. The Bill is intended to provide finance for job release schemes; and for a connected purpose". If the hon. Member had actually read the Title of the Bill he would see that both categories are covered. We shall be discussing statistics on a later amendment and I do not want to enter into that now because it would pre-empt the later discussion.

It is as important to reduce the competition for jobs amongst the old as it is to provide for job release. Additionally there would be a great deal of unfairness if the unemployed were excluded from the scheme because for many it would be a lottery whether they were entitled to the job release allowance. It would be a lottery whether redundancies were declared at one point of time or another. We would have to have a bureaucracy which we do not want in operating ways in which employment could be arranged and job release arranged, with the unemployed moving into jobs only subsequently to leave them in order to get job release terms. There are substantial practical difficulties in distinguishing between them, but I do not want to rest my case on that. I rest it basically on three points.

First, the Bill is not presented only as a job release Bill. I made it clear on Second Reading, and have repeated, that secondly, it is also designed to reduce competition amongst that age group for work. Thirdly we also believe that it would be utterly unfair if it were possible for the employed to get such an allowance at the age of 59 or 64 but impossible for the unemployed. I hope that the Opposition will not press the amendment.

Mr. Silvester

I do not think that the Under-Secretary of State has come to grips with the central issue. I have not misled the House as to the reasons, and the hon. Gentleman has repeated them again. One of the functions is job release, and the second is to reduce competition. The figures I started with, and which were figures that he himself gave to me on 17th February, were of those people who got jobs. The over-60s in the whole five-year period accounted for 2 per cent. of the people getting jobs. The whole of this superstructure is, therefore, being set up for a minuscule number of people. Is it really that unfair?

I realise that the Minister is not going to change his mind, but much of his speech was devoted to saying how sorry he was that the balance is 71/29 and how he hoped that it would alter. The reason why the position is such is that the balance of advantage is greater if one is unemployed than it is if one is employed. It is much easier to justify a move to a new form of benefit which is likely to be equal to or higher than unemployment benefit than it is to justify going to one's family with the proposition that one will get a weekly income less than one is currently receiving. That means that the balance is in favour of the unemployed.

It means, therefore, that we have to take into account the attraction to people in employment. If one has to have the same terms for both those who are unemployed and those who are employed, one imposes such a strain on the whole thing and makes it so expensive that one cannot do anything to make it more attractive for the employed.

Mr. Golding

There is one difference. which I think may not be appreciated outside. Certainly, I did not appreciate it myself until a late stage. Tax rebates to the employed mean that they are in a substantially different financial position from those who take job release from the unemployed register who generally do not get tax relief. But in any consideration of the extension of the scheme, we shall bear the hon. Gentleman's remarks very much in mind. I hope that he will take on board the point about tax relief.

Mr. Silvester

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I do not know the size of that factor, and I suppose that it will vary. But it is certainly a major consideration. But even if the hon. Gentleman takes it into his sums, he will still have to bear in mind the relative attrac- tiveness. I simply put to him that it will be important for him not to so weight the scheme in favour of considerations about fairness to a tiny number of people who are on the unemployment register at that age that he cannot make it sufficiently attractive to those in employment. This is a major consideration. I suppose that we are not going to win the point, but I will not withdraw the amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Hayhoe

The Under-Secretary of State has said on a number of occasions that this is a general enabling Bill. The heart of it is Clause 1. I wonder, in these circumstances, by what authority payments are now being made. Two leaflets have been circulated, and no doubt there is some parliamentary authority for payments which are now being made. However, one wonders why, if there is already in being legislation which permits the scheme to be operating, this Bill is needed. If the Bill is essential, by what authority, therefore, are payments now being made? Or is there some provision which permits the Government in a temporary sense to go ahead but imposes on them the obligation of coming to the House with a Bill of this kind in order to get authority? It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman could indicate the precise legal position.

There is reference in the two leaflets—one for employed people and the other for unemployed people—to the fact that an individual …will be required to refund any overpayment of the allowance which has been made. In both leaflets, that sentence is under the general heading Can you leave the scheme if you want to? I am not clear whether, if an individual who is benefiting from the scheme decides that he wishes to leave it, the reference to refunding overpayment means that he has to refund the payment he has already received, or whether the question of refunding overpayment really has nothing to do with the heading but is just a general statement that if by chance, through an administrative error, overpayments are made, there will be an obligation on the individual to make a refund.

There will clearly be questions of interpretation. What will happen if an individual who thinks that he is entitled to a payment under the scheme is refused one and feels aggrieved by the decision? Will there be some appeals machinery? There is such machinery for someone denied sickness benefit or unemployment benefit, or who feels that he is not receiving the supplementary benefit to which he is entitled. There are well established appeal procedures in such cases which allow the individual to seek redress of his grievances. Will one of these existing procedures be adapted for this new scheme, or is it proposed that the discretion of the authorities should be absolute in the first contact with the individual in his application to be involved with the scheme?

Perhaps the Minister will be able to help us about the note that appears in both leaflets that states: This leaflet is written in general terms and should not be regarded as a complete or authoritative statement about the scheme. I can assure the Minister that I have a few constituents—I am sure that he has—who will immediately ask for the complete and authoritative statement on seeing such a note. I wonder where they will have to go for such a statement. If it is available, perhaps he will make arrangements for it to be placed in the Library, or make arrangements for it to be available to Members and others who wish to consult it.

5.30 p.m.

In a scheme of this nature undoubtedly there will be marginal cases where people think they are entitled to payment and will not be receiving it. I accept that there are always possibilities of finding areas of ambiguity but I wonder how the grievances will be resolved that might arise from the ambiguity of what is written in the leaflet.

The three points that I have made, apart from the general point about the authority and legality of present payments and the necessity for a Bill that provides general enabling authority, are inter-linked. If over-payments are made, under what circumstances will a refund be demanded? Any demand for a refund could quickly lead to a dispute. How would such a dispute be resolved?

Other disputes could arise—for example, if someone felt that he was being unreasonably denied access to the scheme. I notice that an employee has to be working in an assisted area whereas an unemployed person has to be living in an assisted area. Arguments can be envisaged at the margin. There may well be an instance where an employee living outside an assisted area receives payment and his wife, in chatting over the garden fence to the wife of the man next door, says "My husband is getting £23 a week." That may well result in the wife next door asking her husband" Why don't you go and ask for this payment?".

I am sure that the Minister will understand how such difficulties can arise. Undoubtedly they will come to the Minister and Members of Parliament. We require further clarification and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to assist the House by giving further explanations of how various issues can be resolved in such a way that the individuals concerned, and the individual neighbours, feel that the scheme is being run in a proper and fair fashion and is not dependent upon the arbitrary actions of Government servants who will have to deal with the day-to-day working of the scheme.

I hope that the Minister will be able to answer the questions that I have posed and the questions that will be raised by some of my hon. Friends who wish to intervene at this stage.

Mr. Hall-Davis

I suppose that it is not very often that we have the chance of only one debate on the Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill, when dealing with such a significant Bill. My comments will be something of a hotchpotch or mixed bag but they will, I hope, be directed towards ensuring the smoother operation and the greater success of the Bill.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) mentioned taxation, I shall start with that item. I feel that here is a significant element in persuading people to take advantage of the scheme.

As I understand it, someone who ceases work under the job release scheme severs all connection with his employer at the time of cessation. Someone who retires in these early weeks of the scheme may have contributed income tax for nine months of the financial year through the pay-as-you-earn system. Were they to be absent through sickness, or laid off by their employer as a result of bad trading conditions, they would immediately begin to recoup that tax according to their earnings level and tax position. They would do so week by week through their employer and the pay-as-you-earn system so that by the end of the tax year they would stand level pegging, broadly speaking, with the Inspector of Taxes. In other words, they would have recouped any over payment made in the early months of the year. Under this scheme, however, they would not receive the week-by-week reinforcement of the £23.50 through the pay-as-you-earn system.

As I understand the position of those who have left employment, tax payments are in effect frozen in the capable hands of the Treasury until after 5th April when the individual, who may never have made a tax return in his working life if the Inland Revenue's careful eye has not happened to fall upon him as an individual, has to complete a form declaring all sources of income and lodge a claim for the repayment of tax. I have no doubt that that will be done with scrupulous accuracy and fairness but it means that the applicant will have to wait, unlike someone who goes sick or is laid off. That will be a deterrent, especially in September-October in the next tax year when substantial tax payments may have been made and when the individual will have to wait six months before he can reclaim them.

If someone retires now his position will not be so acute because while he may have substantial tax to reclaim that can be done after 5th April. Ideally the individual should be able to claim it back weekly within the scope of the pay-as-you-earn scheme. I am sure that the Minister will try to achieve that but I suspect that he will not be able to do so.

If the hon. Gentleman is not able to make that arrangement, perhaps he will ask his colleagues in the Treasury to issue a priority direction to tax offices to the effect that when job release people who have never been enmeshed in the tax return procedure seek help in getting back their tax, they will be given special help and prompt payment. Be that as it may, it will still be a pity that the person retiring in September will not get back his pay-as-you-earn contributions for six months.

My second point is much concerned with administration. It concerns a niggle rather than a real deterrent. I can assure the Minister that although this may or may not be in accordance with the way in which he wishes the scheme to operate, it is within the scope of my personal experience. What I am saying is concrete fact. An employer with a highly specialised employee who was over 64 on 1st January was told by the employee that he would like to take advantage of the job release scheme. It so happens—this was a 100 per cent. bona fide case—that another employee in the district with the same special skills had been told that he was to be made redundant at the beginning of February. The employer of the man wishing to retire got in touch with the employment office who said that that arrangement would be fine. The employer named the person whom he wanted to take on because he had the skills that were needed. That person had been told that he would be unemployed from 1st February.

The employment office said that was fine and that the employer should tell the person concerned to inform the employment office that he would be unemployed from 1st February. But when he went to the office he was told that they had checked with Runcorn and had been told that, in order to fulfil the employer's obligation to take someone from the employment register, he would have to draw benefit before starting work in his new job. He was therefore obliged to spend a week kicking his heels, and he received the princely sum of £13—being a married man with two children. Then he started work with his new employer. There was no need for the interval and it was aggravating for a man who knew that he had a job to spend a week being unemployed.

I was told about a similar case by a person whose reliability I cannot question, but I am not certain of the precise details. This was the case of a company that was approached by a large number of people who said that they wanted to take advantage of the job release scheme. It so happened that an associated company, although it may not have been a subsidiary had a redundancy phase going on. Again, the same instruction was given to all the people in the other company. They could not move directly to the company that had vacancies created as a result of the job release scheme.

I can appreciate the Department and trade unions perhaps being a little apprehensive in case the job release scheme was used as a method by employers to avoid making redundancy payments. In the early days I felt that that was why the unions did not press for the scheme with more vigour. I acquit them of that. But it is aggravating when company X knows that it is making people redundant and company Y has vacancies as a result of the scheme, and yet people must have a short period of unemployment in order to put the employer with the job release scheme retirement vacancies in the clear.

I also ask the Minister to address his mind to the matter of pensions because I am sure that uncertainty on the part of individuals as to how they stand with regard to their occupational pensions must be a deterrent to early retirement. At present, early retirement has a double impact on pension entitlement. Obviously, it reduces the formula fraction by one year—for example, if someone leaves at the age of 64 rather than 65 there is a year of missing service. In other words, a man with a potential 40 years of service who goes a year early—if his pension fraction is calculated in 60ths—receives 39/60ths instead of 40/60ths.

The position is aggravated, because in a period of high inflation—although this is somewhat mitigated by current pay policy—he also loses a one-year increment in his pay. So his pension suffers twice. He has a slightly smaller fraction and his final pensionable salary is cut off a year short.

Large firms are probably the companies that can make the biggest contribution to the job release scheme, or who will, at any rate make a substantial contribution if one looks at this realistically. I am not being unkind or deprecatory about older employees, but it is in the interest of such companies to encourage someone of near retirement age to retire. It is a kindness to the individual and it is in the interest of the employer. I have yet to find a man who does not say "Thank You" to his employer for retiring him early, provided it is done on generous terms.

5.45 p.m.

Employers with occupational pension schemes could well make up for that lost year of service and give the individual a notional year's pension entitlement. In the overwhelming majority of cases that could be done without breach of the revenue rules for pensions. The cost, roughly speaking, of the one year's contributions, employer's as well as employee's, that the firm would be carrying, would be dependent on the quality of the scheme. It would be from 5 per cent. to 20 per cent. of the payroll, and most employers would not regard that as an excessive payment if it were put to them simply and clearly—in order to replace someone at the end of his working days with someone youthful, vigorous, wanting to get on, willing to work overtime and possessing the other advantages of youth that are slipping away from many of us, including the present speaker.

If one takes a realistic view, it would not harm the employer to uprate the pension for that one year of early retirement. Again, the employer could do this within the revenue rules. He could uprate the pension and give an augmentation in line with inflation since the day of retirement. These are complicated things for some small companies but not for local authorities, nationalised industries, public services, the Civil Service, the local government service and large firms. These may sound like technicalities, but they are the sort of things that will decide whether someone does actually take advantage of the scheme.

I raised my next point on Second Reading, but we are now in Committee and we are unlikely to reach 17 sittings on the Bill. Therefore, I make no excuse for raising it in detail again. I return to the matter of cost. I thank the Minister for a letter that he sent to me and to the Opposition spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester). I am grateful. One does not always receive letters two days before the Committee stage. They tend to arrive two days after. It is a frank and realistic letter and it is of interest, so, since I think it is within the bounds of order, I shall read what the Minister said. Cost is puzzling and it still puzzles me. He said: With a scheme of this kind, which is entirely new in this country, the estimates have of necessity to be based on assumptions about the likely effects of the scheme. This means that the calculations are perhaps rough and ready and I would be the last to claim that they were much more than that. We have, where judgments had to be made, generally used the higher of the estimated figures available to us, so as to avoid serious understatement of the likely costs of the scheme. That is a policy that everyone on this side would support and I wish that the Government had followed it more closely hitherto. The Minister is really saying that he is taking a cautious view on cost, and that is understandable.

I referred to a point earlier on which the Minister may comment, but it is important that the Government should know the true expense of the scheme because if the true net cost is nil or if there is a net saving to the Government as a result of the scheme, then the case for increasing the benefit payable or for extending the scheme—that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington, was pressing earlier—to the non-assisted areas is much strengthened.

It is clear from the relationship between the gross and net cost that only minor changes in the calculations could bring the net cost down to nil or, indeed, turn it into a saving for the Government. I ask the Minister—and I hope that he will not shy away from this without giving it reasonable consideration, although he may already have the matter in hand —whether he would take a cost sample in some areas. Runcorn could, presumably, feed back to the sample employment offices details of from which employers the applications come. It would then not be a large task to approach the employers asking whom they had taken on. It would be a safeguard for that to be done anyway as a check and a true assessment could then be made as to what saving in benefit payments there has been for individuals coming into work. I do not think that is beyond the capacity of the Department and it would not be laying a very heavy administrative burden upon it.

In his letter, the Under-Secretary said: As regards the level at which we have fixed the job release allowance—£23 per week—we have tried to keep it broadly in line with other state benefits, such as retirement pension. I read that sentence at first as a rebuttal of what I had been asking for on Second Reading, but on reflection I do not think that it was a rebuttal because many other employment benefits are earnings related and, as I said on Second Reading, if the scheme is to get off the ground and create vacancies across a reasonable spectrum of employment, rather than appealing only to those who are the lowest earners, the Government will have to realise that payments must include an earnings-related element.

I still hope that when the Minister has had an opportunity to check the cost, he will find that it is less than his cautious estimate and that there is scope for action along these lines.

Sir A. Meyer

The Minister need not fear that I shall be asking such difficult questions as those put by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis), inspiration for the answers to which has already reached the Minister.

Since the Bill is extraordinarily widely drafted and since Clause 1 is the Bill, this debate gives me the opportunity to refer to two aspects that I had hoped to raise in amendments to make the scheme more effective.

I do not believe that the Government will find much difficulty in accepting one of my suggestions, but I readily recognise that the other may have wider implications from which they would prefer to shy away.

Let me start with the more difficult one. Since this is, to a fairly large extent, a self-balancing scheme, in that every person who benefits under it has to be matched by someone else for whom limited liability is provided, there is an opportunity here to make a move in a direction which, sooner or later and whatever Government is in power, will have to be travelled, namely, the equalising of retirement ages for men and women.

In this context, the Government could provide that, for the purpose of this measure, the retirement age for men should be 60, as it is for women, and that men of 59 should be able to opt for retirement under the scheme in the same way as women of 59.

I expect that the Government will not wish to entertain this awful possibility even fleetingly and we shall have to await either an alteration in our democratic balance or the manifest collapse of the National Health Service to reduce the number of retired people to manageable proportions.

The Government could give serious consideration to my second suggestion which is that people of 64 who opt for retirement should not forfeit the payment of £23 a week provided in the Bill if they set themselves up as self-employed. Such a move could have an appreciable effect in increasing the number of people who will benefit under the Bill, in raising the general level of economic activity and in reducing the number of unemployed people.

I do not want to exaggerate the effects. There will not be that many 64-year-old people with the qualities to set themselves up as self-employed, though this number might be increased if the Government were sufficiently imaginative to be willing to commute the £23 a week into a capital sum of £1,200. That would enable many people to set themselves up in business in a small way.

I feel strongly about this matter because in my part of the world, we are faced with a small number of large employers running into difficulties simultaneously. We are being transformed, almost overnight, from an area of very low unemployment to an area of very high unemployment. This has brought home to me the danger of relying solely on large employers and the importance of spreading the risk.

One way of spreading the risk is to bring in small employers, but a better way is to increase greatly the number of people in business for themselves. I am keen on doing everything possible to increase the numbers of those who are able to set up in business as self-employed.

These thoughts occurred to me rather late in the day, but the Bill could make an effective contribution in these areas if the Government are prepared to be imaginative. It will not cost a lot more and it could enable many more people to be usefully and gainfully occupied. The Government cannot now accept my proposed amendments, but if they will build into the scheme a provision for beneficiaries to set themselves up as self-employed, they will be doing something really useful.

Mr. Golding

I thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) for the courteous way in which he put his questions. Payments under the present scheme are being made under the usual Appropriation Act procedure and the White Paper on the winter Supplementary Estimates for 1976–77 noted that, pending legislation, job release expenditure rested on that estimate and on the confirming Appropriation Act. Therefore, I do not think that I am in danger of being surcharged for the expenditure that we have already incurred.

The leaflet's reference to repayment means simply that if someone decides that he does not like job release and wants to go back to work he can do so, but if the Department has paid him for weeks during which he was back at work he will have to pay us back. We are making clear that even though we may have paid a person he is obviously ineligible if he has returned to work, and he will have to repay the money.

On the question of decision making, our procedures are different from those of the Department of Health and Social Security, where there are statutory authorities that are independent of the Executive, Ministers and Parliament. The situation is quite different. If a person were to be aggrieved by a decision I would certainly expect him to appeal, through his Member of Parliament, to the Minister. If the decision were unreasonable, the Member of Parliament would have several procedures open to him—Questions, or an Adjournment debate—and he would also be entitled to take the matter to the Ombudsman.

6.0 p.m.

There are adequate safeguards. We would certainly try to ensure that no arbitrary decisions were taken. If such decisions were taken we would try to correct them. I shall be returning to that matter shortly.

The pamphlet says that the conditions are not complete or authoritative. It is right that that should be so. I find that if such words are not included on a pamphlet people feel quite entitled to believe that all the conditions are set down, and they act upon them. The words are cautionary, so this would normally lead someone to go to the local employment office or job centre to get advice. I am entirely in sympathy with the request that the rules be placed in the Library.

The general intention of the scheme has been announced by the Secretary of State. However, we come across anomalies very frequently and we have to take decisions on how to deal with particular cases. It is absolutely right that we should set down on paper the rules by which we are abiding and place them in the Library so that there can be no question of arbitrary government.

I understand absolutely the point of the argument. I represent a constituency that is just outside the area and I know very well the difficulties that have arisen as a result of the rules that we have drawn up. I know, therefore, the importance of laying down the rules in black and white so that hon. Members may look at them when people approach them on the subject.

I turn to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis). I do not know sufficient about tax to be able to answer those questions at the Dispatch Box at present. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the points made by the hon. Gentleman. I shall do that with great sympathy, because I want as many as possible of people in work to take advantage of this scheme. Clearly, the possibility of a quick tax rebate would be an inducement to them, although I may be told that that is impossible administratively. However, I shall draw to the Chancellor's attention to that point.

I said that we would look at all cases in which individuals felt aggrieved. My impression is that the wrong advice was given to the hon. Gentleman's constituent. If he will write to me about the case I shall consider it very carefully. It would not be my intention that we should have that sort of daft situation in which we force someone on to the dole for one week in order to enable him to comply with the requirements. I shall look care- fully at the individual case. I am acting on a hunch here, but I think that the present rules do not need amendment to deal with the situation.

On the question of costings, the letter that I wrote to hon. Members dealt with the way in which we had arrived at our estimates. That was the point to which I was addressing myself. We had to do it in a rough and ready fashion because until we have some experience of the scheme we cannot really know the costings. We have to make as intelligent a guess as we can. Obviously, it will be sensible for us to get better assessments of the costs. However, I should like to wait a week or two to see whether we can increase the numbers taking up the scheme directly from work before we take the sample. I shall certainly want to know the financial consequence of the scheme.

I am told that of the registered unemployed generally, about 60 per cent. draw the benefit and 40 per cent. do not do so. I think that one major group—here again, I am speaking from memory —that has to be taken into account for the moment, although this will change, is married women, who may be registered as unemployed but not drawing unemployment benefit. Certainly the calculations take account of 60 per cent. Drawing unemployment benefit.

We have been at fault in not making it absolutely clear that if a person draws an occupational pension, in no way will that affect the £23 tax-free allowance. On the other hand, I cannot see that there is any way in which we can write rules into every indivdual occupatonal scheme which mean that an employer is bound in a particular way. Certainly we should have to have very lengthy discussions with the Confederation of British Industry before we decided to make rules of that sort.

Mr. Prior

My hon. Friend raised a very important point. He believes and I believe that this scheme will be used a great deal more in the future, and one of the obstacles that it will come up against will be the occupational pension schemes. Will the Minister consider having further talks with companies, and perhaps the British Insurance Association, to see whether there is not some way in which this problem can be overcome? I quite understand that he has not been able so far to find a satisfactory way, but this matter will have to be looked at carefully, and it would be of the greatest benefit if a satisfactory arrangement could be made.

Mr. Golding

I could not give any undertaking about whom we would consult, but in view of the spirit in which the whole debate has taken place I undertake to look at the matter further.

We would certainly inquire whether there is any possibility of influencing outside bodies when they are drawing up and interpreting rules under the scheme. We shall look at the matter again very carefully. Again, I would not want those in occupational pension schemes to be deterred from taking job release if there were anything that we could do reasonably to prevent that. Therefore, we shall look at the matter again—although on our side we certainly have no intention of preventing people from drawing the allowance because they are drawing occupational pensions, or would draw them if they retired.

I turn to the contribution of the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer). My first flippant remark is that I should like the scheme to be applied to men of 46 rather than men of 59, but I do not think that it is a runner, because the Bill is not drawn quite as widely as the hon. Gentleman suggested in an earlier contribution. The Bill talks of people approaching pensionable age. We have not defined that, but we would be hard put to it to say that 59, rather than 64, is "approaching pensionable age".

Certainly there is at present no chance of reducing to 60 the pension age for men. The allowance is only for one year, and we should not want a scheme whereby we paid the allowance for a man of between 59 and 60 who would then have to find further employment or go on to the unemployment register. I think that we shall have to stick to this situation until the State pensionable age changes.

I am afraid that I cannot be very helpful with regard to the self-employed. This could obviously lead to a lot of abuse. For example, in many industries it would be possible for someone to draw the job release allowance and then to start using his services as a self-employed person. I do not think that we should allow people to work as self-employed at the same time as they are being paid a £23 tax-free allowance. If we did so I am sure that there would be howls from other self-employed people if they were in competition with individuals who were receiving basic support of £23 tax-free from the State. It would be impossible to do so.

Mr. Silvester

We are all concerned about the position of the self-employed in relation to various benefits. Surely what my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) is asking for is that a person who ceases to act as a self-employed person should be as entitled to the allowance as is someone who ceases to act as an employed person. We are not suggesting that the person continues self-employed work.

As for abuses, there could be a situation in which someone took on part-time work as a self-employed person while receiving job release allowance. The situation in respect of the self-employed is no more open to abuse than is anything else.

Mr. Golding

I think that it is. I shall have to read Hansard. I apologise if I have got the point wrong, but I felt that the hon. Gentleman was referring to a lump sum.

Sir Anthony Meyer

My hon. Friend and I were referring to two separate things. I fully understand the difficulty to which the Minister is referring. However, I still believe that this is worth a second look. I should be reassured if I were told that the Minister's Department would have another look at it.

Mr. Golding

I am prepared to look at anything at any time and at any hour. I shall look at this again, although I think it creates very great difficulties. Later on I shall be talking about the earnings limit and I shall be making some concessions. If the self-employed earn less than £4 a week they would be entitled to become unemployed under the new rules. I shall look at this, but without any hope at all, because I would be in dreadful trouble with other small traders in other small towns if they faced competition from a woman of 59 or a man of 64 who was receiving £23 a week tax free in order to subsidise her on his self-employment.

To a great extent we are debating the rules of the scheme. We are prepared to look at these rules at any time. If, at any time, Opposition Members want to discuss the rules under which we are operating I shall be very pleased to meet them and to discuss at length the operation of the scheme as it exists.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Madel

Before we leave Clause 1 there are a couple of points that I should like to raise with the Minister relating to his opening speech on Second Reading. They are concerned with the mechanism used by people before they qualify for job release. When referring to what an employee has to do, the Minister said: they are released by their employer, that the application is made with the knowledge and agreement of the trade union concerned, and that the employer recruits as soon as possible a full-time replacement from the unemployment register". We were rather surprised by that remark. I do not think it is necessary to have the agreement of the trade union concerned. After all, a little later on, the Minister rightly said: Workers should be employed on their merits, regardless of their age."—[Official Report, 14th February 1977; Vol. 926, c. 42.] I would also add "regardless of their trade union affiliation". We do not need to get the trade unions involved in every single nut and bolt, although their relationship with the employer and employees may be so close that they automatically come in. We were a little puzzled by the Minister's remarks, not least because of the additional point that he made about people being employed on their merits.

I hope the Government also will keep an open mind with regard to the Belgian scheme. As the scheme works there, when someone takes job release the employer must take on from the unemployment register someone who is under 30. Where young people have acquired a skill, either by apprenticeship or through a sandwich course or some other form of further education, the sooner we can get their skills used the better. The greatest danger is that their skills will not be used early on, with the result that they do not get into the work habit.

After all, people have acquired those skills through a great deal of Government expense. Training schemes are a necessary basis and groundwork for acquiring new skills as technology and industry advances and makes alterations.

I end my remarks with the hope that the Government will keep an open mind about the Belgian scheme. I am not suggesting that it is working well—it is not—but we may have seriously to consider that scheme. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he will have further consultations about pensions. In a letter to me he emphatically stated: We shall however make it quite clear that from our side the receipt of an occupational pension shall not affect a person's entitlement to the Job Release allowance. Publicity should be given to that, because there is still some confusion in people's minds about the way in which their occupational pension is affected.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

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