POOR LAW EMERGENCY PROVISIONS CONTINUANCE (SCOTLAND) BILL. (Hansard, 26 May 1925)

VISCOUNT GAGE

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill is practically an agreed measure as regards the first portion of it, and I would say in passing that its object is to extend the operation of the Poor Law Emergency Provisions (Scotland) Act of 1921 for another two years. As your Lordships are no doubt aware, it was illegal before 1921 to give relief under the Scottish Poor 532 Law to any able-bodied person; but in view of the widespread unemployment this temporary Act was passed under which parish councils were enabled to afford relief to the destitute even if they were able-bodied. The Act was extended for a year in 1924, and as the position has not improved, and there are still many unemployed who are not fully or even partially covered by the Unemployment Insurance scheme, it is desired to continue the same powers under this Bill for another two years.

I think the part of the Bill to which the noble Lord, Lord Arnold, referred was probably the modification which is to be found in the second portion. Under Section 3 (a) of the Local Authorities (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1923, parish councils were given power to make arrangements with other local authorities for providing work for able-bodied men on the roll of poor. Parish councils were permitted by that section to pay over to the local authorities in respect of any man so employed the amount of aliment that would otherwise have been paid to him as relief. They were, however, expressly debarred from taking any such action where the relief works were let to a contractor. That restriction has resulted in parish councils being able to place relatively few men in employment, and the hope that co-operative schemes of work on an extensive scale might be arranged has not been realised. The great majority of relief works, in fact, are let by the local authorities to contractors so that very little use can be made of the existing provisions in the Act of 1923.

In September, 1923, a meeting, representative of parish councils in Scotland, passed a resolution to the effect that the original provisions embodied in the 1923 Act were hampering parish councils in finding employment for men on their rolls, and the meeting agreed to seek power to enable them to make arrangements with local authorities who were carrying out work by contract labour as well as direct labour. The present Bill proposes to give parish councils that power, and it is hoped that by virtue of that extension of the powers of parish councils local authorities may be induced to undertake further relief works, and that parish councils will be afforded additional opportunities of placing in employment able-bodied men who apply to them for relief. This matter has been debated in another 533 place, and I believe the chief objections to the modification to which I have been referring may be briefly stated.

The first is that public money is being employed for the profit of private individual firms; and the second, that the ordinary business methods of contracting firms tend tell discriminate against the class of person whom it is most in the public interest to assist. The answer to both these objections is that although it is possible for local authorities to abuse any extension of powers which may be made to them, the Government have sufficient confidence in them to believe that the Bill will be administered in the spirit intended by the Government. Both the Unemployment Grants Committee and the superior local authorities already supplement their own schemes by contract schemes, and this Bill only extends the principle. The interests of both the unemployed and the public are protected by two authorities, the parish councils and the county or town councils, and the Government are convinced, after carefully studying the operation of the existing Act, that the advantages of thus extending the scope of employment would far outweigh the disadvantages that it is feared would arise. I beg to move.