HL Deb 05 September 1939 vol 114 cc996-7

Brought from the Commons; and read 1a.

Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended:

4.50 p.m.

EARL STANHOPE

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. The object of the Bill is to provide for an extension of the unemployment assistance scheme so as to permit the payment of allowances to persons outside the present scope who are in distress as the result of circumstances caused by the war. This is an entirely new scheme. The chief classes to be covered in the first instance will be, first of all, persons in distress as the result of their having been evacuated under the Government evacuation scheme; secondly, persons in distress by reason of the fact that, owing to enemy attack or threatened enemy action or to other circumstances arising out of the war, they or some person on whom they normally depend for their support have wholly or to a substantial extent been deprived of their normal means of livelihood. The scheme will be on much the same lines as the present unemployment assistance scheme and allowances will be based on the same standards. The scheme has been devised because it is not thought to be fair that this additional burden, in the event of an emergency, should fall upon the public assistance authorities. The cost of any allowances will be borne by the Exchequer. The scheme does not, of course, relieve public assistance authorities of their existing liabilities. The extension must inevitably be capable of being made by means of regulations, as flexibility and rapidity of action are clearly necessary.

The Bill also empowers the Minister, by means of regulations made with the approval of the Treasury, to simplify the working of the unemployment assistance scheme in relation both to the classes which are now covered by it and to the new classes which will be brought in. The power to make alterations by regulations under the Bill will, however, not extend to certain provisions in the present scheme which will only be capable of alteration by further legislation. The provisions in question are those relating to the assessment of allowances, including safeguarding of certain classes of resources and the procedure under which regulations for the assessment of need must be submitted in draft to Parliament and must receive the prior approval of Parliament before they can become operative.

A clause in this Bill, similar to one in the Unemployment Insurance (Emergency Powers) Bill, which your Lordships have just passed, enables the Parliament of Northern Ireland to pass similar legislation in that country. The rest of the Bill is consequential and formal. I beg to move that it be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl Stanhope.)

On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

Bill read 3a, and passed, and a Message sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.