Sitting of 22 June 1936

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Foundling Hospital Bill [Lords],—read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Brighton Corporation Bill [Lords],
Ilfracombe Urban District Council Bill [Lords],
North-West Kent Joint Water Bill [Lords],
Rochester Corporation Bill [Lords],
South Metropolitan Gas Bill [Lords],
Read a Second time, and committed.
Liverpool Corporation Bill [Lords] (by Order),—Second Reading deferred till Thursday.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (Cowes) Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (Keyhaven) Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (Paignton) Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (Whitley Bay) Bill,
Read the Third time, and passed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    OFFICERS' QUARTERS (PESHAWAR).
    Mr. DAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will give particulars as to the number of additional quarters made available to officers and their families for housing purposes in the Peshawar district of the North-West Frontier Province of India during the last three years; and whether the shortage of bungalows in this district for housing officers still continues?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Butler): I am asking the Government of India for the particulars desired by the hon. Member; meanwhile I can assure him that the position has considerably improved in recent years.
    Mr. DAY: Can the Minister say whether he considers it satisfactory, or has he received any complaints?
    Mr. BUTLER: I think that the hon. Member may take it that the position has considerably improved. Naturally, it is not completely satisfactory.

    FORFEITED PUBLICATIONS.
    Mr. D. GRENFELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that all copies of a book entitled "A Ten Years' History of Orissa" have been declared to be forfeited in India; whether such action has been taken as a matter of executive discretion; and in how many cases this has been done?
    Mr. BUTLER: If the hon. Member is referring to an Oriya book called "Dasabarasar Orissa," the answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Action was taken under the powers conferred by Section 99A of the Code of Criminal Procedure. I am unable to say in how many cases similar action has been taken.
    Mr. GRENFELL: While grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming my translation of the title, I would like him to say whether the Government would consider announcing in some form of public document what is permitted to be said and written in India?
    Mr. BUTLER: I think that it would be advisable if the hon. Member would read the Code of Criminal Procedure, in Section 99A of which he will find what is not permitted.
    Mr. GRENFELL: The point I want to make is that while certain books are prohibited, we do not know what is permitted.
    Mr. SORENSENasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the High Court in Indic, has recently pronounced that copies of the Communist manifesto of Karl Marx, or translations of it or both, are to be forfeited under Sections 124A and 153A

    1399
    of the Indian Penal Code; and what steps it is proposed to take to amend the law to render the possession of such works as the Communist manifesto not a crime?
    Mr. BUTLER: I am aware that the Allahabad High Court in a recent judgment upheld the validity of the orders passed by the Government of the United Provinces declaring copies of this Communist manifesto to be forfeited. There is no intention of amending the law in the direction suggested.
    Mr. SORENSEN: Does not the hon. Gentleman personally feel how absurd it is to allow copies of the Communist manifesto to circulate in this country without dire results, while condemning it when it is circulated in India?
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Does the literature of the Anti-Socialist Union circulate in Moscow?
    Mr. SHINWELL: Is any reference to Magna Carta prohibited in India?
    Mr. THORNE: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that this is the only safety valve for the people of India?
    Commander LOCKER - LAMPSON: Was not this book written in England, and if it has not succeeded in affecting the English people, can it do much damage in India?

    PREMISES (SEARCH).
    Mr. GRENFELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for India on what grounds the premises of the Punjab Radical League and also various private houses in Jamshedpuri were searched in April last?
    Mr. BUTLER: I regret that I have no information on this subject.

    PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURES (ELECTORAL RULES).
    Mr. SORENSENasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, seeing that under the regulations for elections to Provincial Legislatures those entitled to vote on the basis of literary qualifications are required to take the initiative in being placed on the electoral roll, he will recommend that the possible disfranchisement of many electors be avoided by the amendment of rules so
    1400
    that all those qualified to vote in this respect are duly placed on the register by a similar process to that prevailing in this country?
    Mr. BUTLER: The adoption of the hon. Member's suggestion would involve amendment of the Government of India Act and could not be effected by provision in the electoral rules. The decision to make dependent on application the enrolment of voters on the basis of certain qualifications was taken after full discussion in the House a year ago, and I cannot, therefore, hold out hopes of making any alteration.
    Mr. SORENSEN: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that it is estimated that many millions will be disfranchised through the operation of the present procedure; and, in view of that, will he make some representations with a view to securing that those who should be on the electoral roll are placed there by some more expeditious method?
    Mr. BUTLER: I am aware of the anxiety of the hon. Member and others on this subject. When the matter was under consideration we consulted the Provincial Governments and went as far as it was administratively possible to go. I am afraid that we cannot go any further. Certain concessions were made in the House when we discussed the matter.
    Mr. SORENSEN: That means, in effect, that we can have no hope held out of an improvement in the position?
    Mr. LENNOX-BOYD: Is it not a fact that if there is a real desire for a democratic constitution in India, they will take these steps themselves?
    Mr. BUTLER: The answer to the secondary supplementary is in the affirmative. In regard to the first one, the hon. Member may rest assured that in the circumstances we have done as much as can be done. If the hon. Member will consult the Government of India Act—I will be pleased to refer him to the Section—he will see that after a certain period it will be possible for representations to be made by the legislatures themselves.

    LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (SPEECHES).
    Mr. SORENSENasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that any member of the Legislative Assembly of India can be proceeded

    1401
    against for uttering treasonable, seditious, or defamatory words in the Assembly; how many such cases have occurred in the last three years; what form the proceedings took; and by whom they were initiated?
    Mr. BUTLER: No, Sir. Section 67 (7) of the Government of India Act specifically bars proceedings in any court in respect of speeches made in the Indian Legislature.

  TRIPOLI (BRITISH SUBJECTS' IMPRISONMENT).
  Commander BOWERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement regarding the two Maltese British subjects, Carmelo Psaila and Robert Ghirlando, recently condemned by an Italian special tribunal in Tripoli on charges of anti-Italian activity?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Eden): Yes, Sir. I am happy to be able to inform the House that His Majesty's Ambassador at Rome received information from Tripoli on 12th June that Messrs. Ghirlando and Psaila were to be released on that day. Mr. Ghirlando, who desired to go to Tunis, was to be taken by car to the frontier the same afternoon, while Mr. Psaila was to be placed on board a ship sailing for Malta that evening. I have expressed to His Majesty's Ambassador at Rome the satisfaction of His Majesty's Government at the zeal and ability with which His Excellency has acted in the interests of these two British subjects, and with the manner in which his representations have been received by the Italian Government.
  Commander BOWER: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the whole Maltese people will be grateful to His Majesty's Government for the determined and effective action taken in this case?

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS (EGYPT).
  Mr. A. HENDERSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in the view of His Majesty's Government, Egypt is entitled to apply for membership of the League of Nations; and whether His Majesty's
  1402
  Government are in favour of the admission of Egypt to membership of the League?
  Mr. EDEN: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) on 11th December last, to which I have nothing to add.

  GERMANY.

    TREATY OF LOCARNO (DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS).
    Captain McEWENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs with regard to the recently published German official collection of diplomatic documents relating to the Treaty of Locarno, whether all the documents included in the recent British Blue Book on the same subject are also included in the German collection; and whether any documents, published or unpublished, not included in the British Blue Book are included in the German collection?
    Mr. EDEN: The answer to the first part of the question is "No, Sir," and to the second part, "Yes, Sir." I will with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a full statement of the particulars in which the two publications to which he refers differ.
    Captain McEWEN: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Herr von Ribbentrop, in a preface to the German collection, referred to the publication of similar collections abroad as being undeniably prejudiced, and is it not to be hoped that my right hon. Friend's answer will remove all grounds for such unwarrantable accusations in future?
    Mr. EDEN: I cannot be responsible for expressions of opinion. All my answer will show is which documents were published in which publication.
    Following is the statement:
    With the exception of the documents in the Blue Book (Cmd. 5143) numbered 5, 12, 18, 21, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 52 and 54, none of the documents contained in the Blue Book are included in the German collection of documents to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.
    The Blue Book only purports to cover the period from June, 1934, to 6th March,

    1403
    1936, whereas the German collection of documents covers a period ranging from 19th January, 1919, to 6th May, 1936. Whereas the Blue Book contains 59 documents, there are in the German publication only 17 documents dealing with the period covered by the Blue Book. The German publication contains no document between July, 1935, and February, 1936.
    The documents referring to the period covered by the Blue Book which are included in the German collection and which do not appear in the Blue Book are:

    No. 25.—German Government's declaration of 16th March, 1935, regarding conscription.

    No. 26.—British, French and Italian notes of protest (18th March and 21st March, 1935) against the conscription decision.

    No. 27.—Communiqué issued by representatives of Great Britain, France and Italy at the conclusion of the Stresa Conference.

    No. 29.—Resolution of the Council of the League of Nations, 17th April, 1935.

    No. 30.—German Government's note of protest against that resolution, 20th April, 1935.

    No. 32.—Questions and answers in the House of Commons regarding the effect of the Franco-Soviet Pact on the Treaty of Locarno, May, 1935.

    No. 33.—Text of the Czechoslovak-Soviet Pact, 16th May, 1935.

    No. 36.—Recommendations of the Committee of Thirteen regarding the application of sanctions, May to July, 1935.

    No. 37.—Extract from speech by M. Herriot in the French Chamber, 20th February, 1936.

    No. 40.—Speech by M. Flandin in the French Chamber, 25th February, 1936.

    Certain parts also of documents Nos. 31, 34 and 39 in the German collection do not appear in the Blue Book, one of these being the Franco-Russian Military Agreement of 1892 and the other the Franco-Russian Naval Agreement of 1912.
    All the documents contained in the German collection have already been published.

    AMBASSADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN.
    Miss WILKINSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any name has yet been submitted to His Majesty's Government by the German Government for the vacant post of German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's?
    Mr. EDEN: No, Sir.
    Miss WILKINSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in view of the high rate of sudden mortality among German Ambassadors, he can suggest any way of protecting the newcomer when he arrives?

    BRITISH AMBASSADOR.
    Miss WILKINSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government contemplate any change in His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin in the immediate future?
    Mr. EDEN: No, Sir.
    Miss WILKINSON: Can I take it from that statement that this list of alternatives which has been so obligingly hawked round high political circles by Herr von Ribbentrop has not been considered by His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. EDEN: The Government are fully satisfied with, and very grateful for, the services of His Majesty's present Ambassador in Berlin.

    BRITISH PERMITS.
    Miss WILKINSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether in granting permits to enter this country to Germans known to be supporters of the present regime, the same care is taken in regard to their not taking part in any propaganda in Great Britain, and to seeing that any promise is observed, as is shown by his Department in regard to refugees from German Fascism?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Lloyd): It is not the practice to interrogate foreign visitors about their political opinions any more than about their religious beliefs. If His Majesty's Government have reason to suppose that a foreigner's object in coming to this country is to promote disorder or engage in unlawful or unconstitutional activities, that would be considered ground for refusal of admission. In administering this

    1405
    policy there is no discrimination between the opponents and supporters of German National Socialism.
    Miss WILKINSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his Department has supplied him with an answer to that question which is just simply not true?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is not the way to treat an answer to a question.
    Mr. LLOYD: I think the hon. Lady is under a genuine misapprehension, arising probably from the fact that in' a particular case in which she is interested there was volunteered on behalf of the alien a statement in regard to such matters. It was not demanded by the Home Office.
    Miss WILKINSON: Surely the Home Office is aware that its Aliens Office is repeatedly asking people whether they are Communists and no one asks whether they are Fascists. When we get such bodies as the Anglo-German Club, which is openly carrying on Fascist propaganda, what is the good of making answers like that?
    Mr. BERNAYS: Is it not a fact that it was the Labour party that refused admission to Trotsky?

  ITALY AND ABYSSINIA.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will state the reply given by the British Minister in Addis Ababa to the inquiry made by the Emperor of Ethiopia before his departure from his country as to the amount of continued and increased support that might be anticipated from the League of Nations?
  Mr. EDEN: On 1st May the Emperor sent for His Majesty's Minister and inquired whether it would be possible for communications to be maintained through the Sudan if he were driven to reorganise armed resistance from a place in Western Abyssinia in the neighbourhood of that British frontier. Sir Sidney Barton replied that he must refer the matter to His Majesty's Government, but stated as his own view that, in the contingency contemplated, existing communications with the Sudan would be maintained. He was subsequently informed that this view was fully approved by His Majesty's Government. The Emperor further inquired whether, if he made a further
  1406
  appeal to the League for increased pressure on. Italy, His Majesty's Government would support his negotiations. Sir Sidney Barton replied that this also was a matter on which he must naturally refer to His Majesty's Government, but in response to the Emperor's request for his own views, he explained the situation created for the League by recent developments in Europe and the bearing of the French elections on the then impending meeting of the League Council.
  Mr. MANDER: Will the Foreign Secretary be good enough to say whether the British Government ever gave a definite reply to the Emperor's second question asking whether he could rely on further support from the League of Nations?
  Mr. EDEN: The Emperor actually left his capital next day.
  Mr. MANDER: Do we understand that no reply was given to it owing to the fact that he had left?
  Mr. EDEN: No reply was possible.
  Mr. A. HENDERSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government will consult with the United States Government and the other Governments, signatories of the Pact of Paris, with a view to appropriate action being taken to deal with the breach by Italy of its obligations under the treaty?
  Mr. EDEN: No, Sir.
  Mr. HENDERSON: Is it not desirable that the other signatories to this treaty should indicate in some form their disapproval of the action of Italy? What is the value of any treaty when breaches can be committed in it with impunity and no action is taken by the other signatories?
  Mr. EDEN: I think the time for action under the Pact of Paris was at the outbreak of war. We preferred to take action under the Covenant of the League of Nations. It was open to anybody else to take action of the kind indicated.
  Mr. HENDERSON: Is it not desirable at this juncture that the other signatories to the treaty should indicate in some form whether in their opinion the signature of Italy has been rendered nugatory as a result of her action, and is it not within the power of the other signatories to do that?
  Mr. EDEN: That may be so, but I think it is more a case for the signatories who are not members of the League of Nations to initiate action.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the area of Ethiopia in Italian military occupation; the area remaining under the sovereignty of the Emperor; the estimated forces at his disposal; and whether licences for the export of munitions to these forces will continue to be granted?
  Mr. EDEN: I have no news of recent Italian military movements. But according to an estimate prepared about three weeks ago the area in actual Italian military occupation was less than one-half of the country. This area nevertheless represents the most important part of Abyssinia, comprising as it does the two principal cities, Addis Ababa and Harar, and—with one exception—all the recognised channels of communication with the outside world. As regards the remaining area, I can only speak with full information of Western Abyssinia, which includes the one remaining channel of communication to which I have referred. Here, according to very recent reports received from the Acting Governor-General at Khartoum and from His Majesty's Consul at Gore, the country is, as I stated in the course of last Thursday's Debate, in the hands of the Galla population, who are hostile to the Emperor's Government. Such Amhara officials as remain are, I understand, not in a position to exercise authority. I can make no estimate of the strength of the armed Abyssinian forces remaining in the country. As regards the last part of the question, the situation is, I hope, clear from what I have just said. His Majesty's Government evidently could not allow arms to go from the Sudan into Western Abyssinia so long as there is no probability that the arms would be received by any constituted authority or serve any purpose other than that of promoting civil war. I have informed the Ethiopian Minister in London in that sense.
  Mr. MANDER: In view of the fact that it is reported that there are something like 30,000 troops in Abyssinia now who are hostile to the Italian occupation will the Government do nothing to hinder them from receiving arms, or do the Government intend to take sides against them?
  Mr. EDEN: No, certainly we do not intend to take sides against them, but in Western Abyssinia there is, as far as we are aware, no authority to whom these arms could go, and we could not take the responsibility of allowing arms to go across the frontier when that might only result in local strife without helping the Emperor or anyone else.
  Mr. SHINWELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the Galla tribes are favourable to the occupation of Abyssinia?
  Mr. EDEN: I have only said that they were unfavourable to the Emperor.
  Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Are we to understand that the Government are in total disagreement with the action of the President of the United States in the matter?
  Mr. EDEN: I do not think that at all follows.
  Commander LOCKER-LAMPSON: Is it not the case that the Galla tribes dislike even more the rule of Mussolini?
  Mr. MANDER: Do I understand that in the event of there being a Government in Western Abyssinia responsible to the Emperor there would be no objection to arms going in?
  Mr. EDEN: That would create an entirely new situation. It is not the situation which I have to face.
  Miss RATHBONEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he intends at the meeting of the League to propose or to oppose recognition of Italy's annexation of Ethiopia?
  Mr. EDEN: His Majesty's Government have no intention at the forthcoming meeting of the League of proposing or assenting to the recognition of Italy's annexation of Abyssinia.
  Miss RATHBONEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will propose to the League that neither Italy nor any other State which is unwilling to accept the procedure for the peaceful settlement of disputes prescribed by the Covenant should be permitted to obtain loans or credits from member States of the League?
  Mr. EDEN: As I stated in the Debate on Thursday last the whole problem of

  1409
  the future practice of the League of Nations is shortly to be considered at Geneva. I am sure the hon. Member will not expect me at this stage to anticipate these deliberations.
  Miss RATHBONE: Have the Government made up their mind what they will propose at the League in respect of loans to Italy?
  Mr. EDEN: We shall be prepared to state our position in due course.
  Mr. SHINWELL: If the Government have views on the reform of the League in any of its aspects, surely this House is entitled to know what is in the mind of the Government?
  Mr. EDEN: But there is no question of a debate on the future of the League taking place at this meeting at Geneva. In due course, naturally, the House will be fully informed of any proposals we have to make.
  Miss RATHBONE: As sanctions are to be dropped, unless action is taken to the contrary will it not follow ipso facto that loans and credits will be possible, and do not the Government intend to do anything to prevent our being involved in that final ignominy?
  Mr. EDEN: I do not think the hon. lady's conclusions are correct.
  Mr. PETHERICK: Will the right hon. Gentleman continue the practice of discouraging foreign loans of all kinds?
  Mr. EDEN: That is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  Mr. A. HENDERSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether during his consultations with the new French Government a specific inquiry was addressed to the French Government as to whether they were in favour of the continuance of sanctions: and, if so, what was the nature of their reply?
  Mr. EDEN: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement which I made on this subject in the course of last Thursday's Debate, to which I have nothing to add.
  Mr. HENDERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the statement to which he has just referred he informed the House that the new French Govern-
  1410
  ment did not indicate to him that they were in favour of the discontinuance of sanctions? Will he not inform the House whether the French Government ever actually stated that they were against the continuance of sanctions?
  Mr. EDEN: I think my statement did cover both points. If hon. Members wish any further information it can be given in the Debate to-morrow.
  Mr. HENDERSON: Will not the right hon. Gentleman say now whether the French Government ever stated that they were against the continuance of sanctions?
  Mr. EDEN: I think that what I stated on Thursday must stand. If hon. Members wish for further information, I am perfectly willing to give it to them to-morrow.
  Captain McEWEN: Is it not the fact that French foreign policy never changes?
  Mr. THURTLEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, prior to his advising the Government to discontinue the policy of economic sanctions against Italy, he had any conversations or communications with the Italian Government in regard to this projected change of policy?
  Mr. EDEN: No, Sir.
  Miss RATHBONEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will give an assurance that in the event of the removal of sanctions against Italy it is not the intention of His Majesty's Government to supply Italy with loans or credits which may be used to complete her subjugation of Ethiopia and to prepare for further acts of aggression?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. W. S. Morrison): His Majesty's Government have no power to grant loans or credits to Italy nor have they any intention of seeking such power.

  STRESA AGREEMENT.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the policy of the Government to work for a restoration of the Stresa front?
  Mr. EDEN: The policy of His Majesty's Government was fully stated in the course of last Thursday's Debate, and I have nothing to add to what was then said.
  Mr. MANDER: May we have an assurance that Italy will not now be called in to act the part of judge and policeman in regard to others?

  HELIGOLAND.
  Mr. LEVYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement on the refortification of Heligoland by Germany contrary to the Versailles Treaty?
  Commander LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether an undertaking was given in regard to Heligoland by Germany; and whether this undertaking is being carried out?
  Mr. EDEN: I have seen recent reports that Heligoland is being fortified in contravention of the terms of Article 115 of the Treaty of Versailles: and I am making inquiries.
  Commander LOCKER - LAMPSON: Have we the right to inspect Heligoland to find out whether it is so or not?
  Mr. EDEN: I do not think so.
  Mr. GARRO JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider publishing a White Paper setting out those treaties to the breaking of which the Government will take exception and those to which they will not?

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    BRITISH INDUSTRIES FAIR.
    Mr. DAYasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what contribution has been made or sum allocated by His Majesty's Government towards the expenses of Press advertising and other publicity in advertising abroad the British Industries Fair for the 12 months ended to the last convenient date; and will he give particulars?
    Captain EUAN WALLACE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): No provision or allocation is made by His Majesty's Government towards the expenses of Press advertising and other publicity advertising the British Indus-
    1412
    tries Fair abroad. All the expenses of the Fair, including those of all publicity both in this country and abroad are defrayed from the general receipts of the Fair, which is run on a self-supporting basis.

    GERMANY.
    Mr. ELLIS SMITHasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether he has found any estimate of the effect on British trade of the policy that is being carried out by the German department of war economics;
    (2) whether his attention has been directed to the policy of settling debts by the clearing marks method; and will he, when arranging future trade agreements, take steps to ensure the mutual benefit of both signatories;
    (3) whether it is proposed to take counter measures to offset the effects of Dr. Schacht's mission to Vienna, Belgrade, Athens, and Sofia, and institute special exchange clearing arrangements in the case of any country that yields to pressure, so that free sterling shall not be used by such a country to aid trade for war material or to assist its economic position?
    Captain WALLACE: It is not possible to give any estimate of the general effect on United Kingdom trade as a whole of the clearing agreements and similar arrangements made between Germany and other countries. In any case where it appears that these countries are, in consequence, discriminating against the trade of the United Kingdom, diplomatic representations will be made. His Majesty's Government have already made trade and payments agreements with a number of countries with the object which the hon. Member suggests, and it is doubtful whether this object would be attained, in present circumstances, by the establishment of the special exchange clearing arrangements to which the hon. Member refers.
    Mr. SMITH: Do the Minister and his Department propose to acquiesce in the development of this policy, as they did in the financing of German re-armament?

    DENMARK (SUPPLEMENTARY AGREEMENT).
    Mr. H. G. WILLIAMSasked the President of the Board of Trade what progress has been made in the negotiations for an agreement to continue in force the

    1413
    commercial agreement with Denmark of 24th April, 1933?
    Captain WALLACE: I am glad to inform the House that the negotiations with the Danish Government resulted in the signature last Friday, 19th June, of a supplementary agreement, to continue in force, subject to four months' notice of denunciation by either party, the Agreement of 24th April, 1933. The Danish Government now undertake to make an allocation of licences which will represent an appreciable increase in the import of United Kingdom goods into Denmark.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Are we to understand that the extension of the trade agreement for four months will prevent during that period the possibility of dealing with the difficult position of British agriculture?
    Captain WALLACE: We have been able to negotiate an agreement that can be denounced on short notice on either side, and the agreement, as I understand it, can be denounced by four months' notice to-morrow.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: My hon. and gallant Friend did not understand my, point, which was that the agreement ran out on Saturday, and we are therefore free to-day to make further arrangements for agriculture. Do I understand that, as a result of this agreement, any further arrangements for agriculture are postponed for at least four months?
    HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: As this agreement is very detrimental to agriculture, does the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that there is very keen disappointment throughout the agricultural industry?
    Captain WALLACE: If my hon. and gallant Friend would take into account that this is a temporary agreement to carry on with, I do not think he would be so disappointed.
    Miss WARD: Has anything been done to insert a Clause in this agreement respecting the use of British ships?
    Captain DOWER: Will the House have an opportunity of discussing the trade agreement between this country and Denmark, before the terms of it are put before the House?
    Sir PERCY HARRIS: Is not Denmark a friendly country, anxious to trade with us?
    Mr. LIDDALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the difficulties of Lincoln, and manufacturers in other cities, in obtaining licences to allow British goods to be supplied to Denmark; and whether, in negotiations with the Danish Government, he anticipates that British manufacturers will be placed in a more favourable situation in future?
    Captain WALLACE: I am aware of the difficulties which manufacturers in Lincoln and other cities have experienced in obtaining licences for the import of their goods into Denmark. With regard to the second part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have just given to my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams).
    Mr. LIDDALL: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware of the difficulties being experienced by Lincoln firms, and will he take steps to urge the Danish authorities to grant import licences in respect of all orders already placed with Lincoln firms and which they are in grave danger of losing?
    Captain WALLACE: We are aware, as I said in my answer, of the difficulties, but I can tell my hon. Friend that, as a result of the supplementary agreement, Lincoln firms will have a much better chance than they had before of exporting to Denmark.
    Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how the Danes can be expected to buy agricultural machines in Lincoln if we refuse to take their agricultural produce?
    Captain WALLACE: I think my hon. Friend had better ask the Danes.

    AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES (DIPLOMAS).
    Captain DOWERasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that agricultural colleges in several counties are not able to grant diplomas; and will he take steps to extend the advantageous terms given by colleges of other counties that grant

    1415
    diplomas to students of their own counties to the students of counties that have no such facilities and desire to qualify for them?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Ramsbotham): It is presumed that my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to farm institutes which, as a rule, do not grant diplomas. The reason is, I understand, that in most cases the courses rarely extend over more than one year, and my right hon. Friend would deprecate the award of diplomas in respect of short courses in agriculture. There is no objection to the award of certificates in respect of such courses, and these are very generally given. The matter is, however, one for the decision of the local authorities responsible for farm institutes. The local authorities also decide upon the fees and other conditions of entrance to the institutes.

  TERRITORIAL FORCE.

    RECRUITING.
    Mr. MOREINGasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider providing a cancellation postmark which will call attention to the Territorial Army and its need for recruits?
    The POSTMASTER - GENERAL (Major Tryon): I am considering the hon. Member's suggestion, and will write to him on the matter as soon as possible.
    Mr. LEACH: Will there be a further cancellation stamp to the effect that war is hell?

    THE LONDON REGIMENT.
    Sir WILLIAM DAVISONasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the widespread apprehension caused among London Territorial battalions at the prospect of being deprived of their present title, The London Regiment; and whether he can assure the House that it is not the intention of the War Office to make any change in the title of these London Territorials who rendered notable service during the Great War as battalions of the London Regiment?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Sir Victor Warrender): The question of the re-designation of the battalions of The London Regiment is now under consideration, and my right hon. Friend is prepared to consider any representations which have been or may be made to him on the subject.
    Sir W. DAVISON: Will my hon. Friend convey to the War Office the very great undesirability of altering the names of Territorial regiments, of which they are very proud; and may I also ask the War Office to bear in mind the fact that this is not likely to encourage recruiting?
    Captain MACNAMARA: Is it not the case that London units will be very glad to lose the name of "London" if London local government continues its present attitude towards them?

  TELEPHONE SERVICE (EMERGENCY CALLS).
  Mr. DAYasked the Postmaster-General whether he can now make a further statement as to when arrangements will be completed so that, in cases of emergency, telephone subscribers and call-office users in London will have the benefit of indicating the immediate urgency of the call to the exchange; and will he give full particulars?
  Major TRYON: I would refer the hon. Member to my previous answer of 25th May, in which I explained that the necessary apparatus could not be installed for some months. The work of designing and development is being proceeded with as quickly as possible.
  Mr. DAY: Can the Minister say when this further announcement will be made?
  Major TRYON: No, Sir.

  WATER SUPPLIES.
  Mr. LEVYasked the Minister of Health what progress has now been made with the provision of adequate supplies of water for those parts of the country, especially the rural areas, which are liable to severe shortage during the summer months and consequent distress?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): Since the drought of 1933–34 schemes have been undertaken with the aid of the Government grant for 2,350 parishes, at a total estimated cost of over £7,000,000. In addition, loans totalling £1,340,000 have been sanctioned for schemes for 400 parishes proceeding without grant. Urban supplies have been improved where necessary.
  Mr. LEVY: Is the Minister not aware that the multiplicity of water authorities causes confusion, selfishness and shortage where no shortage need be?
  Miss WILKINSON: In view of the terrific pressure in the country districts, and: in the home counties, due to the movement out of the London population, is the Department considering any planning of adequate water supplies in places where it is utterly impossible for the local authorities to do it?
  Mr. LEVY: Might I have an answer to my question?
  Mr. SHAKESPEARE: These questions are constantly under review by our advisory committee.
  Miss WILKINSON: What good is that?
  Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: Is not a Joint Committee of both Houses dealing with this very point, and might we not expect to have a report from the committee in the immediate future?
  Mr. SHAKESPEARE: That is so.
  Sir P. HARRIS: Is it not time for action?

  NUTRITION.
  Mr. CARTLANDasked the Minister of Health what steps his advisory committee on nutrition are taking to collect sufficient data to enable the Government to formulate a policy for dealing with the problem of nutrition?
  Mr. LENNOX-BOYDasked the Minister of Health whether, subsequent to the Bishop Auckland potato scheme, any further experiments have been carried out with a view to ascertaining the possibilities of making supplies of nutritious food available at reduced prices to the unemployed?
  Mr. SANDYSasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the average expenditure on food of 4,500,000 persons in this country does not exceed 4s. per week per head; and whether the advice of his medical advisers indicates that this is sufficient to maintain health and working capacity?
  Mr. SHAKESPEARE: My right hon. Friend is aware that an estimate of average expenditure on food has been made to the effect stated, but he is advised that the data on which it is based are not sufficient to justify positive conclusions. The whole question of the adequacy of diets is now being actively examined by the Advisory Committee on Nutrition who have before them all the available statistical information, including the results of the Bishop Auckland experiment which, my right hon. Friend understands, the Potato Marketing Board do not propose to repeat this season. The committee have, however, recommended the Departments concerned to collect family budgets and undertake dietary surveys, and to obtain information as to the distribution of weekly earnings and family incomes. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour is about to give effect to the recommendation as to family budgets in his forthcoming inquiry as to the cost of living index, and the other matters are now under consideration.
  Mr. SANDYS: Can the Minister give us an idea when we may expect definite action to improve the nutrition position?
  Mr. SHAKESPEARE: My hon. Friend would agree that this is a scientific question first and a political question second, and that it is taking the best action to set up the most expert committee we can.
  Mr. THORNE: Would the Minister, for the benefit of the House, give the House one of his family budgets, and see how that works out?
  Mr. THURTLE: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the poor people could buy very much more food if they had the money with which to buy it?
  Mr. SHAKESPEARE: That is the reason why they ought to thank the National Government that purchasing power, through wages, has been restored to 1,300,000 more persons?
  Mr. HICKS: In view of the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary has said that the Government are totally dissatisfied with the standard of livelihood represented in this matter, and that the Ministry of Labour are undertaking an inquiry into family budgets, would the Minister of Health convey to the Minister of Labour the desirability of not regarding that as a basis for measuring the standard of living?

  UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS.
  Mr. LEVYasked the Minister of Labour whether he can now indicate when he intends introducing the new unemployment regulations?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead): No, Sir.
  Mr. MATHERS: Is it the intention of the Minister that we must wait until the abnormal statistics contained in the district officers' reports, which are appended to the report of the Unemployment Assistance Board, shall sink in, before these regulations are brought forward?
  Mr. BEVAN: Is it intended to postpone the introduction of these new regulations so that their full operation will be known only when Parliament is in recess?
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: I do not think I need add anything to the answer which I have already given—that I cannot indicate when my right hon. Friend intends introducing the regulations.
  Mr. BEVAN: Are not the Minister and the Government aware of the extreme desirability that these new regulations, which are a subject of interest to millions of people, should be introduced so that their full effect will be known while Parliament is sitting?
  Sir P. HARRIS: Do I understand that the regulations have been received by the Minister from the board; and, if so, why is he holding them back? Is it because there is difference of opinion between the board and the Minister?
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: I can add nothing to the answer which I have already given.

  RUSSIA (WORKING CONDITIONS).
  Mr. MARCUS SAMUELasked the Minister of Labour whether he has any information as to the amount of overtime worked in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics since the establishment of the seven-hour day; how much of such overtime is unpaid; and whether overtime is worked free of payment on workers' free days?
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: I have no information as to the amount of overtime worked in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics since the establishment of the seven-hour day. The Labour Code provides that overtime shall be worked only when specially authorised in exceptional cases; that, when worked, it shall not, in general, exceed 120 hours a year; and that any overtime worked shall be remunerated at 50 per cent. above the normal rate for the first two hours on any one day and twice the normal rate for each subsequent hour. An Order of July, 1934, stipulates that overtime, when worked, must be paid for, and may not be compensated by the grant of additional leave. So far as I am aware, however, no statistics have been published showing the amount of overtime worked or the rates actually paid. As regards the last part of the question, I understand that, in the past, work has, in some cases, been performed without pay on free days as a voluntary contribution to the completion of an economic plan; but I am not aware whether the practice continues.
  Mr. SAMUEL: Would it not be worth while to make inquiries in this particular case, seeing that we are having all sorts of international proposals for limiting the hours of labour?
  Mr. ALEXANDER: Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman say from what source the information contained in the answer has been obtained, arid whether he is now to be regarded as the Minister for replying on Soviet questions?
  Miss HORSBRUGH: Is it the case that women are allowed to work overtime on exactly the same basis as men in Russia?

  COAL MINES ACT, 1930 (COMMITTEES OF INVESTIGATION).
  Captain PLUGGEasked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that

  1421
  the major consuming interests object to the personnel of the committees of investigation set up under the Coal Mines Act, 1930, on the grounds that they are not independent, that their powers are inadequate, and their procedure cumbersome; and whether he will strengthen the personnel of these committees and also provide them with additional powers and more effective procedure to provide a remedy for the dissatisfaction which has arisen in connection with the District Coal Orders now before Parliament?
  The SECRETARY for MINES (Captain Crookshank): Yes, Sir. While fully appreciative of the excellent work which the committees of investigation and their chairmen have done in the past, I came to the conclusion some time ago that, in view of the different type of work which is likely to fall on the committees after the 1st August, it was necessary to give them a more judicial character, and the chairman of each committee will in future be a member of the legal profession. It is also intended, in forthcoming legislation for extending the life of Part I of the Coal Mines Act, 1930, to propose some alterations in the functions of the committees of investigation in order to secure more prompt and more effective decisions in the event of complaints being made that the Schemes are being unfairly used.
  Captain PLUGGE: While thanking my hon. and gallant Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he proposes to publish a White Paper setting out in detail the safeguards which he proposes?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: No, Sir; there is no occasion for that at all. I merely said that in future the chairman will be a member of the legal profession. There will be a discussion on this subject on Wednesday, when the point can be raised.
  Mr. SHINWELL: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say when the amending legislation will be introduced?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: The hon. Gentleman knows that that Bill is now before the House.
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Do I understand that on Wednesday my hon. and gallant Friend is going to outline the proposed new safeguards? Would it not be possible, in order that we may appreciate them, to circulate a statement in advance,
  1422
  so as to facilitate the Debate on Wednesday?
  Captain CROOKSHANK: I merely said that there will be some alterations with regard to the functions of the committees, in order that their decisions may be more prompt and more effective. That was all that I said.

  TRANSPORT.

    ROAD TRAFFIC CONTROL.
    Colonel GOODMANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is in a position to state the outcome of his communication with the Minister of Transport as to the future control of traffic on the roads; and, if not, when decisions will be come to on the matter?
    Mr. LLOYD: My right hon. Friend is still in communication with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, and cannot yet say when a decision will be reached.

    MAIN ROADS (FOOTPATHS).
    Mr. WAKEFIELDasked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that there is no footpath for pedestrians at the side of the main road A 419 leading from Swindon to Cricklade, between the Turnpike and Kingsdown Lane and the top of Blunsdon Hill; and, in view of the danger both to pedestrians and all other road users caused by this omission, will he take immediate steps to remedy this state of affairs?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Captain Austin Hudson): Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend is ready to consider favourably an application from the highway authority for a grant towards the cost of a footpath, but has no power to order them to provide one.

    TRAFFIC SIGNALS (STIRLING).
    Mr. T. HENDERSON (for Mr. CASSELLS)asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the high incidence of accidents, both fatal and otherwise, at the crossing known as Earl's Gates, in the county of Stirling; and is he prepared to instruct traffic signals to be placed at this crossing?
    Captain HUDSON: "Halt" signs have recently been erected at this crossing. If

    1423
    these do not prove effective, my right hon. Friend will certainly give immediate consideration to any proposal submitted by the highway authority for making the junction safer, whether by way of traffic light signals or otherwise.

  GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (SPECIAL AREAS).
  Miss WARDasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that it is the policy of His Majesty's Government, other things being equal, to place orders in the Special Areas, and the difficulty of ascertaining the value of this policy, he will consider issuing a White Paper dealing with the effect of these orders in the Special Areas, so that the benefits accruing from this policy may be made clear?
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I do not regard the issue of a White Paper as suitable. It is for consideration, however, whether some other method can be adopted for making further particulars available on this subject.
  Mr. RHYS DAVIES: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering the problem of the Special Areas, will he be good enough to consider also the fact that some districts in Lancashire have deteriorated to such an extent that they are in a worse position than some of the Special Areas?
  Mill WILKINSON: Could the right hon. Gentleman consider a more useful formula than the phrase "other things being equal," as a method of helping the Special Areas?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I will consider that point.

  ROYAL NAVY (CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME).
  Miss WARDasked the Prime Minister whether he will give an assurance that compensation in Admiralty work will be given to those rivers which are unsuccessful in obtaining the order for the sister ship to the "Queen Mary"?
  The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Kenneth Lindsay): I have been asked to reply. I can assure my hon.
  1424
  Friend that all relevant considerations will be taken into account in the allocations under the Naval construction programme.
  Miss WARD: On a point of Order. In view of the fact that it is perpetually stated by the Admiralty that in making allocations the question of price must be taken into consideration, and in view of the fact that the firm which may receive the order for a sister ship to the "Queen Mary" may be asked to tender for Admiralty work, may I ask whether my question could be answered by the Prime Minister, because, if my request were carried out, it would be a matter for Cabinet policy, and not for a decision by the Admiralty?
  Mr. SPEAKER: No point of Order arises at all.

  PEACE TREATIES.
  Mr. MABANEasked the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to afford time for the discussion of the resolution standing on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Huddersfield:
  ["That, in the opinion of this House, it should be a principal purpose of the foreign policy of this country to prepare the ground for a reconsideration of the treaties of peace of 1919 and 1920, and that, as soon as the situation permits, it should be proposed to the Assembly of the League of Nations that action under Article 19 of the Covenant should be taken to secure such alterations of existing treaties as would meet grievances and contribute to the pacification of the world,"]
  and, if not, whether he will indicate what action the Government propose to take to secure an examination and, if need be, a revision of the post-war treaty settlements in order that grievances may be redressed and the principal object in the way of establishing a system of collective security may be removed?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I regret that in the state of public business I can hold out no hope of time being found for the discussion of the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member.
  Mr. MABANE: In view of the fact that the root cause of European unrest is to be found in the peace treaties, will not the Government take a strong initiative to bring the matter of the reconsideration of the peace treaties before the nations of Europe before it is too late?
  The PRIME MINISTER: We do attach the greatest importance to this matter. I am sure the hon. Member and the House realise that in our view any existing status could only be modified by agreement and negotiation.

  EXPLOSION (DEWSBURY).
  Mr. THORNEasked the Home Secretary whether he can give the House any information in regard to the gasometer explosion at the Dewsbury gasworks; the cause of the accident; the number of persons killed and injured; and what steps are being taken to supply the town with gas for domestic purposes?
  Mr. LLOYD: I understand that the explosion originated, not in the gasholder, but in a governor house nearby, in which some cleaning operations were in progress, and that the explosion damaged the gasholder causing an escape of gas which caught fire. The precise cause of the explosion is being further investigated and I cannot say more on the point at present. Four men were employed in the governor house, two being killed and two injured; I have not heard of any other casualties. I understand that the supply of gas to the town was soon restored.
  Mr. THORNE: I take it for granted that eventually you will get information about the cause?
  Mr. LLOYD: Yes, I hope so. A further investigation will take place.

  MEETINGS, FINSBURY PARK.
  Mr. MONTAGUEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the number of mounted and other police drafted into Finsbury Park yesterday on the occasion of a Fascist demonstration and upon whom falls the cost of these, with police cars, lorries, and ambulance wagons and refreshment tent erected in the children's playground; whether he is aware that the only violence exhibited was that of Sir Oswald Mosley's supporters; that the demonstration was organised in military fashion with uniformed men and appropriately distinguished officers, that military formations were conducted and military orders given by loud speakers, although loud speakers of a perfectly
  1426
  peaceful rival meeting were ordered to be toned down; and will be take steps to see that, while safeguarding free speech, such extremely provocative private army organisation is forbidden in future?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Simon): Many thousands of persons assembled in the park on this occasion in connection with the Fascist demonstration and the anti-Fascist counter demonstration, and I am informed by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that 573 foot police and 59 mounted police were on the ground. So large a number of police was employed because the police had reason to believe from past experience that the presence of Fascists and anti-Fascists in the park, unless adequately policed, was likely to give rise to disorder and breaches of the peace. The precautions taken by the police were both necessary and adequate, and no disorder occurred except for a minor scuffle on the outskirts of the Fascist meeting as a result of which two persons wearing badges of the Fascist party were arrested and charged with using insulting words and behaviour. The cost of the police who are engaged in preserving order in the streets and public places is a proper charge on the Police Fund. I am informed by the Commissioner that it is not the case that the police took any action to interfere with the use of loud speakers by the rival organisation referred to. The use of loud speakers in the park is governed by regulations made by the London County Council. The House will appreciate how difficult the task of the police is when rival organisations demonstrate in the same locality. While it is the duty of the police to deal with any conduct which is likely to lead to breaches of the peace, such drastic measures as those proposed by the hon. Member would require legislation, and, as at present advised, I am not satisfied that there is sufficient ground for proposing so far-reaching a change in the law.
  Mr. MONTAGUE: Does the Minister understand that I make no personal complaint of the conduct of the police, and will he take into consideration the desirability of sonic kind of Parliamentary investigation into the activities of this body?
  Sir J. SIMON: I quite appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is not making any reflection on the police. The difficulty is that this is a free country, and the best thing we can do is to appeal to everyone on all sides to show a certain amount of reasonableness.
  Mr. MONTAGUE: Does the Minister think it is desirable in this country with its conditions of freedom and constitutional government that there should be private armies?
  Commander LOCKER-LAMPSON: Is it a fact that Fascists are allowed to wear uniforms? Is that an offence?
  Sir J. SIMON: The question is not an easy one to answer. It has been very carefully considered. As a matter of fact there is nothing in the law that prevents anyone from wearing uniforms. The difficulty would be to define what is a uniform.
  Sir P. HARRIS: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise how very provocative is the military formation of this body?
  Mr. SANDYS: Is a Blackshirt any more provocative than the right hon. Gentleman's red tie?
  Mr. MONTAGUE: The question I asked was exceedingly important. I would ask the Home Secretary whether he is aware that this huge Fascist procession marched out of the park singing a song with the refrain, "Yid, Yid, Yid." This Jew-baiting that is going on in the East End ought to be stopped.
  Sir J. SIMON: I naturally did not know that. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to give him the words of the relevant regulation made by the London County Council:
  "No person shall in any open space without the consent of the council in writing under the hand of its clerk operate or play or make sounds with any musical or other instrument, including any gramophone or mechanical apparatus, or without such consent sing any sacred or secular song."
  Mr. MONTAGUE: Why is it that the police protected the Fascist military band, which was playing in the park?
  Sir J. SIMON: I altogether dispute the allegation that the police protected anybody. I made the closest inquiry to ascertain the facts, and I thought that the hon. Gentleman, when he began his question, said that he made no reflection upon the police.
  Mr. MONTAGUE: May I submit that, in view of the answer to my last question, I am entitled again to say that I make no reflection upon the conduct of the police? But it is the fact that the band at the meeting was protected. [Interruption.]
  Mr. GALLACHER: May I ask a question? [Interruption.]
  Commander LOCKER-LAMPSON: I only want to ask—
  Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Greenwood.

  OFFICE OF WORKS (COMMONS REPRESENTATION).
  Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOODasked the Prime Minister, whether, for the convenience of Members, he can now inform the House as to whom questions to the Office of Works should be addressed?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions will answer for the Office of Works in this House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. GREENWOOD: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to inform the House as to the business for Friday?
The PRIME MINISTER: On Friday we shall begin the Report stage of the Tithe Bill.
Mr. GREENWOOD: That does not necessarily mean that the Third Reading will be taken, unless, of course, the Report stage has been disposed of in reasonable time?
The PRIME MINISTER: Not on Friday.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.
Miss WARD: On a point of Order. When I put down a question on a matter of Cabinet policy, have I to address it to the Prime Minister or must it be put down to the head of the Department?
Mr. SPEAKER: My answer was that no point of Order arose. The hon. Lady asked me a question, which I have answered dozens of times, that any Minister to whom a question is put can

1429
delegate it to another Minister to answer, if that is more suitable.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Rear-Admiral Tufton Percy Hamilton.Beamish, C.B., for the County of East Sussex (Lewes Division).
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [10TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

  UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE BOARD.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £1,370,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Unemployment Assistance Board and of the Appeal Tribunals constituted under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934; and sums payable by the Exchequer to the Unemployment Assistance Fund under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934, for direct administration."—[NOTE: £630,000 has been voted on account.]
  3.46 p.m.
  Mr. LAWSON: I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.
  Perhaps I ought to explain that, as this is the Vote upon which the Unemployment allowances are paid, the last thing we on this side of the Committee would desire to do, would be to vote against this Estimate—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why do it?"]—but as this is the first opportunity we have had of discussing the first Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board, we must, under the Rules of the House, take this line in order to challenge effectively that Report. When I read the Report, and the Press comments on the following days, I was reminded of the days in December, 1934, when the Regulations were issued, and of the Press comments following the issue of those Regulations. The Government will probably claim that the Report has had a good Press, but the Regulations had a good Press, too. The remarkable thing about the Regulations was that the Press, the public and this House were misled until the moment when the storm broke, and the Regulations were broken with it. It ought to be made plain that we on this side of the Committee consider that the Report is as equally misleading as the Regulations. It is the Report of the Board, but the chairman of the Board,
  1438
  by reason of his experience and his position, is the dominating character of the Board. He is more than that; he is the architect of the Report.
  Mr. A. BEVAN: And of the Board.
  Mr. LAWSON: And of the Board, as my hon. Friend has said. Those who knew the chairman when he was a Member of this House respected his qualities, and every hon. Member knew that he was a modest, courteous and supreme master of the great art of making the bitterest Bill taste sweet. I think that Members on all sides of the Committee will accept that description of the Noble Lord who is now chairman of this Board. In the writing of the Report I suggest that he has excelled himself. He has in mind the fact that the Report is the preliminary to the Regulations, and that it is preparation of the public mind for the Regulations. One might describe it as a kind of try-on for the Regulations. The disappointing thing in the Report is the fact that it is clear that the Board still think that their Regulations were right. There are two pages in the Report, pages 14 and 15, dealing with the Regulations, and if one were to read a paragraph one would be tempted to read the two pages. Those two pages are illuminating as to the state of mind in which the Regulations which broke down were framed. The same mind apparently prevails so far us the Board is concerned. The chairman thinks that the Regulation would have been all right had it not been for the maladministration of the local authorities before they came into operation, and if they had only been given a proper chance to develop and operate properly. It is necessary, as the other side of the same point of view, to attack the standstill arrangement. The Board uses some scathing words about the standstill arrangement, which was forced upon the Government by the public outside, which was submitted to the House of Commons by the Government and was passed unanimously by the House.
  The Board makes it clear that from their point of view more than half the people who are now receiving allowances, some 400,000 people, and who are, in a way, outside the Board, because they are subject to the decisions of the previous public assistance committees, ought to be under the thumb of the Board and be

  1439
  subject, accordingly, to reductions. That is a very serious outlook for the people concerned. The Report deals with the interests of applicants and dependants representing over 2,000,000 people, and makes it clear that of those 2,000,000 people more than half the cases have been unemployed for over a year. All have been subject to the wear and tear of unemployment, their resources have been undermined and they have been reduced to a condition which undoubtedly has aroused the pity of the great mass of people in this country and has caused concern to all who have the wealth and being of the people at heart. The Report points out that when the Regulations broke down there was an investigation.
  "The Board at once began a full inquiry into the whole situation."
  The House of Commons has a right to demand from the Minister that we should know the full extent of that investigation, and that we should be put in possession of the whole Report and not with some sections of it. In the reports of the officers of the areas some results of the investigations are used, as the Minister used them in the House sonic weeks ago. There are cases in which it is said that £5 or a week was going into the house. The reports have been trimmed in order to give an impression to the public that there has been gross maladministration on the part of the local authorities previous to this virtuous Board coming into existence. The whole combined forces of the Blackshirts could not make a more forthright attack on local authorities, democratic government and this House than is to be found in the Board's Report, and particularly in the reports of the officers of the Board. I know that there is another side to it.
  They are represented as a kind of benevolent, warmly generous body of people. The chairman is a kind of Santa Claus, in full robes, if one may use a comparison like that in the Spring. I rather think that the Spring is over now. The officers in their reports give some instances of treatment. Most of the newspapers gave pages on the day following the issue of the Report to show how wonderfully humane the area officers were. I do not know why that sort of thing should be put into reports of this kind. Up and down Great Britain there
  1440
  are public men who, if they wrote of their 12 months' work, could write a much more illuminating document than this. Hon. Members who have contact with their constituents could tell of the many instances in which they have been called in to make peace, to use their influence in dealing with overcrowding, and to improve the position for this family and that family. They could give the officers of the Board points. But that has nothing to do with the case.
  It is all part of the trimming., a process in which I notice that the Minister has joined in recent weeks, in order to give an impression of maladministration on the part of the local authorities which were in charge before the Board came into existence, and in order to prepare the public mind for some change-over that is coming. The right hon. Gentleman recently gave an answer which showed that there were 388,000 people who were on transitional payments as laid down by the local authorities before the Board was established, and that there are about 308,000 receiving payment on the Board's scales. The Board, of course, say that if they had been given a chance to operate the Regulations things would have been much different. But there were 388,000 people on the previous scale. I ask the Minister whether he is going to give the Committee the Report which deals with the whole of the investigation at that particular time. I cannot give him a, promise that I will accept that Report without reserve. It is the Board's own investigation of its own failure, and the standstill arrangement is the official record of that failure. That Report is necessary to a proper discussion of the Regulations. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not going to dodge that issue.
  One of the outstanding things upon which the Regulations broke down was the fact that the means test was breaking up home life. There is a strange contradiction in these officers' reports on that important issue. The officer in Durham frankly admits that 250 boys have left home as a result of the operation of the means test. But in some other parts of the country the admission is not quite as forthright. It is amazing how some of the officers try to gloss over this grave matter. In the life of the nation we pride ourselves upon the integrity of our family life. We have not a monopoly of that virtue but we have always claimed that

  1441
  we are a little more virtuous than other nations in that respect. The Tories have always claimed to be the protectors of that principle. Here in this Blue Book is an admission of the fact that the means test is breaking up some home. It is amazing how some of the officers try to gloss over the fact. It is said that at Leeds "there are few individual cases." It is said that at Liverpool soon after the first appointed day there was a steady flow of cases in which men had left home by reason of the poverty of their parents and as a result of the allowances granted them. So one might take the 20 or 30 reports in which the officers analyse the charge that the means test is breaking up homes. It is in Manchester, I think, that it is said that there is a kind of nomad population, but that it is the kind of thing to be expected.
  I deal with this matter because it is ore of the facts that have to be faced, and the new Regulations will have to deal with them. The Government recognise that in their political manifestos. We say that, however much the fact may be minimised, one of the basic charges against the means test is that admittedly men have to leave home as a, result of the test's operation. I had a man in my own home this week-end. He is getting on towards 50, a strong man, virile, capable of many years' work, and a very good worker, too. His pit has been closed. He has not been working for a year, and he is not likely to get work anywhere. His boys have been tought to look up to him; they have always been proud of their father as a worker. As a result of their earnings he was reduced to the receipt of a few shillings a week. The father as ashamed of the fact that he has to depend on the boys, and the boys are almost ashamed that they have to be placed in that relationship to their father. This is not a case in which you simply have a boy at home for a week or a month or two. It is the ease of a strong, good workman and a virtuous citizen who, as far as Government policy is concerned, is doomed to idleness for the rest of his days. Would anyone challenge the boys if they left home in such circumstances, so that the father could receive a bigger allowance? I should not.
  That is an illustration of what is happening all over the country. The Minister
  should at least give some in-
  1442
  dication of what the Government intend to do about the means test and about the position of families and of the young men members of families. It is quite clear from the Report that the charge made by public men of all parties and by leaders of all sections of the churches, even accepting the Report as it stands, is true. The Minister ought to tell us how many have lost allowances as a result of the operations of the means test and how many had had their allowances reduced during the last 12 months. The operation of the means test is a serious matter. In the years 1931 to 1934, if the unemployed who are now on the means test had received the same amount as the rest of the men on benefit they would have received £60,000,000 more in that period. We do know that much about the four years previous to the operations of the Board, but we do not know how many have been deprived of income altogether and how many have had their incomes reduced since the coming of the Board.
  There is one thing that the Report avoids mentioning. It does not mention the fact that an ex-soldier's Reserve pay, or a portion of it, is impounded for the purpose of the operations of the means test. That is one of the things about which the Secretary of State for War ought to know. A man who has given years of service in the Army and is in the Reserve gets his quarterly Reserve pay. When the pay comes, if he is unemployed it is calculated as income and he is deprived of the benefit of most of it in his home. Does the Minister deny that? He shakes his head as though he were questioning my statement. Let me give the right hon. Gentleman an instance that came my way about six months ago. A young man, unemployed, an ex-soldier, bought an overcoat, anticipating that when he received his quarterly Reserve pay he would be able to pay for the coat. When he received his quarterly pay the bulk of it was counted as income and he was deprived of that amount. If he had been in the Army he would have got an overcoat for nothing, but as things are he has had to find other ways of paying for the coat. Are the Government going to continue that system? There is no wonder that the Army does not get recruits if that kind of action becomes generally known among the friends and neighbours of ex-soldiers.

  1443
  There is another shameful matter—the taking into calculation of the increased wages of the miners granted during the past few months. In some cases men got is a day increase, and in some cases 6d., but when the increased pay was awarded, the Board at once, in households where there was unemployment, took the increased pay into calculation, and the result has been that the increase in wages wrested from the owners by public opinion and the threat of a stoppage, has actually gone to the credit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer through the Unemployment Assistance Board. We have seen the right hon. Gentleman on several occasions on this matter and implored him to do something, but, so far, he has not been able to do anything. The Board insists on carrying out this policy. There is not the slightest reference to it in the Report, and I submit that the right hon. Gentleman should give the Committee an explanation of the steps he is going to take about this grave question.
  What is the result of the 12 months' administration of the Board? Is it satisfactory to this House and to the country? After 12 months the fact still remains that two out of every three men who offer themselves as recruits for the Army are physically unfit, and the Government make no secret of the fact that many of these recruits come from areas where unemployment is bad. I can speak for my own part of the country. On Saturday morning I took steps to find out the position so far as children were concerned. After 12 months operation of the means test in Durham, a Commissioner was put in charge. When he began, in 1932, 10,000 children were receiving milk on doctors' certificates in the schools. When he finished there were 20,000 on the charge of the local authorities receiving milk; and 12 months later there are now 25,000 children receiving milk in schools. Doctors are really alarmed at the state of the children in the area as compared with other areas.
  I was talking to a doctor in my own home on Saturday evening. He is not a politician. He is a man who does his own duty, and is much concerned about the people to whom he ministers. He told me that 75 per cent. of the children who were sent to the isolation hospital in my own area for various kinds of sick-
  1444
  ness were the subject of malnutrition. That is the story all over the country. The right hon. Gentleman and the Board cannot blink the fact, that during the 12 months the Board has been in operation they not only have not touched the edge of the problems affecting work but that the physical condition of the people in the areas is getting worse. This doctor told me that it was almost impossible to deal with some people; they ought to get better, but it is hopeless trying to deal with them because they are hopeless themselves. That is the statement of a medical man who cannot be said to be overrun with sentiment, whose political opinions I do not know, but who is deeply concerned about the people to whom he has to minister, and he kept asking me what Parliament was going to do and what was going to happen to the people in these areas.
  Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: Does the hon. Member suggest, or does he know, that the malnutrition is due to lack of food or to the quality of the food? Or what is the reason for the malnutrition?
  Mr. LAWSON: I do not think there is any doubt about the matter. It is due to the fact that the people have not got sufficient purchasing power. For years their income has been growing less. In an area like Durham the Commissioner appointed by the Government so reduced the income of the unemployed that he took away more than £300,000 in purchasing power from the unemployed alone. Year after year they have been straining to make ends meet. The unemployment which comes under the Board is generally concentrated in the areas of Wales, Durham, Lancashire, Scotland, and about three or four of the big cities, where you have long-term unemployment. The matter is summed up in the question I am going to put to the Minister: When are the Government going to start to get the people in these areas some work? The right hon. Gentleman in answering a question by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) gave some replies which were good debating points. His figures were accurate, but his answers ran the danger of conveying to the country generally—
  The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Ernest Brown): I answered the questions, and that is all I can do at Question Time.
  Mr. LAWSON: Yes, but I think the right hon. Gentleman seized the opportunity of making a debating point which would lead the House to a wrong conclusion. The fact is that in the centre of the coalfields, South Wales and Durham particularly, there is a continually decreasing number of people employed. What are the Government or the Board going to do for these people? When it comes to the remedial side it seems to me that the Board have stolen the thunder of the Minister of Labour. They suggest transference and training. Is that what the Board was set up to do? The Minister of Labour can do it far better than the Board. The Commissioner for the Special Areas also suggested transference and training. The Board is going to get into touch with social service organisations, but from one end of the report to the other there is not a single suggestion of any possibility of hope from the point of view of work for the people who have been unemployed for long periods.
  What is the outlook of the Government on this question? Is it that the young people in Durham, South Wales and Lancashire are to be transferred Is it that these areas are to be deprived of the young life until there is nothing left but the aged and the hopeless? Are these areas in the future to be empty villages, long empty streets with here and there an aged person slipping about? They may give a battleship to the Tyne, but what is that going to do for the people in the centre of Durham? They may give a little commercial work at the ports in South Wales, but what is that going to do for the people in South Wales? The Report is barren of any suggestion for dealing with the problem. It is really getting to a stage when people who believe in this House and in its spirit are beginning to wonder whether to conduct it along orthodox lines is the right way of dealing with the condition of the people.
  This Report is dangerous, because it reveals that the Board are still clinging to the spirit of the Regulations which failed. It attacks the standstill arrangement, and touches none of the problems affecting the unemployed in any constructive way. It justifies the means test which, as I have said, has deprived masses of people of some £60,000,000. It attacks the elective authority of local
  1446
  bodies. It misleads the public as to the real facts concerning great numbers of people whose lot every citizen laments. It justifies allowances and conditions which were repudiated by the nation, by this House and by the Government.
  This Debate is a preliminary to Regulations which will affect the future of great masses of people whose lot every one laments, and I challenge the Minister to line up with the Board. There was a Minister who would not accept the Board's dictation, and he threw over the Regulations. There was a scene in this House last week which some of the newer Members might have thought very striking, when there was a debacle on the Government Benches such as they had scarcely dreamed possible when they entered the House; but hon. Members who were in the House when the Regulations were discussed, after having been in operation for a week or two, saw a sight on the Front Bench opposite which they had scarcely ever seen before. It seems to me that the Minister is lining up with the Board. If he accepts the spirit of the Report, he is in for disaster like the previous Minister. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Report.
  4.32 p.m.
  Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour will respond to the challenge made by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) and make clear to the Committee where he stands with regard to these Regulations. The right hon. Gentleman is in a somewhat peculiar position this afternoon because, for the first time, he has to deal with a Report concerning the administration of a body for which he is not responsible. That is a comparatively new innovation in our Constitution and one which I venture to think is not very satisfactory. This is a very interesting Report. We have had it before us for some days, and I think hon. Members will find that it will repay closer attention and study than they have been able to give it since it made its appearance. If one can disentangle it from the embellishments, and if one can dismiss from one's mind the vision of a company of guardian angels descending upon the distressed areas to remove in their beneficence the ills to which mankind is subject, one will nevertheless find much in

  1447
  the Report which is of importance and worthy of consideration.
  The Report is of interest not only because of what is in it—and indeed because of some of its omissions—but also because of its nature. Parliament has set up several quasi—autonomous bodies to transact certain national business, and, like the bodies themselves, the Reports which they submit to Parliament are in the nature of an experiment. For that reason hon. Members would be well advised to look at the nature of the Report. We have an annual report from the British Broadcasting Corporation which I consider to be a faithful record of its transactions. Lately the operations of the British Broadcasting Corporation have been the subject of an inquiry and the Corporation was pleased to issue what was called a rejoinder to the report. That rejoinder was felt by many people at the time to be a little unusual. This Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board is also in the nature of a rejoinder. I do not know that I complain of that, because the Board have had very few friends, and I make no complaint if their Report is frankly in some respects a propagandist document. I think the Board are entitled to defend themselves, because there is nobody else who is willing to do so. We must bear that in mind. It is interesting to observe the general tenour of the Report as an indication of what the nature of the new Regulations which we are to have this spring or next spring—
  Mr. EDE: The spring is gone.
  Mr. WHITE: —whenever they do appear —is likely to be. There has been a great delay in the preparation of those Regulations. I am not sure whether those who have been pressing for them to be produced as quickly as possible have not been making a mistake. If this Report indicates, as I believe it does, a state of mind on the part of the Board very similar to that which prevailed at the time when the Regulations were introduced and rejected, then I think we may not look forward to any very pronounced change in the new Regulations. However, that remains to be seen. We know that the Board's view was that if they had had a reasonable chance all the difficulties would have been overcome. At that time the Board had not been able
  1448
  to appoint the advisory committees, nor had they been able to bring into operation the full machinery for exercising discretion and given a little time all would have been well. I would like in passing to ask my right hon. Friend to inform the Committee, if he can, where the authority for exercising discretion now resides. Is it still in the hands of a superior official or does it reside with the local officer? Where exactly does it reside?
  I would like here to say that if I am critical of the Board, as I always have been critical of it from the very moment it was proposed, I am not altogether without sympathy for it in the task which it is trying to carry out. I recognise that the officials of the Board have a very heartbreaking and very difficult job. So far as my experience goes, within the limits of what they are allowed to do under the Regulations, they are trying to carry out their task in a human way. The administration of the Board has improved since the first days of their operations. Discretion has been brought into play and it is something which, in fact, is capable of arithmetical definition. It is 20 per cent. better than it was, because the number of cases in which discretion has been exercised is 20 per cent. of the total. There is thus a means by which we can measure the improvements that have taken place.
  Mr. BEVAN: There is no description in the Report as to what is considered to be the normal period to which the 20 per cent. applies.
  Mr. WHITE: My hon. Friend will, no doubt, develop that point. My criticism of the Board and their operations must be tempered by the fact that they have been given an impossible task. There has been much talk of anomalies of one kind and another, but the biggest anomaly of all is the existence of the Board. There is no scope in any well—ordered system of social services in this country for this autonomous or semiautonomous body thrust in between the unemployment insurance system on the one side and the health and educational services on the other. When the Board are asked to perform the task of relieving the needs of a specified category of unemployed people, they are dealing with a class which in actual fact has no real existence. Poverty in a great multi-

  1449
  tude of cases, as the Board point out in their Report, is a family affair. It does not arise solely from the fact of unemployment, but from a very large number of reasons. The Board in their Report speak of co-operation with the other authorities, and I am glad to find that there is co-operation. Indeed, it would be shocking if there was not; nobody thought they would not co-operate to the best of their ability.
  It is, however, clear that there must always be overlapping and uncertainty. If there is a family which, for one reason or another, is below the poverty line or on it, and if it requires help from the State, it is in my opinion a sound and inescapable principle that the fewer authorities which have a hand in the job the better. The more authorities there are the more uncertainty and delay there will be, and the less likely it is that the particular needs of the family will be met promptly and adequately. There is an inevitable shifting of responsibility and uncertainty as to where the responsibility lies. My own experience is that that sort of thing works to the detriment of those who come under the Board. '[here are one or two other matters—not perhaps of the first importance but nevertheless important—with regard to which the Board have shown wisdom. In the first place, with regard to their schemes for training and instruction, they have relied, and I hope will continue to rely, upon the experience of the services already set up by the Ministry of Labour. I think the Board are well advised to arrange for such co-operation as they can from such bodies as the college at Wincham Hall. I have heard from those who have attended courses there that those courses are very valuable. I am glad to know that the Board are at last proposing to set up their advisory committees. The proposed scheme for the establishment of those committees appears to me to be sound and the best which can be devised in the circumstances.
  I think the proposal to invite local authorities to nominate representatives on the advisory committees is a sound one, as is also the proposal to draw upon some of the members or panels of the advisory committees of the Ministry of Labour itself. They, of course, have experience in these matters, and
  1450
  again one is driven to ask, Why not use these committees; why duplicate all this machinery? The committees under the control of my right hon. Friend have much experience in these matters, and have in most cases drawn into their ranks those who are most readily available and most keenly interested in trying to develop that kind of work. The number of those who are qualified in any act to render this kind of service is limited and there may be a tendency to believe that the advisory committees of the Board are a sort of second best to those already using the machinery of the Ministry of Labour. That is not desirable.
  The duties of the new committees will be confined, it is true, to some of the most difficult and I may add some of the most disagreeable tasks which the Board will have to perform, but there is no question of any committee being given authority to recommend or give advice in regard to the scale of remuneration which is to be paid. That is an omission which I find difficult to square with the declaration of the Government in their Election manifesto in regard to the means test that any changes which were brought about would have to be in conformity with local public opinion. I think the sooner the committees are brought into operation the better.
  The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street referred to the operation of the means test in its relation to family life. It has been said, and I repeat the statement, that the operation of the means test in the name of the family is breaking up families. The Report states that that is taking place. I do not know to what extent it is taking place. I can speak only from my own experience, just as other hon. Members can speak only within the range of their own knowledge on these matters. But my impression is that the statements in the Report in this regard are under-statements rather than over-statements. It is, of course, impossible to say, and no doubt the position varies from district to district. But I remember that the Government manifesto issued on the eve of the Election said that the Government attached particular importance to the maintenance of family unity. I hope they will not make the mistake of thinking that family unity is

  1451
  ensured simply because the people remain under the same roof.
  The real charge against the means test is not that it involves a son or a father leaving home from time to time, but that it is changing the whole basis of family life. The natural sentiments of devotion of respect and of duty are being undermined, and the relationships between the members of the family are being assessed on a cash basis. That is the real trouble, and I hope that whatever Regulations may be introduced, the Government will bear that fact in mind. I have read of the way in which the Board deal with the various difficult cases which come before them, and from the report it would appear that every effort is being made to deal with them, but there is no question that, as a poor woman said to me in a crowded street only last week, "The means test has been the cause of more rows between fathers and sons than anything else in the world."
  A youth came in to see me the other day to tell me of the situation in which he had been placed under the means test, and to ask me what he ought to do. Incidentally this will be a test of the popularity of the Board and the satisfaction which it gives to its clients. In my experience I do not think I have ever heard any of its clients speak about the Unemployment Assistance Board. They call it "the means test." This youth told me he had got an assessment of half-a-crown and that when he returned home and told his father, his father had put him out. An old lady further down the street had taken him in for 6s. a week, and he already owed her 30s. What is the action of the Board in a case of that kind? I do not know whether they have paid the old lady the 30s., but they advised the boy to return to a home in which there were resources, and they advised the father to take the boy back. They could not ensure that advice would be accepted.
  That leads me to another matter on which I wish to put a specific point. I would like to have an answer on this point from the Minister to-day if it is possible, and I propose to illustrate the point by another example. This is the case of a household consisting of father, mother, a son who is incapable of work,
  1452
  an unemployed youth who is the applicant, and two sisters. The father is an old-age pensioner. The two sisters were in work and drawing good money, and for some time, as in so many other cases, they provided practically all that is coming in to the home. One of them, however, was saving in order to be married, and eventually they left home. There was distress in the family and the mother persuaded them to come back. They said they would only come back on these terms—that they paid 10s. a week for their rooms and no more, and provided their own food.
  That is not an isolated instance. The Board make a family assessment and they allocate so much for this one and so much for another, but if those amounts are not paid by the persons who have the money, what is to happen? The custom which I have indicated is spreading and will defeat the whole arrangement, unless grave hardship is to be placed upon the remaining numbers of the household. The question which I wish to put is this: What is the practice of the Board in those cases where an assessment is made but where the assessment is not carried out by those who have the money? We feel that there is no permanent solution of the problem in the organisation of our social services on this basis. A centralised relief service for a special category of unemployed cannot fit into any well-organised, well thought out scheme.
  I should not be in order on this occasion in discussing the lines which reorganisation ought to take, but many of the tasks which are now being done by the Board could be taken in its stride by the Ministry of Labour on its own responsibility. We have yet to see the result of the administration of the Board upon the unemployment insurance scheme itself. It is still too early to estimate the effect upon the situation of this new competitor—I use the word advisedly—coming into the same field of work as our local health services and education services. Nothing is more urgently needed than a little clear thinking on this point. If the country were to decide that its poverty services should be centralised, that would be an intelligible policy, but we ought to make up our minds as to the lines on which these services are going to be developed. As the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street has said, you cannot deal with poverty on

  1453
  these lines and by machinery of this kind. What is wanted is work of a constructive character, and neither the duty of humanity nor the responsibility of the State in this matter can be discharged by means of machinery which is clearly out of date.
  4.54 p.m.
  Sir ROBERT ASKE: I think the best commentary upon the arguments contained in the Report and upon those used in the Debate so far, is to be found in the statistical tables of the Report itself, supplemented as they are by certain short tables which the Minister of Labour was good enough to supply in answer to questions put by me a fortnight ago. From those tables one finds that the average weekly payment, including payment for dependents, made under the transitional payments arrangement—that is just before these Regulations came into force —was 21s. 11d. The average unemployment allowance after the Regulations at the end of December was 23s. 4d., and at the present time is Ms. 6d. In other words, the effect has been to confer an average increase per applicant per week of is. 7d. That is a significant fact. Appendix 8 shows what that amounts to in actual payments per annum, and one finds that in the last recorded period before the Regulations the number of applicants was 720,000, and there was a total payment at the rate of £41,000,000 per annum. At the end of December after the Regulations, payments were being made at the rate of £1,000,000 more per annum for 690,000 applicants.[HON. MEMBERS: "Transitional payments."] I am taking the difference between the average amount paid before the Regulations came into force and the average weekly payment which is made now.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: I follow that, but the hon. Member is to be reminded that we are now working under a standstill arrangement in which the applicant has the best of it either, way, and the increase to which he refers is partly due to the fact that in many cases the applicant is getting more under the standstill arrangement.
  Sir R. ASKE: What the hon. Member says is obvious. Of course there is a standstill arrangement, but I am pointing out that under the existing adminis-
  1454
  tration £1,000,000 more is being paid to a reduced number of applicants.
  Mr. LAWSON: But the hon. Gentleman is overlooking the fact that more than half those applicants, nearly 400,000 of them in fact, according to an answer given by the Minister, are on a scale higher than the Board's standard.
  Sir R. ASKE: I am not overlooking anything. The table is published here and is sufficiently simple to be understood by the meanest intelligence. All I am indicating is the fact, which it is impossible to challenge, that £1,000,000 per annum more is at present being paid to a number of applicants which has been reduced by 27,000. Of course there is the standstill arrangement in operation, and it is impossible to look at the situation without taking the standstill arrangement into account.
  Mr. LEE: Surely that is only comparable if there were the same number of applicants and the same number of children.
  Sir R. ASKE: It amounts to this, that, taken over the same number of applicants, there is an increased payment being made now of £2,500,000 per annum as compared with the date just before the Regulations came into existence. It is interesting also to bear in mind one other figure which is given in the Minister's answer, namely, that the average amount paid per week in transitional benefit, that is, the amount being paid during the last Labour Administration, was only 20s. 7d. as against 21s. 11d. in transitional payment just before the Regulations came into existence. Those are primary factors which have to be borne in mind, but in order to ascertain what the real effect of the Regulations has been, having regard to this larger payment, one has to go to another table which the Minister has supplied. That indicates that, taking the figures for Great Britain, 45 per cent. of applicants are now being paid according to Unemployment Assistance Regulations and 56 per cent. are being paid according to transitional payment practice. Under the former head are all the cases where the Regulations scale is either equal to or more than the public assistance scale, so that 44 per cent. of people are being paid at a sum equal to or more than the public assistance scale, but 56 per

  1455
  cent. would have been paid at a rate less than the public assistance scale but for the standstill agreement.
  That is a most significant and important fact which emerges from these Regulations and this Report, coupled with the Minister's reply, and that is an entirely different situation from what was stated to this House by the then Minister of Labour. I do not believe there was a Member of this House who would have voted for the Unemployment Bill or would not have opposed the Regulations had it been known that more than half the people in this country who were receiving unemployment payments would have actually been brought down to a level which was less than the public assistance level. The whole purport of the speeches made in this House was that these people ought to be put upon a level above that of public assistance instead of being reduced below it.
  I am quite aware of the fact that included in that 56 per cent. must be a percentage, which may be great or small, of cases where the local public assistance committee may not have been administering according to law. The Minister agrees, and no doubt that is so, and that is why I obtained from the Minister the figures for Newcastle—on—Tyne, where throughout the system has been strictly administered according to law and where the public assistance figures have been applied to transitional payments. There one finds a very different percentage. The percentage who are being paid according to the regulations is 70 and the percentage who are being paid according to transitional payment practice is 30. That is a fair picture. It may be that if one took in all cases throughout the country of the strict application of public assistance scales, that might be a fair guide. At all events, I am certain it is a fair guide in the North—East of England. That means that, but for the standstill arrangement, 30 per cent. of our people would have been brought down to below the public assistance scale, a scale of which I have complained in this House many times as being far too meagre and niggardly.
  I have had what I believe to be a reliable investigation made in my area of typical cases, and I find that those transitional payment scales, after taking into account what one may call the nor-
  1456
  mal first charges of a working-class household, such as rent, fuel, light, insurance, clothing, boot bills, newspapers, and matters of that kind, leave in a large percentage of cases less than 3s. per head per week for food. That is far below any figure of nutrition which, I am sure, any Minister in this House would wish to fix, and these being actual facts, which are proved to demonstration by these statistics, everyone in this House is amply justified in an attitude of hostility in approaching these Regulations. What I feel about the matter is that any body of persons who could conceive of Regulations which would bring 30 per cent. of our people below the meagre public assistance scale are people who are not fit to hold their jobs, and I think the sooner there are placed on that board some persons with a firsthand, practical knowledge of the conditions of working-class homes, the better it will be for all concerned.
  The only further comment I would make is that this disparity is due to various causes. The first one is that a reduced allowance is paid because of low rents. In my view that consideration ought to be entirely ignored. In an industrial area, if people are paying a low rent; so low that it has to be brought into account in their allowances, it is due either to the fact that they are living in overcrowded conditions, or to the fact that the house is sadly lacking in conveniences for cooking, or washing, or for keeping food, and other matters of that kind, and the people who live in those houses are put to extra expense in consequence of all those matters, in addition to the inconvenience which they have to suffer. Another matter is the reduction of is a head when there are more than five in the family. That, with the other matters which I have mentioned, is quite contrary to public assistance practice and experience, and I think that ought to go as well.
  But, as hon. Members who have preceded me have indicated, the family means test is the most serious consideration of all, and is the factor which has caused the greatest unrest and has undoubtedly led to a deep-seated feeling of injustice. The people absolutely fail to appreciate why it should have been brought, at all events in its present form, into the consideration of what men who

  1457
  are unemployed ought to receive, particularly having regard to the fact that these men have to be kept in such a physical condition that they are able to take their place in the industrial economy whenever work is available for them. I agree with what the hon. Gentleman who preceded me said on this topic. It is idle for any of the officials of this Board to suggest that the operation of this family means test is not breaking up family life. We know scores and hundreds of cases in our own area where it happens, but, reading the Report, it would appear as though the officials of the Board think that applicants are going to advertise the fact that they are leaving home because of the Regulations. Obviously that is the last thing that they would disclose to the officials of the Board. Take the case of an applicant who is a married man with a family, and a son who is working and earning £3 a week, and he has his allowances reduced, probably by 30s., because of that. Do the officials recognise that in a very considerable percentage of cases the applicant does not get the 30s.? The sons in many cases refuse to pay it. There is no means of making them pay, and as a consequence one finds that there is malnutrition in all these homes; there is an inadequate sum available for the food table of the house.
  I invite the Minister very seriously to consider the continuance of this matter. It really is not worth it from any point of view, either financial or otherwise. There are no obligations, legal or moral, of which I am aware, on a brother to contribute to the maintenance of his brothers and sisters. Why should it be imported into a system of this kind? I strongly suggest to the Minister that if he wishes the new Regulations to be welcomed by the community at large, and to work satisfactorily, he ought seriously to consider the wiping out of that factor of the family means test, in order to make the whole scheme run far more smoothly. If you want to have a means test at all, why is not an individual means test, the means of the applicant, sufficiently applicable? I venture to make these suggestions for the consideration of the Minister.
  5.14 p.m.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I have listened with the greatest interest to various hon. Members who have addressed the Com-
  1458
  mittee on this very difficult problem, and I am certain that hon. Members in all parts of the House are realising more and more the extreme difficulty of dealing with this question. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) rather looked back to the time when the local authorities were in complete control as a time when all was well. During that time all of us who were in the House discovered difficulties owing to the fact that people in different local areas were receiving entirely different amounts. We saw glaring anomalies, and the majority of hon. Members were anxious to find some better treatment—I do not put it higher than that—and to find something that would work better. New machinery has been set up, and the more we study that problem and the more we study the Report, the more we realise that any new machinery must be tested and tried to see if it is satisfactory. Hon. Members have pointed out that a central authority perhaps cannot deal with this subject, but I think that I am right in saying that over and over again in, the past hon. Members opposite have wanted to try some central machinery in order to see whether it would work out more fairly to the applicants of different areas.
  We all agree that although central machinery may be necessary, there must be a large amount of local and personal discretion. In the Report that we have before us we read of discretion that can be used by the Board, especially in the case of sickness, and I would like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he will deal with this power and tell us something more about it. Can it be wielded speedily enough? I am frightened that in some cases the applicant may have to wait because a particular official of the Board may not have the authority, and the really serious time in the sickness may have passed before the discretionary power can have been used. It is all very well to say that the money will come in afterwards and that the result on the year's income will be the same, but it is at that particular time that the power of discretion should be used quickly. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Sir R. Aske), ended, as most hon. Members do, with discussing the family means test—probably the biggest problem of all. Hon. Members in the official Opposition have clearly declared their policy, which is that

  1459
  there should be no family means test whatever. We know their point of view and it is clear. I am sorry that the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) is not here now, because I wanted to know whether that was also the policy of those who sit on the Liberal benches.
  Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: It was declared 18 months ago, about five or six times, by myself in this House. Of course, the hon. Lady is not always here.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I am here more often than the hon. Member is, but I regret very deeply if there is a single speech of the hon. Member to which I have not listened. Every time I hear him speak I am interested, and I am sorry if I have missed one of his speeches in which he made clear that he and his colleagues definitely stand for no means test.
  Mr. GRIFFITH: The hon. Lady referred to "family means test." Now she says, "no means test," leaving out "family."
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I beg the hon. Member's pardon. His position may have been made clear in one of his speeches, which I deeply regret I did not hear. I think that I am right when I say that in some cases it has not been made clear, and I wished to know for certain that those who sit on the Liberal benches do clearly state that there should be no means test bar the means test of the one individual receiving the allowance. I am sorry to have misled the Committee, but I wanted to know what the position was, because, although I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for East Birkenhead, I do not think that he made it clear that that was the case. I am not sure that my hon. Friend, who also represents Dundee (Mr. Foot), put that case to the electorate, but now we know for certain that the Liberal opposition stand for doing away with the family means test and that the test should be on the applicant only.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Newcastle-upon-Tyne said that there should not be any means test as between brothers and sisters and that there was no legal tie. I am not sure whether he thought there should be a means test as between parents and children. One of the difficulties that
  1460
  comes up is to decide whether a man earning, say, £6 a week should have to contribute in Any way to the keep of his son should the son be still unemployed after six months. That is a point that I hope will be considered. The right hon. Gentleman knows that every Member has criticised, and continued to criticise, the way in which the machinery of the means test is working. I have done so over and over again, and I am not yet convinced that we should go as far as to say that a parent in the case I have mentioned is in no way liable to contribute towards the keep of his son or daughter who is living with him, if he has sufficient means. The whole difficulty is to know where to draw the line. In the last Parliament I brought cases to the notice of the Minister when I said that the people residing in a particular house were not a family but almost like tribe, with uncles, aunts, brothers-in-law, and so on, brought in. The whole subject is fraught with difficulty, and I am not as yet convinced that the parent should entirely have taken away the responsibility of contributing to his son or daughter. There must be some scheme, and that is evidently where I do not agree with hon. Members on the Liberal benches.
  The question of rents was mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and I would like to stress that matter. I know of cases where, although a low rent may on paper seem to be a great advantage for the occupant of a particular house, it is not anything of the sort. In many low-rented houses the amount that is paid on the weekly gas bill would make the rent far higher than the rents of many more modern houses. I have tested that very carefully. I have taken a large number of houses where there were ill-lit, almost underground dens, where no human beings ought to be living, and I have examined what is spent on light. When that amount is added to the rent I have found that these people have to pay as much as those living in much better houses. These amounts should not be taken off the allowances because of low rents. My hon. Friend spoke of the discomfort and misery of living in low-rented houses. There are various things that add up to make it far more expensive than living in houses with higher rents, and I hope that the Minister will

  1461
  not think in terms of so many shillings paid for the actual rent, but will think of what is the cost of existing in some of these appalling slums. In this Report we find that on more than one page, and particularly on page 55 under the heading of "General," it is pointed out—and many of us have realised it—that in a great many cases adjustments have been made and that many applicants do not know, that, if they would go to the offices of the Board and discuss their circumstances and put the facts to them, improvements may be made. That paragraph states:
  "In a number of cases new facts not previously revealed by the initial investigation a re disclosed, on the basis of which adjustments in allowances are made."
  It is very difficult when you are dealing with new machinery to make clear to the people how the machinery works. I wish that more could be done somehow or other to tell the people in the country what chances they have. A great many people to whom I have spoken and suggested that they should go and discuss the matter, say, "That means an appeal, and I would rather wait until I get more facts." When, however, I have urged them to discuss the matter, pointing put that it is not an official appeal, adjustments have often been made. Fuller information ought to be given to the applicants as to what their rights are and the necessity, if they feel they are not getting a fair deal, of putting their cases to the officers of the Board, for I feel that in many cases all the facts have not been before them. I am trying to keep entirely away from the sums of money and actual allowances and the question of whether they are sufficient or insufficient. We shall be discussing that subject in a short time. I have already stressed the subject of sickness and the subject of discretion in the giving of extra help at a particular time. This Report shows that in various districts money is given for the purchase of blankets and to meet difficult circumstances of one kind and another, and I would like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he is certain that these efforts are being made in all districts. Exactly how is it arranged? Where discretion is used, does my right hon. Friend think that in all districts under these Regulations the same discretion is being used and that these
  1462
  difficult cases are being treated in the same way?
  Lastly, I must say a word on the subject of which we hear so much, that of malnutrition. We often discuss this subject simply in connection with unemployment allowances or some scheme to deal with poverty. We ought to be discussing it in connection with schemes of education. Just as I think that in a great many cases applicants for assistance do not realise how that assistance can be obtained, so I think that all have far too little knowledge of what is the best food to give the most nourishment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I know that hon. Members will say that in stating this I imply that people who are poor could be well nourished and that it is their own fault if they are not. I do not say that in the least, but I do think—and it ought to be said, and said with courage in spite of the jeers outside and sometimes in this House that we maintain that people can be well nourished on a small amount of money—that there ought to be, especially where there is a small income, further education as to the best way that income can be made out. We hear from medical officers that if they could—I do not think they could, because it would mean interfering with the individual—guide better the food that was chosen, there would be less malnutrition. That word is used in this House in connection with undernourishment, but I think that there is a, good deal of lack of food, especially in houses where high rents have to be paid. I do not disagree with hon. Members on that subject, but the people who study the matter, not simply from the point of view of public assistance or unemployment, say that there is a lamentable ignorance about food values.
  This lack of knowledge is not confined to the common people, but it is evident also among the rich. Over and over again we hear in some pronouncement that children ought to be fed on this or that, and of children whose nourishment is lacking in certain food values. It is no insult to the intelligence of the poor to say that sufficient education has not been provided about nutrition. I think the subject of nutrition should be studied by all who are interested in the people of this country, and that poor people who have little to lay out ought to

  1463
  be provided with much more guidance. Instructional centres could teach the people more about food values, and they ought to be taught, and then I think we should see some hope that the money would be laid out to the best advantage from the point of view of securing the highest nutrition values in foodstuffs.
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Lady was perfectly in order in raising this point, but I do not think she ought to go too far in developing it. The question of food values is a long way from the subject of this Debate.
  Mr. A. BEVAN: On a point of Order. It may be necessary for some Members of the Committee who feel inclined to do so to reply to the very interesting speech being made by the hon. Lady, and I submit that the terms of reference under which the Board are acting includes the administration of allowances and—
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now raising a quite unnecessary point of Order. I am quite aware of the points he seems to be raising, and so far as I know there is no reason to suppose that he or any other hon. Member will not have the opportunity of answering what has already been said.
  Mr. BEVAN: That is the point of Order I was raising—
  The CHAIRMAN: Order. It is a point of Order that does not arise at the moment.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I am sorry if I have gone too far in what I have said, but I should like to add that I think the whole question of nutritional values should be looked into, and that in particular in cases of under-feeding more knowledge ought to be available. In conclusion I would only say this: We all agree that those who wrote this Report would be likely to put before us all the good work that has been done and perhaps not so likely to include all their sins of omission or commission, but after listening to the speeches about the Report I think that, on the whole, the criticisms of the work done have not been very severe. I think most of us are inclined to feel that what we would like are not further explanations of what is in the Report, but information on many
  1464
  things which are not in the Report, but about those I had better not begin to ask questions in case I should be out of order.
  5.33 p.m.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: I do not want to follow the hon. Lady the Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) in her remarks about the value of education in regard to nutrition and foodstuffs. I hate to say hard things, particularly to a lady, but I remember that when it was a question of appointing an Under-Secretary for Scotland her name was associated with a rumour in the public Press in Scotland, and I must confess that after having heard her speech to-day I thank God for what Scotland missed. Her speech to-day about the poor feeding wrongly and about all this education business in connection with nutrition filled me with feelings of revulsion. My wife, when I married her, had little experience of domestic affairs. She had been in a shop and had little knowledge of cooking, and she thought she could do what the hon. Lady suggested, but after three months' experience of going to these so-called educational classes she became convinced that what they taught was a most expensive way of feeding people. I am afraid that if my mother had acted on the lines of what is taught in those places I should not have been here at the present time. As one who has never for a week missed visiting the people in his constituency I say that to me the marvel is how well the poor feed their children and how well they are clothed, and they do not need offensive lectures from people of the middle class, however well intentioned.
  I turn from that to discuss the work of the Board itself. I am not going to lay on the Board jobs which it is not theirs to do. I am not going to criticise the Board because they have not formed a plan for finding work for people, because I do not think that is their job, and indeed, I should not wish to make it their job. They have already proved to be too incompetent for other jobs, without forcing that one on them. Therefore, I differ from the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), who took them to task about not finding work schemes. I am not a keen looker for work. I confess that. This idea of chasing work, of finding "Queen Marys" and battleships to

  1465
  construct, has very little place in my philosophy. In reading this Report I get the impression that the idea of work is not a very handsome one. What does the chairman of the Board say? The great idea of this chairman, who used to appear so kindly and benevolent when he was sitting with us in this House, is that the unemployed are coming to be paid more than the fellows who are at work. That is one of his themes. What a criticism that is of the system under which we live, when the chairman of the Board says, "Watch, or you will be paying them more for doing no work."
  What a criticism that is of the conditions under which men are employed at the present time. The mine owners, as a result of economic conditions which have given them a stranglehold over the miners, have been able to lower wages and conditions of employment to a level which is indefensible. The chairman of this Board, who gets £5,000 a year to live on, says the conditions which are forced on the mining community must be the conditions which the miners must have. I confess to feeling cynical about present-day conditions. Last week the House of Commons was packed for a foreign affairs Debate, but to-day, with an issue of even greater importance, the House seems to be almost listless. The hon. Lady for Dundee got up and questioned and cross-questioned, like a Norman Birkett, those who sit on these benches and those who sit on the Labour benches. She wanted to know how we stood about the family means test. I say to the Members of the Labour party anal the Members of the Liberal party—I hope not offensively, because I am not trying to be offensive—that if this Report proves anything it proves that there must either be a cruel means test or none at all.
  To those Liberals who say, "We would have a means test, but not a family test," I say, "Look at page 80 of the Report," which deals with applicants who had resources. That shows that of the resources £15,700,000 represented "earnings of other members of household"—that is, 64 per cent. were the earnings of other members, of brothers and sisters and others. The sum of £5,500,000, or 22 per cent., represented "other income of other members of the household." Then there was £1,600,000 as "earnings of applicants." They were doing some sort of
  1466
  spare time work—perhaps a branch secretary of a union. Branch secretaries of my own unions have their little pennies assessed. Then there is the figure of £1,750,000 representing "other income of applicants." That other income includes superannuation money, soldiers' pensions, widows' pensions. When we have deducted all these other sources of income we are left with the handsome total of less than 3 per cent. due to no income at all. Once when I challenged the whole basis of the means test Tory Members got up and said, "Would you pay the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) unemployment benefit?" I said then that if people wanted to catch the so-called rich they could spend a fortune on catching them—if they thought it worth while. In my view it was not worth while. I said further, that in view of all the Regulations for getting even standard benefit which had to be complied with—the signing-on, the going to jobs, the search for work—no rich man even among the working classes would ever claim it. I am sorry the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. T. Johnston) is not here, because I wanted to say a word about him. His paper "Forward" published the so-called rich people under the Anomalies Act. It is a lie, an untruth, to say that there are rich people among the working class, and I regret that a Member should have done it.
  Another thing of which I have to complain is the shocking offensiveness of the district reports. Superior men who earn more than £1,000 a year write shockingly offensive things such as are to be found in the Report of the London District No. 2, under the heading of "Fraud." I am not a native of London, but the chairmanship of my union has taught me to have a great regard for the people of London. The tremendous toleration they have in matters of religion and in other respects is, I think, wonderful. The author of that district report says, "The following case is typical," and goes on to talk about a man with a wife and six children who had an allowance of 50s. and committed some kind of fraud. It is said that that was typical, and yet we read at the end of the Report that there are fewer than 400 cases of fraud in the whole country. Out of 400 cases there were fewer than 200 criminal indictments. "This is typical"—as if the applicants

  1467
  were all committing fraud. I would say to the offensive gentleman who wrote this, this contemptible type, that the applicants are possibly more honest than he is.
  A man is entitled, in this House, to put in a plea for generous treatment. Running all through this Report is the suggestion that the poor were always mean. There was a painful incident in this House, when an ex-Cabinet Minister was in a painful position. I never wanted to harangue that man or to kick him unduly, but I think this House dealt with him terribly generously and, possibly, at the end of the day, rightly generously. The Government pleaded for generous treatment, but if they can ask that for an ex-Cabinet Minister, is it too much to ask them for generosity for 1,500,000 people who are living in poverty, in slums and in overcrowded conditions? Is it too much to ask that the same House of Commons that could be generous to an ex-Cabinet Minister might be generous to them? Or have you a different code for your own people? Do you look upon these folk as different?
  Another offensive gentleman comes along with an amount of benevolence, a Samuel Smiles, with a sort of "I am a good Samaritan, handing it out." He speaks, on page 280, of an applicant of 23, a bit of a lad who got married, and was leaving his wife, aged 19, and an infant child. The two were interviewed and reconciled and clothing was supplied by a local organisation "on our recommendation," and, it adds:
  "the domestic prospects are now brighter."
  Then there is another one, on another page, where the family has been split up. They were not getting on too well. The Board came along and made a grant of £2, and now the family are living happily ever after. I see the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Guy) sitting here. He is a Scottish barrister. How easy it would be if a barrister could secure domestic happiness for a couple of quid. The Board's Report should be called, "How to secure domestic happiness cheaply." If I could do it for two quid I would do it any day. The Board should cease to be an Unemployment Board and should be a domestic relations Board.
  1468
  I happen to know some of the Board. I know the chairman. I knew him for 12 years in this House, and worked close to him. He is a very decent man, but he is not so awfully clever. He is the ordinary average Member, lucky to get in. There is one from Glasgow, Mr. Reynard, who made his reputation by defying the law. This man becomes offensive. I remember when the first 7s. 6d. of National Health Insurance was to be exempt. I went to him and I said: "Why do you not apply the law?" He said: "I am not going to apply the law. It is not right," and he ordered me out of his room. It was to the credit of the then Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the late Mr. Skelton, that that man was compelled to carry out the law. That is the type of man that is here, and the type that is offensive. The hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. G. White) said that the Board were outside Parliamentary control, and the hon. Lady the Member for Dundee made a pious speech about the future. What is the use? This Board will decide the Regulations, along with those officials who are showing arrogance now.
  What is amazing me is that this Board were out to attack the unemployed, and they have done it. They have sought every kind of case. There is a fellow from Glasgow 2, whom I have known for 25 years, since I was a boy. He comes along with arrogance and talks about this, which is one of the bad cases:
  "The household consists of the applicant, his father and mother, and six brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom is 21 years of age."
  The total income in that case is £10 4s., and they get an allowance of 17s. That family, consisting of six adults and the mother and father, a total of eight, had £10 4s., and then they get 17s., and that is terrible. But the man who writes it gets £10 a week, nay, £16 per week, for his wife and about one child. The offensiveness of it. I know him and he is no smarter than the men he is criticising. They pick out another case:
  "The household consists of three applicants (brothers), their father and mother, and six other brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom is aged 20."
  They have an income of about £10 6s.
  That is the best that the Board can do, to save a miserable sum, compared with what the Government are spending. I

  1469
  would not be in order to discuss the armaments programme of this Government, but the Board's total saving is round about £25,000,000. In order to get that saving, we have set up a Board at a cost of over £2,000,000 and also at a cost of the imprisonment of others and the breaking up of family life. All through this Report they say: "We do not know about family life." Why? Because the applicant takes care to hide it. If he admitted that he was breaking up family life he would not get an allowance. He keeps it back, or he denies it. The hellishness of the system is leading to a great act of benevolence; the Tyne is to get a battleship for £8,000,000. That means £8,000,000 for death, and is one-third of the total saving of this Board.
  If the Report demonstrates anything it is, as an hon. Member said, that the Board cannot be trusted with the work of the future. It entirely proves that the sooner we get back to putting the unemployed all together, the better. I refuse to accept the belief that a man with 30 stamps on his card is better than a man with 24, or that the man who can get 10 stamps is better than the poor devil who can get only nine. I refuse to accept the belief that the unemployed in Durham, Wales and Lanarkshire, after their weary years of unemployment, are different from the unemployed in a city like Birmingham, where trade has been fairly prosperous. The Board may deny that they are cutting up the unemployed and that there are two classes, but they have got two classes. Is it not a fact that employers, when they send for a man, want a man who is on standard benefit? Those men are the most fit and are least likely to have had their physical powers depreciated. Employers demand them first. The other men belong to another section of the community, the depressed section, the untouchable.
  I say to the Minister to-day: Spend your millions. I listened to a Debate in this House in which it was stated that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet were underpaid, and this House carried the Resolution for better pay. This House can spend money on Armes and in telling us that we have all to be ready to arm; surely, with all its so-called generousness, this Committee might say to the Minister to-day: "This board is ended. Away with this contemptible report, that
  1470
  ought to be torn in two, slashed and sent into limbo"—from which I hope it would never emerge.
  5.53 p.m.
  Mr. DAGGAR: The report now under discussion seeks to justify, as one would expect, the Regulations which were condemned not only by Members of this House but by the whole of the country, a condemnation which compelled the Government to suspend the operation of the Regulations at that time, and found a manifestation in the resignation of the Minister of Labour who was in office at the time when the Regulations were issued. I trust that the present Minister of Labour will not ignore the fate of his predecessor. Repeated inquiries have been made with regard to the issue of new Regulations. I hope that the present Government and the Minister of Labour will not forget the past because, if justice is not meted out to the unemployed, whose circumstances are cruel enough, we, on these benches, shall not hesitate to organise opposition to the new Regulations.
  It is patent to any person who has read the document which is now under discussion that it has been compiled to order. Practically every one of the 28 reports of district officers deals with precisely the same subjects, especially when discussing the allegation that we made on more than one occasion, that the Regulations would have the effect of breaking up the homes of the people. The evidence submitted in the report consists largely of the opinions held by the district officers, and is most unreliable and unsatisfactory. An instance of what I mean is this statement, contained in the report submitted by one of the district officers:
  "In those cases, therefore, where no allowance or additional allowance is made the applicant leaving home, and the applicant returns home, it would seem that the method of administration has tended to consolidate rather than to break up those homes."
  There is plenty of material to assist in coming to the conclusion that the administrative application of the means test has broken up homes in this country, and, to those who are continually talking about the sanctity of home, I would say that in my opinion, if it breaks up one home, the regulation responsible for that stands condemned.

  1471
  The most striking feature of the Report is that the Board defends the Regulations by emphasising the value of the "standstill" agreement, but it is necessary to bear in mind that the Regulations nevertheless constitute the basis upon which allowances are made at the present moment, and they contain the pernicious, indefensible means test. As the general character of the Report has been examined, I propose to deal with a few particular points, because I consider that it would be regrettable if Members of the House formed the opinion that the advertised generosity of the Board was general, or that the cases referred to in the Report were typical of the manner in which applicants are treated either by the Board or by its officers. The Board point out in the Report that the Unemployment Act, 1934, did not define the term "need" —which is quite correct—and go on to state that there is no absolute criterion or scientific basis of need, and that they were guided by consideration of an allowance that
  "would be adequate to permit some variety of diet, and some command over items which, having formerly been luxuries, are now conventional necessaries."
  That, I submit, is the most callous and brutal piece of irony to be found in any Government publication, when the average allowance per unemployed person amounts to a miserable 23s. per week. What articles at one time considered luxuries can be purchased out of 23s. per week? You cannot maintain an ordinary diet upon that allowance. On Thursday of last week a question was put to the right hon. Gentleman, and, in reply, he stated that 24,000 children from the distressed areas were sent to various holiday reconditioning camps, and the weight of each of those children increased on an average by 3.48 lbs. in 14 days. It is admitted that the children are generally, if not invariably, the last to suffer from the effects of industrial depression which finds its expression in unemployment. Have the Board never read the recent report issued by Sir John Orr, in which he showed that this country the number of persons—and this state of affairs can only exist among those who have been unemployed for a long time—who are in the position of not being able to spend more than a paltry 4s. per head per week on food is 4,500,000, or 10 per cent. of the population; while 9,000,000, or 20 per
  1472
  cent. of the population, are not in a position to spend more on food than 9s. per head per week. These statements can be borne out by reference to other authorities in this country. If our people were in a position to purchase and to be maintained upon a reasonable diet, it would involve an additional expenditure of £200,000,000 a year. That object cannot be achieved by paying the unemployed man or woman in this country 23s. per week. But, in spite of such facts, we are told by the Unemployment Assistance Board that it
  "was concerned with such primary needs as those of food, shelter, fuel, clothing, and the like."
  Never in my opinion was there a more callous piece of inhuman cynicism. One of the reasons or excuses given for that 23s. per week is to be found on page 33 of the Report, where the Board says that:
  "It had to keep in mind, however, the necessity of not proposing scales of allowances which would place unemployed persons in a better position than large numbers of persons who were in work."
  A similar observation was made by the right hon. Gentleman when the House had under consideration the Report of the Statutory Committee on the 4th July of last year. The Statutory Committee recommended in their Report that the allowance to children should be increased from 2s. to 3s. per week, but that it was not to be paid in the case of a family where the income approximated to 41s. per week. It appears that even great minds occasionally think alike, for neither is an argument against increasing the present scale, but each constitutes part of our indictment of the present system which permits such miserably low wages to be paid. The Report deals with what are called exceptional cases, that is to say, with the power that is conferred upon the different area and district officers in dealing with "special circumstances" of cases, and "needs of an exceptional character"; but, because of the just criticism against such inquisitorial methods, the Board hastens to add that:
  "An officer's inquiries into the circumstances and conditions of a household should not be pressed against the applicant's natural susceptibilities."
  Our people have strong objections to such practices. That procedure, in the opinion of the unemployed, is most humiliating, and it is unjust because those who will not submit to this method

  1473
  are placed at a considerable disadvantage compared with those who do, since as a result they do not receive any increase in their allowance. We contend that intelligent members of any board ought to know that, in the case of persons who have been unemployed for more than 12 months, "needs of an exceptional character" must exist. There are, according to the Report, no fewer than 124,926 of such cases. The number of persons who have been unemployed for a period of five years and more is 25,709; those who have been idle for four years and less than five years number 49,357; those who have been idle for a period of three years but less than four years are 65,132 in number; while there are 80,023 who have been idle for two years but less than three years. There is no need, in a single one of these cases, to appoint officers to visit the bedrooms and examine the bedclothes of these individuals. Respectable, independently-minded people resist and resent such procedure. Let me remind the Committee of the report made by the area officer which covers a part of my Division. In that report these words occur:
  "There is an alarming number of young men between 21 and 30 years of age who have been unemployed for anything from three to 10 years, or have never been employed at all."
  I think it is of importance that the House should be given some information as to what the Board, through its officers, is doing in depressed areas, particularly in South Wales. There is not a Member of the House—and the Board warrants me in making this statement—who did not receive the impression, when the Regulations were under discussion, that the first Li of disability pension would be disregarded. The Report says:
  "That the first £1 of a disability pension should be disregarded."
  Will the Minister stand at that Box and say that that Regulation is observed? If not, I will give him two cases that he might investigate. I will give him the names and addresses and, if necessary, the determination forms. One case is that of a man named Taylor, who lives at King Street, Nantyglo, Monmouthshire, who has a disability pension of £1 per week. This week I have been informed that the Board, with all its generosity, has, through its officers, robbed his wife of 8s. of her allowance.
  1474
  Another case was sent to me this morning from the same place, and it is one of the most distressed areas in the whole of Great Britain. It is that of a man named Oakey, of Nantyglo, who was in receipt of only a paltry 10s. per week as disability pension. The Board, through its officers, robbed his wife of 8s. out of that 10s. pension. I am informed that that is not an exceptional instance. What is the use of the Board or the Minister telling us about increasing the allowance in 38,000 cases in 12 months, when an ex-service man's wife is robbed of 8s. a week? I should like to inform the Secretary of State for War that he cannot hope to secure recruits for the Army by those methods. The Report states—and this is in the general body of the Report, and not in a report submitted by any officer:
  "Further, it was anticipated that although the upkeep of clothing and the like could be met from the weekly allowance, there would be cases where, on review, it would appear that the applicant had had no opportunity to make proper provision for himself. The Board wished to be provided with power to give appropriate assistance in such cases."
  It then proceeds to point out that these powers were taken, and applicants were assisted by an extra allowance. The Committee can imagine what value can be attached to that statement in the Report when a man met me on Saturday evening and informed me that he had been to the local officer to ask for an additional allowance in order to buy working boots, and, although the man had been idle for over seven years, no allowance was given him for that purpose. The Report mentions a, case in which an extra allowance of 2s. 6d. a week for nourishment was given to the wife of an applicant, but I met a man last week who told me that, while, as a result of producing a medical certificate, his wife was given an extra allowance of 3s. 6d., the ordinary allowance was reduced by 1s. per week.
  Let me give another instance, in order to prove that the general information contained in the Report is not of a reliable character. A man told me that he effected a reduction of 5d. per week in his rent, and, strange as it may appear to the right hon. Gentleman, the area officer reduced the allowance that went into that household by 6d. a week. I am giving cases to prove that the character of the Report is unreliable and that whatever may have been done by some officers administering

  1475
  the Regulations or the standstill arrangement is not general in the administration of either. I know of cases where men who have done casual jobs and got 1s. 6d. or 2s. 6d. have had their allowance reduced by half the amount they have earned.
  The meanest action of the Board is in connection with meals supplied to children attending elementary schools. Area officers have been instructed to value the meals at a penny and to vary the allowances accordingly. The Report points out that, if the number exceeds two a day for one child or one meal per day for two children, unless the meals consist of cod liver oil and milk, they ignore the first 12 meals but, if there are 15, they reduce the allowance by the cost of the 15 meals. What a wonderful method, and 7,000 officials are engaged in carrying it out! The Board refers to the report on nutrition by the British Medical Association and the report of the Ministry of Health's Advisory Committee. It would be very difficult to find so much unconscious humour as in some of the statements in this Report. These are a few of the cases that have been brought to my notice. The cases cited in the Report are not general in any sense of the word and, to the extent that the Report creates any other impression, it is a deceitful and a fraudulent document.
  I should like to stress the need of making it possible for some of us, if no one else, to have access to the circulars issued by this secret society. The Board at intervals issues circulars and memoranda to its district and area officers. As the Report states:
  "The officers were expected to exercise such powers, however, with due regard to the law, to the regulations and to the Board's own views as expressed in instructions and memoranda issued from time to time on special topics."
  Why cannot copies of such circulars be made available to persons affected by the Board's decisions? There is no justification for differential treatment to the unemployed affected by Part II of the Act of 1934 and those affected by Part I. There is a vast difference between men and women receiving standard benefit and those in receipt of an allowance. I asked the Minister on 10th December whether he would make available to a person who desired them copies of all
  1476
  the circulars and instructions issued by the Unemployment Assistance Board to their local area officers. The answer was:
  "I do not think this would be practicable or desirable but I will consult with the Board as to the best means of making Members of the House acquainted with important general circulars on the regulations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 193,5; col. 747, Vol. 307.]
  I should like to know why such a course is impracticable or undesirable. I should like to know since when it has become undesirable to make such circulars available to Members of this House. A similar question was put to the right hon. Gentleman on 27th February and the reply was:
  "I am still in communication with the Board on the subject."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th February, 1936; col. 615, Vol. 309.]
  Could the right hon. Gentleman give us some further information to-day? It would be presumption for an occupant of these benches to warn the Minister of Labour or the Government. The Minister has the experience of his predecessor to guide him. The Government's ignoble past should be sufficient warning to them. We demand the abolition of the means test so as to make it unnecessary for this House to discuss such a publication as it has had presented to it to-day.
  6.22 p.m.
  Mrs. TATE: Hon. Members opposite have waxed very eloquent over instances which the Board gives, in which it tries to prove that it has taken an interest in the lives of those for whom it administers. In any case, where we are describing inequalities of human existence it is extremely easy to draw a lurid picture, but it is as well to remember that we are discussing the means test, and no one has thought more than myself that the family means test is carried too far. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the Government was returned with the full understanding that some test of need would be applied and that it has the approval of the vast majority of the people of the country, who in the vast majority of cases are working-class people of whom hon. Members opposite are so fond of pretending they are the only representatives. If you want to make a piteous case from this Report, you have missed far the worst part. A footnote to Appendix VIII says:

  1477
  "(b) In Wales a small part of the higher average payment is due to a low percentage of women applicants."
  When the Regulations were first brought pefore the House I was one of the very few on this side who refused to vote for them, for the reason that women on relief were to be paid less than men. We have been told a great many times that these transitional payments are on a basis of need, and I claim now, as I have claimed in the past and as I shall again, that the needs of a man or woman when they get down to subsistence level vary in no degree whatever. If you can afford to economise on one sex or the other, you cannot afford to economise on the women because, if they are young women, there are two dangers. There is the danger that, if they have to exist for a long time on a subsistence level which is so extraordinarily low, you are going to undermine the health of the women who are the future mothers of the race, and there is the other danger that it is very easy for them, if they wish, to augment their income, if driven sufficiently far, in a way which none of us would want. In reference to inequality of payments to men and women, I should like to refer to a case in the Report.
  "Applicant, a married woman, had been obliged to resume insurable employment owing to the ill-health of her husband. They had one daughter aged four. They were buying their house and, even with a sub-let of 4s. 6d., the weekly interest and rates amounted to 16s."
  She had to look after an invalid husband and the lodger to whom she sub-let, and to go out to work. The husband was taken ill with tuberculosis and the child was sent to grandparents. Out of her earnings the mother saved 10s. a week to pay for the child and give it extra nutrition in the way of cod liver oil. She then became unemployed. Is not the case of a woman in those circumstances far more difficult than that of a man? But if she is on subsistence allowance she gets two shillings less than a man. I hope that when the Regulations come before the House, as they shortly will, we are not going to have that differentiation maintained. I do not speak as a feminist. I speak as a practical human being interested in the welfare of the present and the future generation. There are a great many books and articles written by thinking people on the very serious fall in the birth rate and the serious effect that
  1478
  it is going to have. The abolition of this distinction will be a very practical way of starting to do something to encourage the birth rate. I have made no bones about it. I stand for a test of some form of need. [An HON. MEMBER: "Shame!"] I am not in the least ashamed.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain Bourne): I must point out that the question of the means test is not under discussion. All that we are discussing is the administration of the Board.
  Mrs. TATE: I apologise, but it has been discussed all the afternoon.
  Mr. BEVAN: On a point of Order. I believe that technically your Ruling, Sir, is impeccable, but had the same Ruling been laid down by your predecessor half the speeches that have been made would never have been made. It is most undesirable that we should have a Ruling which narrows down the discussion far more than it has been narrowed hitherto.
  Mr. LAWSON: The chairman's Report very definitely involves discussion of the means test, because he gives cases in proof of need of the test.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate that what I ruled is that, in order to remove the means test, legislation is required. That is obviously outside the Committee of Supply. The administration of the Board is in order, but the hon. Lady was going on to the merits of the question whether it should be taken away, which would obviously need legislation.
  Mrs. TATE: In assessing the needs of the household it is difficult to get away from the means test. I realise and approve of the principle that a man drawing relief should not draw as much as a man who is in work. I may be said to be contradicting myself when I say that women should draw on a scale equal with men because they do not earn equal wages with men, but the sooner they do so the better both for men and themselves. It is not to the advantage of men in employment that women should be used, as they are at present, to decrease wages, and the sooner the country realises that the better for the men and the women.
  There is one other point upon which I wish to touch—it is mentioned on page 59—with regard to land settlement

  1479
  schemes. The Board says that it has joined with the Land Settlement Association and has been able to pay training allowances. I should like to say a few words upon the land settlement and transference schemes. In theory they may sound very delightful, but I have never been able to understand—and, therefore, for once I entirely agree with hon. Members opposite—that it is It really good cure for unemployment to take unemployed people from one area and place them in another, and thus increase the unemployment in that area. If you only take the unemployed to an area where there is a real scarcity of labour, it is an admirable scheme—but that is not always the case. When I represented West Willesden there was a training centre there to which men were brought from depressed areas, and the local unemployed felt a very justifiable bitterness because they were not allowed to enter that training centre, and it certainly did nothing to help the housing conditions in that part of London. I believe that now there are schemes for land settlement in the different counties of the country. If there are to be any land settlement schemes under the Board or under any other body, the local unemployed should be the first to have the benefit of them, and strangers from another area should not be brought in until they had absorbed the local unemployed. I hope that the Minister will take note of that fact.
  At the present time there is talk of a land settlement scheme in Somerset. Somerset Already has the second largest number of small-holdings in the country, and I think the Minister will agree with me that the north of Somerset is in very great danger of being, in the not far distant future, a part of the country where unemployment may be serious. Therefore, it is not going to be to the benefit of anyone to bring in unemployed to settlement schemes from outside areas, unless, first of all, you absorb your local unemployed.
  6.33 p.m.
  Mr. ELLIS SMITH: This Debate is very opportune. The new Regulations are to be issued, so we are informed, in the near future, and, therefore, it is good that we should have an opportunity of considering the administration of the
  1480
  Board. I want to make a close analysis of the Report in order to influence the Minister, if that is possible, so that when the new Regulations are introduced, they will be a great improvement on the present Regulations. I am also pleased that we have the opportunity of considering the administration now, because once the Government decide upon these Regulations, we in this House will not be able to alter them, unless we can bring sufficient pressure to bear in other directions. I would remind the Minister that already we have had one experience of Regulations being introduced and accepted by the House, and then of other methods adopted in order that those Regulations could be withdrawn. I believe that there is a feeling in this country similar to that which compelled the Government to reconsider the Hoare-Laval proposals; that if the Government introduce Regulations based upon the mentality contained in this Report, the pressure that was brought to bear upon the Hoare-Laval proposals will be infinitesimal compared with what they will have to put up with if Regulations of this kind are issued. I would remind the Minister of the undertaking that the Government gave to the House and to the country when the Act was being considered. The then Minister of Labour gave an undertaking to the House which has not been carried out he said:
  "A man would be given assistance to prevent him from becoming destitute."
  Is there anyone in this Committee who will get up and say that that has been done? He went on to say:
  "The limit of the need will not be confined in any way to the receipt of unemployment benefit. It will be possible for the Board to supplement benefit in the case of persons under Part I in respect of unemployment benefit, and they will also be able to meet the whole needs, other than the medical needs."
  He said further:
  "Long continued unemployment often creates more needs than can be relieved by mere cash relief … Most important is the maintenance of a man's employability."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1933; col. 1089, Vol. 283.]
  These promises have not been carried out by the Board, and the assurances that were then given by the Minister have not been carried out. On the contrary, we have had a harsh, mean administration of the Regulations that

  1481
  are in force. This problem is mostly a Northern problem, and I join with the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) in noticing the difference in regard to the interest that is taken in this question. Last week there were not sufficient seats in the House to accommodate hon. Members, and there was some trouble because Members of the Government were sitting on the Opposition Benches. To-day, when this internal question, affecting the North in particular, is being considered, what do we see? Not more than 12 supporters of the Government taking an interest in the question. In the four Southern areas, the unemployed percentage is 9.8, but in the four other areas including Wales and Scotland, the percentage of unemployment is 26.4 This is having a serious effect upon the whole of the North, and it will reflect itself in a way that the Government do not anticipate, unless the Regulations that are to be introduced are different from those which are being administered at the present time.
  I have a pamphlet in my hand issued by the Conservative party for the guidance of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who sit opposite. I do not forget that there are some Members who occupy the Front Bench opposite and some who have left our own movement, who have not had any experience of this kind of thing. They are used to having a brief put into their hands, and this is the kind of brief that was put into their hands when this question was first being discussed. It states: "A Great Social Reform," and then goes on to analyse the improvement that would follow from this administration. If the Minister will be good enough to turn to page 6 of the Report he will find the following:
  "The Board was charged by the Act with the duty of creating a new social service for the assistance of able-bodied unemployed persons who normally are wage-earners, not only for the relief of their material needs, but also for the promotion of their welfare."
  Does the Minister consider that that has been done by the Board? The benefit scales are altogether too low, but I am not going into that now. I am dealing with the administration of the Regulations and the new benefits that have been laid down. In the administration, generally speaking, no heed has been paid at all to the necessity for new clothes. We who sit in this House are not the only people who require new clothes.
  1482
  Unemployed men, their wives and children require new clothes, but by reason of the meagre benefits paid and the mean way in which these Regulations are being administered, the unemployed cannot possibly afford new clothes. How is this reflecting itself? If a jumble sale is advertised in any of these localities, huge queues are formed outside the school where the jumble sale is to be held. The unemployed are being driven to wear the cast-off clothing of relatively decently placed people in their area simply because the Regulations are being administered in this way. I ask the Minister to turn to the bottom of page 9, where it says:
  "It does not require a destitution test to be applied to the household."
  These Regulations, in the way they are being administered, apply a destitution test, and, if need be, concrete evidence can be produced to prove that statement. On page 10, the Report says:
  "Persons like sons and daughters living with the applicant in mutual enonomic dependence must in any circumstances be members of one household."
  How does this work out in practice? A father of between 50 and 60 years of age has made great sacrifices to bring up his family, as most working-class parents have to do in order to bring up their families. They give of their best to their children, and they see them grow up. When a man reaches 55 or 60 he finds himself unemployed. He cannot hold his own industrially to-day with the great increase which has taken place in production and the mechanisation of industry, particularly in the mines and the heavy industries. The result is that he becomes unemployed. Time goes on until he finds himself upon the means test, not having received one penny of benefit after having paid into Employment Insurance, in some cases, since 1912. To what does this lead? It leads to internal domestic friction. The father walks about with his head down, talking to people and telling them that he is thinking of committing suicide and of doing all kinds of things, as life is not worth living because he feels that there is no place for him in this world, and his sons and daughters have to keep him.
  If these statements are challenged, and hon. or right hon. Gentlemen opposite think we are exaggerating, we

  1483
  can give them evidence from our personal relationships of the way this kind of thing is working itself out. We find that it is affecting the mother. A daughter looking forward to getting married and wanting to prepare for that time, finds that a very big percentage of her hard-earned income is having to be paid into the domestic exchequer towards keeping her father because of the harsh means test which is being administered. The mother at night, when supper time comes round, talks to the father, and they both sit there almost crying because their sons and daughters are placed in this position. I warn the Minister that, if the new Regulations are to perpetuate this kind of thing, it will have the effect of rousing the country in a way that the Government can never have thought possible. That is the kind of thing that is happening.
  On page 11 the Report says that they have applied discretion. It may be true that, according to the Report, they have applied discretion, but discretion applied generally has been applied within very narrow limits. Later, the Report says:
  "Every applicant is a separate human being with needs of his own and with his own environment."
  If that statement be true, why is it not applied to the whole family? Why is it not applied to the sons and daughters? The fact is, that that principle has not been carried out. On page 12, the Report says:
  "The amount of assistance granted in many cases may be so little below the applicant's normal net earnings as to diminish both his eagerness to obtain work and his reluctance to relinquish it."
  That is a deliberate lie. It may be true as far as isolated instances are concerned, but to insult in this way the class to which we are proud to belong, justifies me in saying that there is no other way to describe it than the way in which I have just described it. The Report further says:
  "Similarly, many of the young women without prospects of employment in their own area have shown themselves unwilling to take employment elsewhere."
  I do not blame the young women for refusing to go away from home. They ought not to be prepared to go away from home. Those who have had experience in bringing up children know the
  1484
  value of parental control and influence between the ages of 18 and 25. They know the temptations that beset the path of young women between those ages. Yet the people who prepared this Report have the audacity to put in a phrase of that description. On page 13, the Report says that the families may and do receive sums of money, etc. It was never intended when the Act was passed that the Regulations should be administered in this way. On page 16, the Report says:
  "The question is not whether there should be a means test, but what that test should be. This is a matter which is now under close examination, but in any scheme great importance will be attached to maintaining of the unity of family life."
  I plead with the Minister that when the new Regulations are introduced they should be introduced in order that family life may be maintained. I hope that there will be drastic alterations. Despite our political differences this is a human problem, and the country will not stand for any unfair treatment. If the country knew the facts contained in this Report, if we could broadcast what appears in the Report in the same way that it is being broadcast in the House, the country would not stand for this kind of thing.
  A very noticeable feature of the Report is that it makes no apology for the last disgraceful means test Regulations. They seek to justify the Regulations. Therefore, a great responsibility is placed on our shoulders and especially on the shoulders of the Minister of Labour with regard to the new Regulations. It is reasonable to suggest that the scales that are in operation at the present time will suit the Board again. The Board in their report say:
  "The public conscience asserted itself on the last occasion."
  The public conscience will assert itself on this occasion unless there is a great improvement in the Regulations. I read the "Observer" yesterday. I got sick of the "Observer" some time ago, but I started reading it again, because I find that it is the intellectual guide for the present Government. Therefore, I read the "Observer" yesterday, purposely, and this is what I found:
  "The Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board, couched in a spirit as humane as it is efficient, is a decided challenge to the Government's hesitation. One of the Board's first duties was to check the ramp into which relief had been converted by unscrupulous local authorities."

  1485
  Who are the unscrupulous local authorities? Where they have had a Labour majority. Who are the unscrupulous majorities? They are where Conservative, Liberal and Labour have joined together and have not been prepared to administer the Unemployment Acts in the way that these people have administered them. They have been humane and have administered the Acts in a humane way, in a reasonable, manly and womanly way. Who is behind Garvin, the intellectual guide of this Government, who calls them unscrupulous local authorities? The Astors. The Astors and the Garvins are the people who are responsible for pursuing a policy of this kind. That quotation shows what this type of people think about our men and women, who have built up this country. This country has not been built up by the Garvins, nor the Astors, nor by earls and ladies, but by the miners, the engineers, the steel workers, the agricultural workers. Yet the mean Unemployment Board is meting out this kind of treatment to them.
  One could go on at length if there was time, but other hon. Members desire to take part in the Debate. I have three or four letters that I should like to quote. We are receiving piles of letters. A few weeks ago, on the Motion for the Adjournment, an hon. Member on these benches raised the question of the administration of the means test. There was not time to do justice to the position, but I spoke for about five minutes, with the result that I received shoals of letters congratulating me and my colleagues because we had said a few words on behalf of the unemployed. Here are one or two examples. The first letter relates to the son of an unemployed man. He received the Norman Angell peace poster competition prize, and because he received that prize the allowance for his father was reduced from 12s. to 6s. a week.
  Another letter relates to a man whom I know personally, a man as good as anyone in this House or outside it. He is a man eager for work. If ever a man was eager for work this man is. He used to be a professional footballer and built up a standard of living which he has not been able to maintain. Against my own criticism, this man, because of his position, has been prepared to grovel if necessary in order to get a job. Last
  1486
  winter he went snow shifting. Because he showed himself eager for work the local town council gave him the first job on relief work. He received 9s. The following week he did a bit on the football field and received 5s. He also received 2s. 4d., making altogether 16s. 4d. He had 1s. 8d. stopped for National Health Insurance and under the 1934 Act he had 9s. 4d. stopped. The result was that after working snow shifting and doing something on the football field he was 5s. 4d. worse off.
  There is another case to which I would call attention. It relates to a lad whose parents I know. Like all working class parents, they had tried to give their lad a better chance in life than they had. The lad got heartily sick of being out of work, and his mother got on to him because he could not get a job. Eventually, he threw himself under a railway train, and in his pockets, so the police report says, there was a note to his father, which said: "Nothing to live for." I have other letters, but I will not worry the Committee with the whole of them. I will, however, read one. It is from George A. Woods of 112A, Hope Street, Hanley. It says:
  "Dear Sir,
  I am putting my case as regards the means test before you, as from what I have seen and heard you speak I think you are. more able to tackle it than"—
  He goes on to refer to another hon. Member, whose name I will not mention.
  "I am living apart from my wife, who resides at No. 1, Fountain Street, Pitts Hill, through the means test, and have been close on four years. I was drawing 18s. transitional benefit and the wife was always grumbling. It was not keeping me, never mind both of us, and I was living on two cripples, so I decided to go for peace and comfort. I draw 9s. for her now and send it on to her. I could go back any time, but they would reduce my dole and make the two lads keep me and wife, so I am better off where I am at present.
  I should like to explain what the two, cripples are as mentioned by wife. The oldest is totally blind—
  If hon. Members had been in the position of some of these people, perhaps they would take more notice of a letter of this kind—
  "and works at Fenton workshops for the-Blind. His age is 24. The youngest is 19: He has been in poor health for this last six years and is always in the doctor's hands. It takes him all his time to do, four days a week. He is growing too fast. He is over six feet now. What I want you

  1487
  to do is when they introduce the new regulations to ask the Minister of Labour or the House generally whether they would like to eat the bread a blind man earns. It should be the other way about, me to work and him to eat, and me to put a trifle on one side for him for the time will come when he will lose mother and father."
  One could go on giving experiences of that kind. One of the best friends I ever had committed suicide because of the harsh means test. Therefore, I hope that the Minister of Labour will be good enough to consider the effects of the administration of the means test when he is introducing the new Regulations. I hope that the Regulations will be worthy of the House, and that the Unemployment Assistance Board will be instructed, if they are to carry on the administration, to act in as generous a way as possible.
  7.0 p. m.
  Mr. E. BROWN: It may be to the advantage and convenience of the Committee if I intervene now. The Debate on the Vote will be interrupted at 7.30, but after the business to be taken at 7.30 has been concluded, my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be glad to deal with any points that I have left untouched or that may be raised in the course of the discussion.
  The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) opened this Debate on the Report of the Board and its administration in a temperate and moderate speech, but in that speech he said one or two strong things. Some of those strong things have been said in stronger language by other hon. Members since. I gathered the impression that the Report has clearly made a considerable impression on hon. Members opposite, and that they are aware that it has also made a considerable impression in the country. I cannot help suspecting that many of the adjectives used, and they have been without limit—the hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Daggar), for example, chose his adjectives with great skill and care to achieve the maximum of prejudice against the Board—would have been much the same in any event. If complaint is made that the Board have put their case so that they have achieved a favourable impression for what they have been doing, something has been done to attempt to redress the balance in the last few hours. We shall be discussing in a short time
  1488
  what shall be done about it, but that is not my purpose this afternoon. My purpose has been to listen with scrupulous care to every point made about these difficult problems.
  A thoughtful observer would not have gathered from the speeches any great sense of perspective about the problem as a whole. He would not have gathered that this Board is administering a new technique in a field of social problems which has been one of the most difficult that this or any other country ever knew. The right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) knows that well. He has been working at it for years. I was reading a few days ago a report he signed on this problem, and noted the difference of view now taken in the light of this new technique. I am not going to discuss the basis of that technique to-day. I am here to point out that if any fair judgment is to be given on the Board and what it has been doing, some attempt must be made to face the problem objectively, frankly, and as a whole. From my share in the investigations of the administration of the Board's officials and their work, I agree with their judgment rather than with some of the heated words used about them.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: That was to be expected.
  Mr. BROWN: Then the hon. Member is not disappointed, and we are both happy. The hon. Member and his friends are in a unique position, and he knows it. He and his friends have taken consistently one particular view. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That gives him an advantage when he is dealing with a complete objection to the whole of this system. The Board's task has been exceedingly difficult. Great demands have been made for a change of system; great demands have been made by hon. Members opposite for a change in the administration of assistance to unemployed able-bodied men and women. Hon. Members below the Gangway on the Liberal benches have joined in the demands that the able-bodied unemployed, as apart from other unemployed men and women, should be made a national charge. Great complaints have been made because there were differences in administering relief to able-bodied unemployed up and down the country. When the hon. Member

  1489
  for Chester-le-Street raised his first major point about the standstill, I could not help thinking that he had put the point that is the greatest justification for the Board, because the circumstances underlying the administration of transitional payments under the standstill show how admirable and how difficult has been the work of the Board.
  Let me take this illustration. If the Committee will turn to page 169 of the Report, they will find an example of the most extreme cases. What was the difficulty the Board inherited? What was the difficulty underlying the breakdown that has been referred to? There were many difficulties, but the major one was this—that there have been unexpected variations in the practice of local authorities. If hon. Members will turn to page 169 they will see "Manchester, District No. 1"; the following example, which shows the different determinations under the different local authorities for a household consisting of the applicant, his wife, one dependent child and two other children earning 44s. a week:

  "County borough A. 17s. 3d.

  County borough B, 7s. 6d.

  County borough C, 28s.

  County borough D, 16s. 6d.

  County council E, committee area (1), 3s. 6d.

  County council E, committee area (2), nil.

  County council F, committee area (1), 15s.

  County council F, committee area (2), 16s.

  County council F, committee area (3), 18s. 6d.

  County council F, committee area (4), 20s.

  County council F, committee area (5), 20s. 6d."

  The Unemployment Board's allowance under the Regulations would be 17s. That shows the extraordinary complexity of this problem. It shows that when claims are made—and they have been made by all parties of the Left for years—that we ought to have a system which was national in character and uniform in its treatment of unemployed men, that when you apply that to a series of cases of this kind, inside the same districts, the difficulties arise. Forty-four per cent. of the applicants are on the original Regulations, and 56 per cent. on the transitional standard according to the previous local practice, and it will be seen that the Board has made no mean administrative achievement in that it has
  1490
  been able to solve this problem as it has done with so little objection made. I put this point deliberately, because it is an illustration of the whole problem. It is simple for hon. Members to bring up individual cases in the House. The hon. Member for Abertillery put one or two cases to me. Every hon. Member knows that when individual cases are put to me, or to the Parliamentary Secretary, we always do our best to sift them to the bottom and get them answered. With regard to the disability pensions cases he mentioned, I find, without evidence, that it is almost incredible of belief. As far as I know the rule he quoted about the first pound is religiously observed. If he will send me the particular cases I will have them investigated.
  Mr. DAGGAR: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake, without evidence, that my other statements have been incorrect? I have the papers in connection with the disability pensions, and there is no doubt in my own mind nor in the minds of the people.
  Mr. BROWN: They are typical of the kind of way an atmosphere of emotion is aroused. I will do what any Minister should do. If the hon. Member will send me details, I will have them examined, but I will not here undertake to concur with any ex parte statement made by any hon. Member. From my knowledge of how the disability rule is administered, I find it almost incredible of belief that these things can have been as the hon. Member said. I am not doubting his good faith, but am only making the point that I think it is an ex parte statement. The same is true of the application of the test of need. There are 28 districts. We find that there are four district officers who point out that this problem is of some importance in their area. The principal one is Durham. The number of cases there of sons who may have been affected by the breaking up of homes by the test of need is 250 where the son is the applicant; and also 250 cases where the son is the wage-earner.
  Then we have Liverpool. There the statement is carefully drawn. I was glad to note that the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) did not make the extreme statements that some other hon. Members have done. I looked for some evidence to justify his claim that we ought to have an individual test of need rather

  1491
  than a family test of need. I would like to put these questions to him, and to all hon. Members who are saying that there should be an individual test of need and not a household test. Any hon. Member who wishes to satisfy his constituents of his devotion to retrenchment and says he is against the means test, must ask himself these questions:
  Are the needs of the unemployed applicant to be treated wthout any reference to the home surroundings in which he lives? Is he to receive the standard rate of benefit or some other fixed rate? Is that fixed rate to be determined without any reference to the difference between the resources of one household and another? If the father in addition becomes unemployed, is the assistance to the unemployed son to remain at the fixed figure, or is the authority to take into account the fact that the father's resources are no longer available in the household?
  Mr. BEVAN: Can we have the document from which the Minister is quoting.
  Mr. BROWN: Certainly. I am quoting from my own speech.
  Mr. BEVAN: You did not mention it.
  Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member is always so suspicious. I am quoting from the OFFICIAL REPORT of 29th May, Col. 2437. The questions are worth quoting now that this matter is to be a major issue. Let me read the passage again:
  "If the father in addition becomes unemployed, is the assistance to the unemployed son to remain at the fixed figure, or is the authority to take into account the fact that the father's resources are no longer available in the household? Is the father to be paid a fixed rate, or is that rate to be subject to adjustment if in any respect the position of the son alters? Are savings or capital resources to be taken into account? If so, why should they be the only resources to be taken into account in the case of a test of means? Finally, how can any man or any Minister deal with subterfuges such as the transfer of such resources from the applicant to some other member of the family? It is very simple to say, I pay my tribute to a test of means, but I do not mean a household means test; I mean an individual means test,' without applying one's mind to what that means."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th May, 1936; col. 2437, Vol. 312.]
  The fact is that in all the years during which a test of need has been applied no one has yet discovered an effective way of applying a test except on a household basis. Two things remain. The first
  1492
  question is: Ought you to define your household and define in law or in practice what the definition should cover? The second question is: Where and how shall the line be drawn? Hon. Members opposite talk about abolishing the test of need. The facts produced in the Report prove conclusively that if you take this matter from the point of view of what the nation is doing for the able-bodied unemployed it is impossible not to apply a test of need when men who are unemployed and who have run out of benefit ask for public assistance from the State. Hon. Members also know that in the General Election that issue became quite clear. Hon. Members have attacked the Board because the Report shows that various resources are going into families who have applied for relief, but there are cases even more difficult than that. Some of those who have complained about the household test overlook the fact that there are in the same street those who have large incomes coming into their homes—they are asking that such a household shall be relieved from a test of need —and unemployed men on the register of the Unemployment Assistance Board who have no resources.
  Mr. BEVAN: On a point of Order. I really um amazed at the speech of the Minister of Labour. Is the right hon. Gentleman entitled to address himself to a defence of the means test and shall we be entitled to put our case against the means test? It is really a most astonishing speech.
  Mr. BROWN: I have not been arguing that at all. I have been answering objections which have been put by hon. Members opposite on these particular points.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I understood the Minister to be dealing with the administration of the means test, and, as I said earlier, it is open to every hon. Member to criticise the administration. I said that it would not be in order to discuss whether there should be one or not, but the Report itself specifically states that the duty of defining the operation of the means test was placed by Statute on the Unemployment Assistance Board, and, therefore, in considering their Report it is open to hon. Members to criticise the interpretation which the Board places on this point.
  Mr. BEVAN: I submit that the Minister in the last 10 minutes has been addressing himself to a justification of the means test in principle, and has made no reference whatever to matters of administration. I want to have your guidance as to whether it will be competent for us to address ourselves to the question of principle, because the Minister started his speech by the taunt that there was only one Member on this side of the Committee who was entitled to object on principle to the means test—the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). I submit that the Minister should be allowed to continue his speech and that we should be allowed to reply, or that he should be called to order.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: On another point of Order—
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I had better deal with one point of Order at a time. I do not understand that the Minister in his speech is raising the principle of a means test, but that if you have a means test you must administer it on certain lines. As I have listened to the speech of the Minister I understood that he was dealing with the household means test, which I think is admissible.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: The speech of the Minister of Labour is word for word the speech he delivered on 29th May. There is hardly a word of difference, and I want to ask you, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, whether you have any power to stop a Minister repeating in Debate a speech which he has already delivered to this House? Mr. Speaker has ruled against repetition and against what is practically a read speech. Will you, therefore, ask the Minister to reply to the Debate and not read a speech he has already delivered?
  Mr. BROWN: I was trying to deal with a point put by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead and I thought that as I had already made a concise summary of the position in a previous speech it was much better the Committee should have it in that form than in any other way. Really there is no pleasing hon. Members opposite. And let me add that the questions I have quoted remain still to be answered by anybody who criticises the admininistration of the household means test. Other questions have been put to me. The hon. Member for
  1494
  Chester-le-Street asked a question about the reports. In the past 18 months a large number of reports and memoranda have passed between the Board and myself. The Committee will understand that they are condential, and I cannot undertake to publish them. The Report of the Board is now before hon. Members and it contains a mass of information, but in addition I will make it my business, when the new Regulations are presented to the House, that all the information which is required shall be given in order that hon. Members may form a judgment on the proposals.
  Mr. LAWSON: The right hon. Gentleman says that these reports are confidential, but they are reports into the reasons for the breakdown of the last Regulations. The right hon. Gentleman cannot get away by saying that they are confidential. It is due to the Committee that it should have these reports.
  Mr. BROWN: I have said that the Committee shall have all the information it ought to have. The Report of the Board is now before hon. Members, showing the result of 18 months' hard work. The discussion to-day shows that these debates do tend to get out of perspective; individual cases seem to take the whole field, and little attention is given to the magnitude of the work being done by the Board in this complex problem. The Board took over nearly 1,800,000 persons, and at the moment are paying out to 660,000 applicants unemployment assistance, either on the basis of transitional payment or the original Regulations. It is a vast field to cover. The extraordinary thing about the whole of this problem is not the number of individual cases which have, been brought to light, but the small number of such cases. I have had many communications from hon. Members and have had them analysed. I am trying to get this matter into its proper perspective. It is only fair to the Board to say that with 660,000 applicants in receipt of allowances and weekly payments of £775,000 in the last 12 months, the Parliamentary Secretary and I have received fewer than 500 individual cases of complaint, and many of these dealt with complex technical matters—
  Mr. LAWSON: How many were sent to the Board?
  Mr. BROWN: I am talking about my own experience. There is no pleasing hon. Members opposite. When I discuss the Board they say that I ought not to quote the reports of the Board, and now when I am discussing my own experiences they say that I ought not to do so, but that I should discuss the Board. In this matter they have prejudged the issues before we begin the Debate, and no matter what facts and arguments are put before them, their language will be the same and their attitude will be the same. That is the atmosphere in which hon. Members opposite have approached the Report of the Board, and when they use strong language about the Report, in reply I say that, having made my own attempt in the country to verify what is in the Report, so far from the district administration being a soulless bureaucratic thing, it is immensely superior to anything that has ever been done for the unfortunate citizens who are unemployed in the history of this country. More than that, hon. Members have complained about the individual test with regard to need, but when you come to the question of discretion and exceptional need, the plea is for exactly what the Board are doing. They have made individual examinations. In my judgment the Board have done the wise thing. They have not only given their local officers discretion, through the district officers, to do their best for human welfare in the cases of exceptional need, but, as the Report shows, they have in several districts carried out exceptional examinations in order to find out just what exceptional need there is in the household of the applicant whose affairs they are administering on behalf of Parliament under the Unemployment Assistance Act Regulations.
  With regard to the other points, I will ask the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with them. I beg the Committee not to be misled by the heated atmosphere produced by individual cases but to see the great problem of the Board as a whole. If the Committee does that, then when the time comes they will find out whether the Board have made Regulations which the Government can accept and which the House as a whole can support.
  It being half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF
  1496
  WAYS AND MEANS under Standing Order No. 6, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL [Lords] (By Order).
  Read a Second time, and committed.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. CROOM-JOHNSON: I beg to move,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to leave out Part IV."
  I am sorry to break into the proceedings this evening on a totally different subject, but the Private Bill which is now before the House is one which contains some particular Clauses dealing with a very important topic. The Birmingham Corporation is in progress of undertaking the construction of an aerodrome which is partly on the outskirts of Birmingham and partly contained in two districts immediately contiguous in the County of Warwickshire. The first thing which those of us who are supporting this Instruction wish to make plain is that we are not actuated either by any political view or any antagonism to what the Birmingham Corporation are doing. Quite the reverse. However, we thought it right to call the attention of the House to a somewhat unusual position which is developing.
  The House will remember that during the Debate on the Air Navigation Bill in Committee a good deal was said—and naturally so—about the necessity for the protection of people who are going to fly to and land in the aerodromes which are to be subjected to that Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament. As a result of that there is upon the Order Paper for to-day, if the business is reached, a new Clause which has been put down by the Minister for consideration in accordance with an undertaking which he gave that those Members of the House who are interested in this vital question should have a further opportunity of considering the making safe of aerodromes for landing purposes. Therefore, it is within the recollection of hon. Members that there was a great desire in the House that there should be some definite code, as it were, which might be applied for the purpose of avoiding those dangers which a great many Members saw might be caused to persons who use the new aerodromes. At the same time,

  1497
  while that Debate was going on, the Birmingham Corporation Bill was being dealt with elsewhere. That Bill also contains a series of provisions which, as I understand, are directed very largely to deal with the same problem, but to do it in a totally different way.
  I have felt for some time, in examining the Private Bill legislation which is going through Parliament, that it is extremely undesirable, with the new methods and facilities for transportation in the country, that laws should be—to use an odd expression perhaps—unduly different in different parts of the country. In the old days it was all very well; people more or less stayed in their own villages, towns or counties, and they knew fairly well what the law was in the district in which they lived, or at any rate, had not much difficulty in finding out. Local legislation did not matter to a very great extent to anybody except the individuals who lived in the locality. It seems to me that that position has been entirely changed. An individual may be in half-a-dozen counties or more in one day, and people may possess, and very often do possess, houses, gardens and things of that description not merely in one place but in two or three.
  I suggest that it is manifestly desirable that, as a general principle, we should seek, as far as we can, to make our legislation even and consistent throughout the country. I advance that as a general proposition. But when we are dealing with a new industry, with a new series of conditions, with a new viewpoint altogether, as we are doing and as we shall have to do more and more with regard to the air, how much more necessary is it that we should endeavour to see that the law is the same on the outskirts of Birmingham as it is on the outskirts of any other large town where it is desired to establish a civil aerodrome? It is that point of view which has induced us to bring the provisions of this Bill to the attention of the House.
  The Bill contains in Part IV, starting with Clause 17, a number of elaborate provisions with a view to preventing the development of land and property in the vicinity of the aerodrome. It is much the same sort of thing, although, of course, it is not done in the same way or perhaps aimed at precisely the same problem, as is being done in the Air
  1498
  Navigation Bill. Clause 17 provides that there is to be a protected area in the neighbourhood and round about the Birmingham Corporation aerodrome. That protected area is defined in the Bill by reference to a series of plans which are to be deposited with the city corporation and also with the council of the county of Warwickshire, and any person who goes to those two places may look at those deposited plans in order to see whether he comes within them. If he does, this is what he will find: that under Clause 17:
  "It shall not be lawful without the consent of the corporation—
  (a) to erect or add to any building;"—
  (I understand this is quite different from the Government's Clause which we are to discuss on the Air Navigation Bill) —
  "(b) to erect or place any post (including a telegraph post) pole or other thing; or
  (c) to permit any tree to grow;"—
  (which means, in effect, that you cannot plant one)—
  "(d) to raise the surface of the land so that any part of such building post pole thing tree or land (in this Act referred to as an obstruction ') will be at a greater height than the prescribed height."
  The effect of that would be that, under the Birmingham Corporation's proposal, to all intents and purposes the land in what is called the protected area will be sterilised, because the proposals will obviously interfere to a very considerable extent with the development of that particular area. At the moment I am not sure that I am very much concerned as to whether that particular way is the right way to deal with the matter or whether the Clause which the Minister for Air has put on the Paper is the right way, but frankly I would prefer the Minister's proposal, so far as I am competent to express any opinion upon such a matter. The difficulty about the Clause is that instead of making detailed prescriptions, it goes on to provide for what I can only describe as a series of mathematical problems which will have to be looked at by the individual, who has to see, for example, whether he is going to permit any tree to grow so that it exceeds the prescribed height. If hon. and right hon. Members who have the Clause before them will look at Sub-section (2) they will find a series of four calculations

  1499
  which may have to be made in order to see whether the particular individual is erecting his building, or permitting his tree to grow, or erecting or placing any post (including a telegraph post) above the established height. That seems to place a very onerous burden on anybody who happens to be in the area.
  The House will not be surprised to hear that the matter does not stop there. I am perfectly certain that the Birmingham Corporation have tried to limit what they are doing to what they conceive to be reasonable limitations in order to make their new aerodrome a satisfactory place and one which can safely be used by the civil air pilots of the future. Therefore, the Bill contains provisions—and it is only fair that I should point this out—under which the corporation is entitled to give certain notices to people who offend against the provisions, and they can, if they do not like the corporation's notices, ultimately go to the Secretary of State for Air. Now, under the Government's proposal, I understand it is the Minister who will act in the first instance with regard to these matters, and I assume that when the Minister acts in connection with them there will be some co-ordinated effort by his Department in order to make certain that there will be some uniformity of treatment in the aerodromes throughout the country. The difficulty we feel about this is that under this Clause—and I hope those of my hon. Friends who themselves fly and are experts in this matter will give consideration to the point—there may very likely be in Birmingham a different set of circumstances, obstructions and so on, dealt with according to different rules and ideas, to those which prevail in the rest of the country, and once again the onus is put upon the individual to object after the corporation had given their notice of obstruction under Clause 18 of the Bill.
  The only question which will be left to them is whether the requirement of the Birmingham Corporation is "reasonably necessary." The Clause does not say reasonably necessary for what, but I think it is fairly obvious that it must be reasonably necessary for the safety of what I would call the flying public. There are then two provisions about the consent which may be given. There are, in
  1500
  the circumstances, extremely serious penalties against any person who contravenes the provisions. The offences are regarded as continuing offences, and in some cases if a person
  "erects or adds to a building or erects or places any post pole or other thing or permits any tree to grow or raises the surface of the land in contravention of the provisions contained in Section 17 (Restrictions on use of land in protected area) of this Act he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding fifty pounds and to a daily penalty not exceeding ten pounds."
  It is further provided that whether or not any proceedings are taken, the corporation may make such alterations in the premises as may be necessary and recover the cost of doing so from the unfortunate proprietor. People of substantial means can easily defend themselves in proceedings of that nature. They are able to get, I will not say the best legal advice, but such legal advice as is available for those who can afford it. But in considering proposals of this nature we are a little apt to overlook the small owner, the man to whom the expenditure of a few pounds and oftentimes of a few shillings on lawyers is a serious matter, and one which may seriously unbalance his small budget.
  On top of that comes another provision which, I believe, is intended as a protection for the owners of property but which is, I submit, quite illusory and no protection at all. There is a solemn provision that compensation in some circumstances may be granted, and that compensation is to be assessed by individuals who are well known to many of us, namely, official arbitrators under the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919. I am sure many of my legal friends will rejoice at that provision. They will be delighted at the prospect of this House creating one more possible source of litigation. But that is not the duty of this House and this provision when examined carefully is, as I have said, illusory. No compensation is to be granted unless it is shown by the claimant to the satisfaction of the arbitrator that proposals for the development of the land
  "are immediately practicable or would have been so if this Act had not been passed."
  That is not a new provision. It has, I think, been taken from other Acts of Parliament but here we are dealing with the provision in a new application. First

  1501
  you are, as I submit, sterilising the surrounding land and when you have sterilised it, so that no one would look at it for purposes of development knowing the difficulties and deficiencies involved, the owner has then to go to an official arbitrator and before he gets a penny of compensation he has to satisfy the arbitrator that proposals for the development of the land are immediately practicable, or would have been so if this Measure had not been passed. That is an intolerable burden to place upon any owner. It is a condition which, in my submission, it is almost impossible to satisfy. If an individual wanted to grow trees for some commercial purpose how is he to satisfy the arbitrator that proposals for the development of the land—which I assume means development in the form of a building estate—are immediately practicable? How is that going to help him to satisfy the arbitrator in regard to the business which he wants to undertake on that land? I have called attention to the fact that this aerodrome is not wholly within Birmingham, otherwise I should not have used the illustration about a man wanting to grow trees for commercial purposes. The land is partly outside Birmingham where, I assume, such a possibility would be well within the area of practical politics.
  I hope I have not taken too long in developing this point. I desire that hon. Members in all parts of the House should realise the criticisms which we wish to offer to this part of the Bill. I think it is fairly plain that we object to the proposal to sterilise the whole of the land in the neighbourhood; that we object to the proposals for compensation and that we object to the serious penalties which the Bill seeks to impose on individuals. We suggest that the Government's method of providing for the safety of civil aviation, as proposed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air, is much more practicable and much better than having one system for Birmingham and a different system for all other aerodromes. Such, I understand, will be the position if the Bill passes in this form. I say this in no spirit of antagonism to the Birmingham Corporation. I look at the matter, to some extent, from the point of view of a practical lawyer who frequently has to advise on what the law is in different parts of the country. I am often shocked to find the wide diver-
  1502
  gences which exist between different parts of the country, in dealing with certain topics, in regard to which the law ought to be reasonably plain to the ordinary individual. Often it is extremely obscure, even to those of us who spend a great part of our lives in trying to unravel the right meaning from legislation which has been passed by both Houses of Parliament.
  7.52 p.m.
  Mr. LEVY: I beg to second the Motion. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Croom-Johnson) has given a very clear exposition of the objection which some of us take to this Clause. We do not see why any local authority should receive preferential treatment or powers greater than those desired by the Air Ministry. Had this part of the Bill been similar to the corresponding provision in the Air Navigation Bill, the Measure would I think have passed through its various stages without any controversy. I ask hon. Members, however, to consider what this proposal means, and to remember that what applies to this aerodrome at Birmingham might well apply equally to any other civil aerodrome in the country. It is proposed to take away from the owners of this land that which they now possess, namely, a clean title. I think there are few Members of the House who would not feel that they had been injured, if a clean title which they held to property were arbitrarily taken away from them and a restricted title substituted without any compensation. I suggest that in justice and equity the local authority ought to purchase sufficient land to ensure safe taking-off and safe landing for the aeroplanes using its aerodrome. To buy only a small portion of land and then to sterilise the land surrounding it, is not in accordance with the ideas of justice to which Englishmen are accustomed. The local authority, in my submission, ought to purchase the land necessary for the aerodrome and for the safe taking-off and landing of machines and then lease out to any one who desired to occupy it, such land as they thought fit, with such restrictions as they felt disposed to place upon it, so that the owner or lessee of the land would know exactly where he stood.
  My hon. Friends and I have no antagonism to Birmingham or any other local authority. What we have always aimed

  1503
  at has been some sort of uniformity throughout the country with regard to Private Bill legislation, and we do not think it fair that Birmingham, which is a large and rich city, should receive preferential treatment over the Air Ministry, as well as over other local authorities who desire to have civil aerodromes—and I hope we shall see a good many civil aerodromes in different parts of the country. For the reasons which have been explained we object to this part of the Bill. I do not know whether we shall divide the House upon this Motion or not, but if we do not, and if the Bill goes upstairs, I hope the Committee will take note of the views expressed in this Debate and reject any Clause which they consider is not justified. I am sure that Birmingham will be unable to justify a provision which is not even asked for by the Air Ministry in connection with the erection of Government aerodromes.
  7.58 p.m.
  Mr. CARTLAND: I do not think anyone will object to the way in which this Motion has been moved and seconded. Both the Mover and the Seconder, judging by their remarks, show a friendly disposition to the City of Birmingham, and I think it will be agreed that an aerodrome is needed at that city and that the site which has been chosen is probably the best site that could be chosen. They put forward this Instruction, however, on points of principle, and, with the permission of the House, I propose to advance certain arguments in support of the Bill and against the Instruction, also on points of principle. My hon. Friend the Member for Elland (Mr. Levy) referred to the protected area. The Corporation of Birmingham have already purchased 730 acres, but the protected area, that is the area outside the aerodrome which is regarded as essential for the safety of aircraft coming in or taking off, is about 1,700 acres. Therefore, my hon. Friend suggests that apart from the 730 acres the corporation should have purchased an additional 1,700 acres.
  I think it will be agreed that the first consideration in setting up an aerodrome should be the safety of the aircraft using it. There is only one way in which this can be done. They must either own the land, or they must have certain powers to restrict the development of the land so that safety is secured. I agree with the
  1504
  hon. and learned Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Croom-Johnson) that it is a little unfortunate that there is not some general legislation which covers this point, and it is unfortunate that the City of Birmingham should have to produce this Bill at the very same time that the Air Ministry are producing their particular Bill. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but they may laugh differently when I have finished my point. It is unfortunate that we should have produced this Bill at the same time as the Air Ministry are producing their Bill, which in some respects covers certain provisions in the Birmingham Bill, but not in all respects. The essential difference is that the new Clause which is on the Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Air covers the provision of lights on buildings within this protected area, but it does not cover the erection of buildings which may take place in the future. There is, I understand, nothing about that in the new Clause to be moved by the Under-Secretary of State. Therefore, while the buildings which exist will be adequately lighted and looked after under the new Clause, there is nothing to prevent the erection of new buildings or the extension of buildings in the area, and that is the main purpose of this provision in the Birmingham Bill.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bridgwater referred to the necessity for uniformity. I am a little surprised at that, coming from such a Tory quarter. I agree that uniformity is in many respects essential when you are dealing with the provision of national amenities like aerodromes, but aerodromes are so different in their lay-out that very often it is necessary to have particular local conditions carefully safeguarded, as in this Bill. Then my hon. and learned Friend objected to the calculations, on the point that they were almost localised calculations. One of the arguments in favour of the calculations in the Bill is that they are standardised calculations, calculations which, I understand—I am not an expert—are internationally accepted. They are calculations which are approved of by the Air Ministry, and the Birmingham Corporation have in fact in this Bill included these particular specifications and calculations because they are the most uniform, both internationally and nationally. The hon. and

  1505
  learned Member for Bridgwater also referred to the severity of the penalties, and he made a great point about that, but I would point out that the penalties are for every serious misdeeds, which may result in loss of life.
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: What misdeeds?
  Mr. GARTLAND: The hon. and learned Member was objecting to penalties for the contravention of certain restrictions which the corporation may impose.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it a, misdeed or a crime to erect a building on your own land?
  Mr. CARTLAND: If that building is going to cause the loss of life or very serious accidents, it is a serious misdeed. My hon. Friend may object to it, but I think we are entitled to say that that serious misdeed must be safeguarded against by the imposition of serious penalties. May I say one word about the principle of sterilisation? If it is necessary for the municipality to guard the safety of aircraft coming into and taking off from this aerodrome, they have either to purchase the land entirely or to make certain necessary restrictions in order that security shall be obtained.; and purchase of the land may mean compulsory purchase. I would ask my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams), who no doubt will speak later, whether he prefers compulsory purchase, because it seems to me that compulsory purchase is far more objectionable from his point of view than the taking of powers to impose certain restrictions on the development of the land, which may not operate at all. Compulsory purchase is far more drastic and, from the point of view of the ratepayers, far more expensive. If actually we were to purchase the whole of the 1,700 acres, it would cost an enormous expense and place a great burden on the rates, and at the same time we could obtain perfect security for the aerodrome, without actually interfering with private property, by taking the particular powers asked for in this Bill. If my hon. Friends who have moved this Instruction would really consider which of these alternatives they preferred, compulsory purchase or taking restrictive powers, I am sure that from
  1506
  their particular point of view, of laisser-faire Toryism, if I may so describe it, compulsory purchase would. be the more objectionable.
  Mr. LEVY: The hon. Member asks whether we should prefer compulsory purchase or sterilisation. I say definitely, "Compulsory purchase." We do get some money that way, but the other way we get nothing.
  Mr. CARTLAND: My hon. Friend is not correct when he says that under the other way he would get nothing. There is no question of that. The whole principle of compensation is very carefully laid down. It is carefully laid down in Clause 21 that if in any way the rights of the particular owners are to be interfered with, there is full opportunity for compensation to be discussed. There is an appeal in every case, and I really think the interests of the people who own land in this district are fully safeguarded. My hon. Friend, I think, takes the view that the Birmingham Corporation are doing something very radical or very extreme, but in point of fact they are asking for no new powers. They are asking for new powers in respect to an aerodrome, but the actual powers for which they ask exist already in another form. The Town and Country Planning Act, under which the zoning of areas is carried out, is very well known, and there was a Bill at the end of the last Parliament for the restriction of ribbon development, where practically the same principle exists. I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bridgwater would agree that it is quite an ordinary thing for people to sell land and to put certain restrictions upon it as to the type of house or development that shall take place on it. Therefore, I say that the principle—and I am arguing it on principle—is nothing new. Birmingham is asking for nothing out of the ordinary, and whereas in those other cases they are dealing with amenities, this deals with the protection of life, which is more important still.
  I feel that this Instruction would, if carried, really destroy the whole principle of the Bill, and Birmingham Corporation feel so strongly that this aerodrome should be built, and built with adequate protection, that it is necessary to have the Bill. Parliament has given certain powers to municipalities with

  1507
  regard to the building and arrangement of aerodromes, but in this particular case the corporation of Birmingham found that these powers were not adequate. Therefore they took the proper course of coming before Parliament and saying that in their local area, in the particular conditions which they have to look after, they find that the powers given by Parliament are not sufficient, and they therefore ask Parliament to give them further powers. If the Instruction were carried, it would mean that the Bill could not be properly considered and that the corporation could not have a proper way of stating their case, which would hardly be fair to the corporation. I regret very much that the corporation have not built an aerodrome before, but now that they do come forward with a proect, I think they should be given full opportunities to express their views.
  Finally, there has been no opposition at all from the people who live in the area affected. One might have thought, from the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, that there had been great opposition, that the people who live in this area. were saying, "Save us from this radical, Socialist Corporation of the City of Birmingham." Not at all. My hon. and learned Friend made great play with the fact that maps and instructions had to be issued and were available at the Town Hall in Birmingham. But, much more than that, everybody who lives in the area has been notified and knows exactly what the position is. What has happened? Have there been great protest meetings? Has the Town Hall of Birmingham been attacked? Not a murmur, not a whisper of opposition has there been. Therefore, I beg the House to reject this Instruction and to let the Bill go forward, knowing quite well that by so doing they are not in any way affecting adversely the interests of the people in that area and that they will be adding to the safety and security of those who in future will use the aerodrome.
  8.9 p.m.
  Sir JOHN MELLOR: I rise to support the Motion for the Instruction, first of all on the ground of principle, and secondly because the aerodrome which the Birmingham Corporation are creating lies within the constituency which I have the honour to represent, namely, the Tamworth Division of Warwickshire. I
  1508
  want to make it clear that my constituents have no hostility whatsoever to the general idea of this project. They appreciate that the creation of aerodromes throughout the country is a matter of national importance, and having regard to the future, when civil aviation will, in my opinion, become more and more closely connected with military aviation and will be vital to the defences of this country, it would ill become anyone to be unduly obstructive with regard to the creation of aerodromes. Still less do my constituents desire to be obstructive in any way which would prevent the creation of safety devices in order to avoid unnecessary loss of life in the course of people taking off from or landing in this aerodrome. From one aspect, the presence of this aerodrome will be welcomed, because it will provide a permanent open space in an area which threatens ultimately to become a built-up area, and in that respect there is a certain compensation to the neighbours for the inconvenience which will be inseparable from the proximity of an aerodrome.
  In order that this great scheme shall be brought into being, my constituents recognise that compulsory powers have to be exercised and that in the neighbourhood of the aerodrome there must be something in the nature of a protected area. But what my friends in Warwickshire object to is the method by which these restrictions are to be applied and the powers under Part IV of the Birmingham Corporation Bill. If powers are necessary, as indeed they are, we feel that the Birmingham Corporation should be content with those powers which are part of the general law of the land or those powers which are commonly acquired by municipalities. My hon. Friend the Member for the King's Norton division (Mr. Cartland) said the Birmingham Corporation were really asking for nothing new. In that case I see no necessity for the provisions under Part IV. Surely they can either avail themselves of legislation which already exists or wait the very short time until the Air Navigation Bill will become an Act of Parliament. I feel that, subject to their power to avail themselves of legislation which affects the whole country, the Birmingham Corporation should be given no powers of control over property without either agreement with the owners or purchase. In

  1509
  practice, purchase will not often be necessary, because in a great majority of cases agreements will be arrived at.
  The hon. Member for King's Norton said that the owners of property would infinitely prefer restrictions to compulsory purchase. I do not agree with that view, because if the Birmingham Corporation have powers of compulsory purchase but not powers to restrict the owners will have the choice. If they desire to retain their property and consider that the restrictions to be imposed are not unduly grievous, it will be a simpler method for them to enter into an agreement with the Birmingham Corporation by which their land will become subject to restrictive covenants for which they will receive reasonable compensation. If, on the other hand, they feel that the restrictions will be too grievous, and they can no Longer happily reside in that neighbourhood, it will be open to them to sell to the corporation. The corporation will be able adequately to control the situation, because in the last resort they can get the land. It may be true that the exercise of compulsory purchase will involve a great outlay in the first instance, but if, as we have been told, the restrictions will not be severe or tiresome, the value of the land will not be appreciably diminished, and it will be perfectly easy for the corporation to resell the land in this neighbourhood, which is rapidly developing, without an appreciable loss. In fact, assuming that a resale takes place almost immediately the loss would represent approximately the injury done to the property by virtue of the restrictive covenants imposed by the corporation.
  I do not wish to enter into minor points, but it strikes me that it is rather hard on an owner of property that he should have to lop, perhaps, a very fine tree at his own expense or be subject to prosecution. If the corporation put upon owners of property the onus of seeing that their trees do not exceed a certain height they should be prepared to pay the cost of lopping them. If big trees are near to a house it is often an expensive matter to take off the tops without damaging the premises, because very skilled men have to be employed. Further, in Clauses 18 and 19 it is only to the owner of the property to whom the corporation have to give notice of their intentions, whereas Clause 22 says that "any person" may
  1510
  be prosecuted who raises an obstruction above the prescribed height, and Subsection (2) of that Clause speaks of "the owner or occupier" of any land within the protected area acting or permitting any other person to act in contravention of the regulations. I think the position of occupiers, who may have not merely a nominal but perhaps a fairly long-term interest in the property, should also be considered. For the reasons I have given, while I support the Instruction I hope very much that if the corporation gets the Bill as it stands it will exercise the greatest discretion and in every way consult the convenience of those in the neighbourhood of the aerodrome.
  8.20 p.m.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): Perhaps it will be for the convenience of hon. Members if I state now the view of the Air Ministry on the proposals in this Bill. I naturally sympathise very deeply with the corporation, who desire to take advantage of the proposals under Part IV for the protection of their new aerodrome. Their desire to make their aerodrome safe for all users is, of course, a natural and legitimate one. But the proposals in Part IV are novel and far-reaching, and my Noble Friend feels that their grant or rejection is a matter for the House itself to decide. I would remind hon. Members that under the Air Navigation Bill now before the House there are provisions to enable local authorities to ensure that the land in the vicinity of an aerodrome should be kept free from dangerous obstructions. This applies to all owners of licensed aerodromes, as well as to all local authorities who maintain and run aerodromes. There is also a provision for the illumination of obstructions in the neighbourhood of aerodromes. My Noble Friend does not, therefore, propose to ask the House to give powers to local authorities in excess of those which are in the general Bill now before the House.
  Under that Bill, as hon. Members know, it will be possible for municipalities to acquire land compulsorily if necessary. They will have those powers as permanent powers, which they have not had before; and not only that, they will be able to sell or to let that land subject to restrictive covenants, which is something they have not hitherto been able to do. Those powers will be avail-

  1511
  able for all local authorities. Therefore, it is for the House to decide whether in this particular case wider powers are to be granted to the local authority, or whether if, as I am sure, my hon. Friends do not propose to push this Instruction to a Division, it should be referred to the Private Bill Committee.
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: I listened with the greatest interest to the very informative statement we have just had from the Under-Secretary. Whether after that statement we shall divide or not is a matter which we must think over for a few moments, but my first reaction to that statement is to say that we ought not to divide. He has made it perfectly clear that in his judgment, and in the judgment of his chief, there is no reason why any particular municipality should have powers in excess of those laid down, mainly in Clause 10, in the Air Navigation Bill. That is the basis of the criticism of those who have been supporting the Instruction to-night. On the other hand, there may be exceptional cases where a local authority ought to have powers in excess of the general body of powers contained in a general public Act, and the Committees upstairs exist for the purpose of considering whether any particular municipality should receive powers in excess of the customary powers. They have the advantage of hearing evidence presented to them with the help of counsel, and to see maps and hear all about the circumstances of the district. I do not think that the Birmingham Corporation ought to be denied that right. We have raised this Debate on a point of principle. Let us assume that the Bill goes upstairs and four of our colleagues, who sit as a Select Committee to consider it, are ultimately driven to the conclusion that in this particular case, for special local, geographical and other reasons, these peculiar powers are justified. Birmingham will then get them, but that will not justify anybody else getting them. What we are concerned with is to make sure we do not create some precedent which will be undesirable for the future.
  It is clear from the discussions which have already taken place in the House on the Air Navigation Bill that there does not exist any desire in general for the
  1512
  extensive powers that Birmingham is claiming. May I comment on the speech of my hon. Friend the hon. Member for King's Norton (Mr. Cartland)? He brought in some sob-stuff when he talked about safety. Nobody denies that it is necessary that safety should be secured. The question at issue is, at whose expense At the expense of the proprietors of the aerodrome, or the expense of the surrounding owners and occupiers of land? We are both in favour of safety, but we are discussing the question of who is to pay. Then he said that the penalties were for a serious misdeed. What is the misdeed? It is objecting to a trespasser crossing your land. Every machine that flies from an aerodrome is technically a trespasser. There is an old law about a man who owns a piece of land owning everything from the centre of the earth up to the sky. Air navigation is a breach of that law, and every aeroplane is technically a trespasser. Now we are told that to object to the trespasser is to create a misdeed.
  There are alternative methods. There is the method in this Bill, the method of the Government's Air Navigation Bill, and the method of wayleaves. The Postmaster-General pays a wayleave when he takes wires over land, and it may well be the case that the Birmingham Corporation could come to satisfactory arrangements with the owners of the land, without going to the expense of purchase, whereby for a moderate annual payment they enter into agreement not to do anything to interfere with the safety of the aeroplanes. There is the third alternative method which has not been put forward. The Minister has completely demolished the argument for the method in this Bill, because under the Government's Bill they are entitled, subject to the sanction of the Minister, to re-sell land, subject to the necessary restrictive covenants. If my hon. Friend will consult Clause 10 of the Air Navigation Bill, he will see that the situation is satisfactorily dealt with. He says that the same principle is contained in the Town and Country Planning Act. It may be, but the Birmingham City Council are not the town-planning authority in this area. They are, in fact, trespassers as far as the bulk of the area of the aerodrome is concerned.
  Mr. KELLY: Can you trespass on your own land?
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Birmingham Corporation do not own any of the land. They are proposing by this Bill to buy land outside the city, and to interfere with the rights of existing owners and occupiers outside the boundaries of that land. It is not as if they were the town-planning authority; if they were, there might be something in it. We had the declaration of the hon. Gentleman for the Division in which the aerodrome will be situated, and he has rather demolished the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton, who said that nobody objected except, as the brief sent out by the corporation indicated, the London Midland and Scottish Railway. That railway, like all other railways, has a large office not very far from this building for the purpose of objecting to every Bill which affects anything nears its property. Every railway company does it. It is a matter of standard routine with them. The people who live on this land and occupy and own it know nothing about these things, for they have not all the apparatus of Parliamentary agents, and so on, to look after them.
  I gather from what has been said tonight, and by what has been said to me privately by the hon. Member for Tam-worth (Sir J. Mellor), that there are certain people in the district who object very strongly to this scheme. I am not concerned with the particular case. I am concerned with the fundamental principle involved, namely, that someone should come before Parliament asking powers to purchase a particular area, to declare that the surrounding area is sterilised, and to insert a preposterous compensation Clause. It is preposterous because, once you have sterilised an area, it will never be possible to prove any damage. If we do not press the Instruction to a Division, I hope that the Bill will be examined very carefully by the Select Committee in the light of all the arguments that have been advanced to-night, and in the light of the interesting statement of the Minister.
  8.32 p.m.
  Mr. AMERY: I am sure that those of us who are interested in this Bill have no complaint to make either of the fact that hon. Members have raised the interesting issue of principle, or of anything that
  1514
  they have said. There are, at any rate, many things about which we all agree. We want aviation to be developed as rapidly as possible in this country. We want as efficient and as safe aerodromes as we can get, and we should not discourage the great municipalities from taking up this subject. In every aerodrome there is not only the aerodrome itself, but a periphery immediately around it where you must have a certain easy angle of ascent and descent in order to secure safety. The only question at issue really is whether a great city like Birmingham, and other cities, should be compelled in all cases to purchase not only the land required for the aerodrome, but the periphery immediately around in order to secure that safety, if, in the circumstances of the case, it is not necessary to purchase it, and if, as I believe is the case in the present circumstances, the owners of the land in question have no desire to sell and are more content with the arrangement proposed than they would be if the land were bought from them and afterwards disposed of by the City. My hon. Friend has talked a good deal about sterilisation in this area. I think that it is worth while taking into account, just what degree of sterilisation is involved My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. G. Williams) has pointed out that the mere fact that aeroplanes fly over property is a, measure of sterilisation.
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Of trespass.
  Mr. AMERY: But we are not allowed to build up to the sky. In this particular instance for the greater part of the land—1,000 acres out of 1,400— the sterilisation applies only above 75 feet, that is to say, about the height of a six-storey house or a 100-year-old tree. In that particular area, as it is at present, namely, an agricultural area, I can conceive very little reason to suppose that anybody is contemplating now or in the near future building any edifice exceeding 75 feet. Even within the narrower area more immediately near the aerodrome, the margin of 35 feet is in excess of the ordinary small two-storey house, which is the more likely property to be developed in that area. At any rate, sterilisation is very limited.

  1515
  In so far as circumstances may eventually arise from the proximity of the aerodrome, which would lead to the erection by tenants of higher buildings, there is a perfectly clear and not illusory provision for compensation. As for precedents there are not only those quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Cartland), under the Town and Country Planning Act and other Acts, but all our other by-laws very definitely sterilise our rights to build on our own land "from the soil up to Heaven". You are not allowed to build to a height greater than the width of the street. You may not obstruct the passage of the sun's rays at an angle steeper than 45 degrees, whereas, in this proposal, the angle is only three degrees, which is a very much less drastic interference with the rights of individuals. All these are points for Committee, and I suggest that there is nothing in the principle which is in any way inconsistent with the powers which are normally granted to municipalities. Even for the only original thing in this case, namely their application to aerodromes, there is a precedent with the Kingston-upon-Hull municipality, which has almost precisely the same power.
  I would detain the House for one minute more upon the question of uniformity. The hon. Member for King's Norton pointed out that an effort has been made in this regulation to conform to a standard type of angle of approach, as laid down not only in this country but internationally. This procedure is laid clown at most of the aerodromes of the Continent. Certain land is purchased for the aerodrome, and there is a narrow periphery where certain limitations apply. There is nothing in that which in any way conflicts with the general legislation now being promoted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air. He has dealt with the illumination of obstructions in the general vicinity of aerodromes, which is something affecting the whole countryside. The present proposal is a narrower one, dealing with what I may call the inner periphery of the aerodrome, which might or might not be subject to purchase, but alternatively, we submit, can be the subject, at any rate in, this case, and possibly in any other case, of measures analogous to those which regularly are applied in
  1516
  respect of town-planning and ribbon development. It may remain to be seen whether those principles should apply universally, or whether the principles to be adopted under the Air Navigation Bill will be sufficient in many cases and for most purposes. We are well content with the discussion which we have had, and certainly, the points raised can be usefully ventilated in Commitee. We trust now that our hon. Friends will not press this matter of the Instruction.
  Sir REGINALD CLARRY: Am I in a position to withdraw the Instruction, in the absence of my hon. and learned Friend?
  Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: In the absence of my hon. and learned Friend, I ask leave to withdraw the Instruction, having regard to the arguments that have been advanced.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. Member has not moved the Instruction.
  Mr. LEVY: With the exception of just two or three minutes, I have listened to every word that has been said in the Debate.
  Mr. KELLY: On a point of Order. If the hon. Member is going to discuss it further, we shall have something to say.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I thought the hon. Member was rising to ask leave to withdraw the Motion, and not to make a speech upon it.
  Mr. LEVY: That is so. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  SUPPLY.
  Again considered in Committee.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question proposed on consideration of Question.
  "That a sum, not exceeding £1,370,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Unemployment Assistance Board and of the Appeal Tribunals constituted under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934; and sums payable by the Exchequer to the Unemployment Assistance Fund under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934, for direct administration:"—
  Question again proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,369,900, be granted for the said Service."
  8.41 p.m.
  Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: I am in the unfortunate position upon rising at the present moment that there is no Minister present to hear my words of wisdom. I have no doubt that the unexpectedly quick ending of the previous discussion has put Ministers in difficulty, and I in no way reproach them for not being present at the moment. I had desired to make certain answers to the very interesting speech of the Minister of Labour. I gather that in any event it will be the Parliamentary Secretary who will reply to the Debate, but as most of the observations of the right hon. Gentleman were addressed directly to those who had spoken from this bench, I ought to make some reply.
  The Parliamentary Secretary has now come in. I was about to say that the right hon. Gentleman made the point, which I think was directed equally against Liberal and Labour benches, that we were not in a position to criticise this particular form of administration, that is, a centralsed Board, because we desiderd centralisation. The only thing in the nature of a quotation from hon. Members which the right hon. Gentleman produced was that we had demanded that unemployment should be made a national charge. Speaking on my own behalf, and, I think hon. Members above the Gangway would agree also, we still demand that the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed should be a national charge. What is more, we have not got it under this system. To say that we desire maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed to be a national charge does not in any way imply that we desire a bureaucratic system of this kind, divorced from Parliamentary control and practically without any kind of real local contact. That is what we have at the present time. Therefore, the charge of the right hon. Gentleman against the Opposition benches generally, completely missed its mark. It was aimed at the wrong point.
  The right hon. Gentleman went on, with what I thought was extraordinary temerity, to say that the Board had reached a solution of the problem and that he was surprised that there was so little objection to it. What solution of
  1518
  the problem have the Board arrived at? They do not think they have in any sense reached a solution of the problem. We are working at the present moment under the standstill system, and if the Board think they have arrived at a solution, that must be the solution, because that is the only thing that has been arrived at; but the Board express in most unmistakable terms their disgust of the standstill system which, so far as one can make out, they regard as a loose, unregulated system, which is a good deal too favourable to the unemployed. They want to put in its place something a great deal more strict.
  I have been astonished in the course of this Debate that it has departed from Parliamentary precedent in that here is an outside body, set up practically in the position of civil servants, and the attack has been made not only upon their Report, but has been made upon them. That is a very unusual thing. It would not be done in the ordinary way, because hon. Members above the Gangway and I myself are concerned as much for civil servants and their position as anyone in the House, but we are considering to-day a board of a very unusual character. We protested against the setting up of this board; we said that there should be no such body; and, when it is set up against our protests, we are entitled to call attention to the bad way in which it has functioned. That is what we are endeavouring to do to-day.
  Further, we are not treating it as a board which comes before us with a clean sheet. It has a history. On the very first possible occasion it fell down entirely upon its job. It produced a result, if one can call it a result, which was repudiated first by the nation and next by the House of Commons. I was rather sorry that it should have been in that order, for I should always prefer that the House should lead the nation in finding defects; but with regard to these Regulations, while some of us did our best, it was really an uprising of public disapproval which caused their withdrawal. It is that body which is now, after an abnormal period of gestation, about to give birth to some child which we have not yet seen. We are bound to distrust profoundly beforehand the kind of result at which it is likely to arrive, and the doubts which we actually feel are reinforced on almost every page of the Report.

  1519
  We find that the Board is not merely on the defensive—which is natural, because they have been attacked and we are not going to say that an animal is malicious because it defends itself—but there is a certain amount of truculence about its attitude. There is no sort of apology for having been found in the wrong. They are in the position of people who have committed contempt of court and have not yet purged their contempt by producing a new set of regulations. By all that we read here, we find that they are rather proud of what they did before, and consider that it is we, the House of Commons, who made the mistake in not adopting their proposals. If I wanted any quotations to show the attitude taken up by the Board, I could begin earlier than anyone has done today. On page 9 they speak of the household test. I realise that I must not discuss the desirability of a means test now, because that would require legislation, but this is how the Board describe the system which they have to administer. An hon. Member above the Gangway talked of the unconscious humour of some of their remarks, and I think that this is an instance:
  "It recognises"—
  that is to say, the system of the means test—
  "that the members of the household who have resources, particularly wages, which form by far the largest part of the resources in the main of the household's inhabitants, are entitled to some part of their earnings for the purpose of living their own life."
  What generosity ! What a beneficent dispensation we are living under ! The Board says that some part of their own earnings may be actually appropriated by these people for themselves. I am very glad that I am born into an age in which such privileges are given. As was pointed out by the hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, on pages 14 and 15 there is a defence of the old regulations, showing no sign of repentance whatsoever; and on page 15 there is a bitter complaint of the standstill arrangement. But, if they complain of the standstill arrangement, it is only from one point of view, namely, that the standstill arrangement contains what they call anomalies, which give rise to cases where they think unemployed persons are getting too much—more than they would give them. Therefore, we
  1520
  have every reason to suppose that, when these Regulations appear, they are bound to be less generous than the administration we see at the present time. My hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) referred to the local advisory committees, and seemed to place some little hope upon their operation. I must say that I have considerably less hope, for the reason that they are brought in so very much too late. The Board say, on page 16 of the Report:
  "The Act has recognised the value of co-operation between voluntary effort and public service by placing upon the Board a statutory duty to appoint local advisory committees."
  I am glad that they recognise that they had a statutory duty to appoint these committees. On page 17 we find how they have fulfilled their obligation:
  "The necessary steps have been taken to set up the committees in each area at an early date."
  This is more than a year and a half from the time when they received that mandate, and they are only in a position to set up the committees now. I suggest that here, on page 17 of the Report, we have a clear acknowledgement of a breach by the Board of its statutory duty. Where no time is appointed for an act to be done, the law generally implies a reasonable time. Can anyone say that, with regard to one of the major duties of the Board, it is a reasonable time to wait for 18 months before being in a position to say that the necessary steps have been taken to set up the committees in each area at an early date? What does an early date mean? It is about as indefinite as the spring; it probably means the winter. We are told that these Regulations are to be produced to us before we separate for the summer holidays. That may or may not be true, but it has been stated in the Press, and one can hardly imagine that there will be a. longer delay than that. But what does that mean? It means that the new Regulations, if nothing of a startling nature happens, will actually be in force before these local advisory committees get to work, and the result will he that the Regulations will be administered with just the same lack of local advice or opinion of the people on the spot as the old ones were.
  Surely that will defeat to a very large extent the purpose of setting up

  1521
  advisory committees. It means that, by the time they get on to the job, the system will be in process of becoming rigid; it will become canalised according to practices which the Board have adopted during the previous two years, as it will be by then. What sort of influence can we expect these advisory committees to have then? It will only be on very minor matters. Moreover, let it be remembered that these advisory committees, defective in themselves because they have no sort of executive power, will only be able to advise on purely minor points, and any sort of idea that was created in the public mind when the Bill was introduced that these local advisory committees would be some kind of safeguard against bureaucracy must necessarily go by the board, because, before they can operate, the whole system will have become so much embedded in a tradition of its own that it will be practically impossible to alter it. I find on page 19 of the Report—still in the Introduction by the Chairman, Lord Rushcliffe—these words:
  "The Board is … a trustee for the public conscience … It is also a trustee for the taxpayer."
  Here are two points of view. The public conscience must mean the public conscience desiring that these unemployed persons shall get decent treatment—a point of view, I suggest to the Committee, which ought to be that of the Minister of Labour, and I have no doubt that personally it is. The other point of view is that of the trustee for the taxpayer—the point of view of the Treasury; and I want to know what of these two is to prevail. When I look at the. Report, I find that, wherever I am given any sort of guide, it is the Treasury point of view that is going to prevail, and, speaking on behalf of the unemployed people whom I happen to represent, I am bound to view the whole situation with the gravest apprehension. We then come to the Board's interpretation of means, and once again I am very careful not to transgress any Ruling that may have been given by attempting to decide whether there should be a test of needs, because I imagine that that is laid down by the Act itself, and could not be altered without legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead was challenged on the point by the senior Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh), and it was
  1522
  because he imagined that he could not deal with it that my hon. Friend did not deal directly with the question of the means test.
  What is the interpretation of need given by the Board? I would crave in defence of the Board that they have been given a very difficult problem, because they have been told, on the one hand, that the first thing they have to do is to interpret need, and nothing can override that. That was made quite clear in the Debates on the Bill. They were also told that they must not lay down a scale which would create a better situation for applicants than if they were still in employment. In some cases that is an impossible problem, because there are many people in employment whose wages do not give them what their families need. In a situation like that the Board has the double direction that it must not exceed a certain standard set by wages, which does not satisfy me, and that its paramount duty is to satisfy me. That is literally the horns of a dilemma.. It is an impossible problem for the Board to solve. I pointed this out at the time when this question was originally under discussion and it was possible to put it right, but that dilemma which I foresaw is obviously weighing upon the Committee now when they come to the administration of the Act. Their interpretation of need has been dealt with so excellently by an hon. Member who spoke of the inhuman terms in which the Board itself talks about primary needs, and reducing them to the very barest elements of human existence, that I do not need to say much more. I am reminded of Shakespeare's lines:
  "Allow not nature more than nature needs,
  Man's life is cheap as beast's."
  It may well be so in this case. If it is a mere roof over the head and clothing and food and there is nothing more, you are merely keeping the body together, and it is very improbable that you are going to keep the soul together. If nothing is allowed for the elementary recreations, which are more necessary to an out-of-work man, if you are not going to give him an occasional cigarette or perhaps a show of some sort, a cinema or a football match—if all that is left out of account, I do not know what kind of human creature you imagine is going to survive at the end of the process.

  1523
  I should like to draw attention also to a very interesting discussion as to how to calculate need when people leave the house. It says that, where there is only a temporary absence, the Board will treat it as a temporary absence, but, when separation is definitive,
  "the Board has no power under the Act to include with the needs of the applicant the needs of a person who is not in fact living with him."
  I do not quarrel with that, because I take the Board's word for it that that is in the Act, and therefore they are bound to follow it, but page 181 happens to deal with Middlesbrough. I did not select it for that reason, but for the interest of the matter therein set out. It deals with homes being broken up. The Minister did not reach that part, no doubt, because he was interrupted and had not time to deal with this instance where a district is finding that 100 earning sons and daughters have changed their residence during the year. They say:
  "A number of cases have occurred in which applicants with a nil or very low determination have left home for the purpose of securing a determination or an increase in the existing determination."
  "Very wicked of them," some people will say, but is it not exactly on the lines of what we have been hearing about Income Tax, that you have to deal with the law as it is and, if you can get the better of it, you are fully entitled to do so? I would claim the same liberty for the unemployed as is claimed for much richer persons. It goes on:
  "In cases where the officer has maintained a previously existing nil determination, appeals have usually resulted. The Appeal Tribunals have judged these cases upon their merits, and in certain circumstances have confirmed the action taken."
  By what right could they possibly con firm the action taken if a man had gone out of the household, and was in fact out of the household? How could they go into an elaborate discussion of his motives and say, "You are a naughty boy. You did this to get out of the Act and we will not pay you anything"? If, when they are considering need, that is to say something that might be to the advantage of the applicant, the decision is going to turn on the actual fact whether he has definitely left the house why, when they come to the question of resources,
  1524
  where their determination is going to operate against the applicant, do they arrogate to themselves the right to decide that it does not matter whether he is inside the household or not? The two lines of conduct are entirely inconsistent. This is a matter in which, if these people had been rich and able to employ cunning solicitors and learned counsel, with more ingenuity than mine I hope, they would probably have been able to get away with it altogether. That is the situation with which we are faced. I call attention to it as one-sided administration.
  There are some things in the Report which I can regard with pleasure It would be a sorry Report if one could not find some comfort somewhere. On page 41 there is a description of the discretion that is allowed for extra nourishment on medical grounds. I have found this kind of discretion extremely useful in my own constituency. When I have not been able to find any means of increasing what I thought to be an insufficient allowance I have sometimes found a loop-hole here, and the representatives of the Board have been, very ready to take into sympathetic consideration medical grounds for extra nourishment and, when they had the opportunity, they have done very well and: people in my district have substantially benefitted. I am grateful to them for that. I am also grateful, although it may not appear to be directly within their job, for all the efforts they have taken to call the attention of the local health authority to cases of overcrowding and to endeavour to move applicants from one house to-another, perhaps with a larger rent but where the allowance for rent will be greater. In these matters I regard the discretion as having been properly and genuinely exercised. I bear no malice too any of the proposals. I want proposals which will help my people and, where they do so, I am glad to recognise the fact.
  I should like to come to the arithmetical calculations at the end of the Report where the imposing total of £24,500,000 is given as the approximate value of the resources that have been taken into, account. I want to know for what precise purpose that imposing figure wasp arrived at. For what precise purpose also is the figure given of other income of other members of the household—

  1525
  £5,450,000? For what purpose are we informed that of that total 89 per cent. was derived from public funds? Is it not all part of a propaganda attempt to say, "Look at the enormous sums of money that are coming into these families that complain of the means test and, when you look at the resources that come to other members of the household, 89 per cent. of them are paid by the State." That seems to be the purpose of these statements. For any purpose whatsoever the figures are utterly misleading. This £24,500,000, the total of the resources, has not only to be divided among over 700,000 applicants, but among the people in the household of those applicants who have resources, so that when you have arrived at this tremendous division you will not have very much at the end of it.
  When you come to the £5,450,000, of which about 89 per cent. was derived from public funds, I would ask what sort of public funds? Unemployment benefit, something for which they have contracted and have paid contributions. It is as much a matter of contract, as if I had made a contract with any ordinary insurance company. Health insurance benefit, disability pensions, Service pensions, Army Reserve pay, all payments made in the way of reserve pay, are in recognition of services previously rendered. To try to represent that these are sums which are simply being poured out by a grateful, and perhaps, they might even say, an extravagant public to these recipients, is ludicrous. They are things which the people who receive them have earned, and the fact that they have actually flowed, as through a conduit pipe, through some public fund is neither here nor there.
  I received the very worst of impressions from finding these figures set out on these last pages. They have been seized hold in the Press, and they have therefore produced a misimpression, which ought to be removed at the earliest possible moment. I am also uneasy because of the disposition to take these particular borderline cases. A bad case can be made sometimes by telling hard line stories, and by taking a few exceptional cases where people are very badly trated, but it is none the less true, that a worse conclusion can be arrived at by taking good-luck stories and particular people who have been fortunate. You will never on this earth arrive at a system
  1526
  which will not produce some kind of anomaly somewhere. I regard with a considerable amount of sympathy the plea which the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) addressed to me, that by the time you had abolished the household means test, you would have so few people left that it would not be worth while administering the rest of the problem. I am not authorised on behalf of my party to say that we agree to that, and I recognise that there is something to be said for maintaining, even at some cost, the principle that no individual applicant shall profiteer at the expense of the Fund, but I am bound to admit that there is a great deal in what he said.
  I am certain that you cannot find a sound system of administration merely by producing a few cases in which £12 10s. is going to the family and where there is one boy getting 15s. from the Fund. Remove that boy out of the household and put him in the house next door, and you cannot get at him, and he can get his determination. In nine cases out of ten he would get his determination. Yet he is in no different position actually from that in which he was when living under the other roof. I am not sure that if the £12 10s. family had a bit of garden and the boy put up a tent in the garden, with a primus stove, and a latrine similar to what is usually put up by Boy Scouts, he could not say that it was a separate household and could get away with it. I have known thinner cases than that. I regard the greater part of these instances which have been given as really unhelpful. I am prepared to say that there will be a certain number of them, but I would much rather too much public money be spent and these people get perhaps what they ought not to get, rather than impose a rule which will cause hardship and destitution to hundreds of thousands of people. That seems to be the alternative we have before us. Although it may seem a strong measure to condemn this Board, which we have set up in the only way in which we could do it, before it has produced its second lot of Regulations, on its previous history, and what it has shown in this Report to-night, I have no other, alternative.
  9.11 p.m.
  Mr. S. O. DAVIES: The speech that we heard from the Minister at least brought

  1527
  home to some of us a suspicion that he was far from being happy when he dealt with the Report, which I and other hon. Members assume he must have read. Whenever the Minister has a very poor case to place before this House he engages in the maximum of flippancy and a great deal of incoherency. But I really feel sorry for him, because as far as the Unemployment Assistance Board and its past organisation are concerned, the post of the Minister has been reduced to a mere cipher in the scheme of things. It is grossly unfair that he should be called upon, by the order of things presumably in this House, to hold a brief for a creature that is not his own and over which he has no control, when all that he is asked to do is to get up here and apologise ignominiously for this Report and the work of the Unemployment Assistance Board. It is no use the right hon. Gentleman telling the Committee that very few cases of complaint against the administration of this vast mechanism have reached him. Why should they come to the right hon. Gentleman? He has no power and no influence, and there is nothing that he can do while this ghastly and costly machine is at work—and I say this deliberately—creating the moral and social devastation that it has created in the last 18 months.
  I live in an area where the consequences of this administration possibly have been felt at their worst, notwithstanding the very best spirit, in the circumstances, shown by those who are called upon locally to administer it. So we are not impressed by the contention of the Minister that he has received very few complaints, because, as I have said, he hardly exists as far as this scheme is concerned. I have had to make—and I say this without any exaggeration, and I say it deliberately—hundreds of complaints and representations in trying to obtain some measure of justice and to mitigate the inherent evil consequences of this organisation. I have not communicated them to the Minister. Should a miracle happen and were I to find myself in the position of the Minister, I would tell these well paid gentlemen, who feel that they are above ordinary people, that they should come along and make their own personal apologies, and not to call upon me to do it as Minister.
  1528
  So many excellent contributions have been made in analysing the Report and, as a result, condemning it, that I shall devote a few minutes to dealing largely with this organisation and the field within which it is called upon to operate. The Report is deliberately written up to give the best colour in the world to the activities of the Unemployment Assistance Board and its organisation, which has not justified its existence. Here is a Board undeservedly highly paid. Neither the chairman nor the vice-chairman nor any member of the Board has justified his extraordinarily high salary. More than 7,000 persons constitute the staff of the Board in the country. There are 130 odd tribunals, the chairmen of which are extraordinarily well paid. In addition, there are over 300 area and district officers. I have had an opportunity of seeing how generous the Board has been with public money in putting up offices that are palatial, some of them cheek by jowl with the most rotten houses that no civilised Minister of Health would permit to exist so long.
  This huge organisation has been brought into being. Within what ambit is it called upon to function? The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. B. Griffith) did not deal with the table on page 308, which the Board has been so foolishly indiscreet as to place within the Report. The Minister exulted in the fact that the reception of the Report by the Press had apparently been in favour of the Report. We know whose views the Press generally utter. May I draw the attention of the Minister and the Committee to the facts on page 308? Here, we are told, is
  "an analysis of resources other than unemployment assistance, the estimated annual value of the resources of applicants in receipt of allowances and members of their households, based on a statistical inquiry in April, 1935."
  Let us see how meticulous the means test has been. What does the means test take into consideration? What are the resources of the household that it is pursuing with so much avidity in some of the most impoverished parts of the country? Unemployment insurance benefit, national health insurance benefit, old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, blind persons' pensions, compensation, disability, and dependants' pensions, outdoor relief and—most significant of all, an item which condemns the existence of

  1529
  the means test and removes every justification for keeping the Unemployment Assistance Board, with its vast ramifications, any longer in being—"savings; capital and property." Here we have the value of the capital and property of some three-quarters of a million of applicants under the Board. What is the value of the property and the savings of those three-quarters of a million people, whom these gentlemen with their £5,000 a year salary are pursuing in such a deadly way? It amounts to £175,000. That is the value of the capital and property of the three-quarters of a million of working men and working women. The means test pursues that value, draws its toll from it and uses it in the application of scales and allowances. The total value of the property and savings of these people, whose poverty has squeezed them almost dry, does not work out at more than an average of ld. per person per week. Yet they are the people the Board is pursuing, importuning, embarrassing, and then the Minister is called upon to apologise for the Board.
  At the bottom of page 308 there is reference to earnings of husbands and wives, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters; members of the household. The household is very widely defined. Here is a vast total of £17,300,000. Is it wise to spend over £1,500,000 in paying salaries in order to see how much can be squeezed out of £17,300,000? What does it mean? Let us not forget that there are three-quarters of a million applicants who, with their dependants, total from 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 persons. When we visualise the millions of people who are called upon to exist on the £17,300,000, what does it mean? It works out at an average of 2s. 3d. per person per week. Is it worth it?
  Are we justified in bringing this vast and brutal system of espionage into use? It is no use the Minister telling us who unfortunately come from these depressed areas that he has seen this and that. May I say very kindly that I see more in one morning on my doorstep than the Minister sees in a twelvemonth? That is no boast. I hate the thought of it. I hate the circumstances of these people, who are as good as I am, who have given to this country certainly as much as I have, some of them first-class coal hewers, iron and steel workers, some of
  1530
  them young men who have never had a day's work, but who have the will to work and a hunger for work. I know that there are many on these benches who will say the same as I am compelled to say.
  I appeal to the Minister to see whether by taking this Committee into his confidence some radical changes cannot be effected. There is no justification for this vast mechanism. Here you have a statement of the resources into which they are called on to dig. These are the resources that apparently justify the Minister in presenting a Report of this kind. The total is £24,500,000, after garnering all the small details, the wee pensions and payments that go into the distressed homes of our country. The Minister seemed to believe or wished to impress the Committee that we are here in a purely party sense, for he said of what I regarded as the excellent contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Daggar), that we just look for the most appropriate and effective adjectives. Surely the Minister cannot believe that. I have admitted that there is little which he can know about the working of this machine which we are condemning, but is knowledge cannot be so meagre that he is forced to believe the statements which he made against the hon. Member for Abertillery to-night. May I tell the Minister—and I am not depending on any rumours—what my experience of the means test has brought home to me, as to whether it breaks up homes or not? There is not a shadow of doubt that it does.
  I have hon. Friend on these benches who know that only this morning in coming from my home to London I had to occupy myself to see that three children under 16 should get from their homes in Merthyr Tydfil safe to Paddington Station in London—two young girls and a young boy. They were two bright and intelligent girls, who come from a district with a splendid position in secondary education, girls who were obviously mentally adapted to education. What is breaking up their homes? What is driving these children out? I have a girl of about the age of these two girls; she will not leave my home at that age unless a means test somehow gets hold of me in its claws and compels me to disintegrate my home and compels my child to be separated some

  1531
  hundreds of miles from her mother and other immediate associates. What is depriving these children of their education and of opportunities to develop their minds so that they can grow up into courageous, independent young women? It is the wicked means test, driving into the homes of these children and compelling them to come to this city to work for a few shillings a week. Every morning when I travel in this direction from the local station I am the custodian of three, four and sometimes half-a-dozen children, and I tell the Minister, deliberately and solemnly, that if a tithe of the pretensions of the Unemployment Assistance Board, as written up in this Report, had any substance, young children of 15 and 16 would not be driven by the application of the means test to this city.
  It is a, social crime. We are capable on these benches of having the same kindly regard for the young children of the unfortunate, as we have for our own, and there is no justification for bringing into being this costly machine, which is absolutely soulless, which is squandering £1,500,000 in paying salaries and which is even housing its staff in palatial buildings. For what purpose? What are the resources they can work on? Into how much wealth can they examine? What is the average these people have? It is a miserable average of two or three shillings a week per person. I need not warn the Minister. At least he has sufficient political acumen to realise that there is danger in any attempt which the Board might make to transpose this miserable attempt at justifying its work of the last 18 months into new scales and Regulations of the same spirit. I say that solemnly and seriously. That was one of the reasons why a few minutes ago I urged the Minister not to be made a pawn, the slave, and perhaps ultimately the next victim, of a fiendish thing of this kind.
  9.35 p.m.
  Mr. BEVAN: I have been somewhat agitated as to whether I should address the Committee this evening, because it seems to me that hon. Members on this side of the House would be far better occupied in speaking outside the House than inside. I took part in the protracted Debates in 1934 on the Unemployment Insurance Act, under which the
  1532
  Board was established, and at that time I warned hon. Members as to what would follow the establishment of the Board. It was my contention then that the establishment of the Board would have the effect of disfranchising all those citizens who are chargeable to the Board. Look at the spectacle of the Committee this evening. The Front Bench has been almost empty while we have been considering the welfare of practically 3,000,000 people. On the second appointed day, according to the figures of the Board itself, an additional 200,000 applicants will be added to those chargeable to the Board, which will bring the total to over 3,000,000, and that figure can at any time rise to 5,000,000 if unemployment should rise sharply in the future. As a matter of fact, if the unemployment figures had remained as they were when the Board was established the number of persons chargeable to the Board would be well over 4,000,000. In my own constituency 50 per cent. are unemployed, and in other constituencies the vast majority of the population are out of work.
  What does that mean? It means that we are now discussing the only single service by means of which that population lives. Everything of any moment that happens to them is now under discussion. Their income, the welfare of their families, the destinies of their children and their own hopes and dreams and ideals, are all under discussion for a few hours this evening, and during the whole of the time the benches opposite have been practically empty. This is the first time we have had a chance of discussing the administration of the Board, and such respect have the chairman and the Board for this House that they do not come down to listen to the Debate. It is the first time I have known anything like it in the history of this country. We are paying this man £5,000, and £12,500 to the members of the Board. We are discussing their Report, and they are not here listening to the Debate. All that we have got is a puppet, an incompetent hack, who comes down to this House to make a disgraceful speech for an administration over which he himself has no control. We are here discussing the Board; and we are not masters of it. I could have understood the Minister of Labour saying, "I will represent to the

  1533
  Board what has been said, but I can do nothing about it because I am not their boss." But he went beyond that. He made himself a special pleader for the Board. He identified himself and the Government with what the Board have done, with the Board's administration and with everything said in the Report. So much the worse for the right hon. Gentleman and the Government.
  I admit that I was plunged into gloom. It seems to me that if the House of Commons has reduced the persons I represent to such impotence, what is left for them to do? I am not going to use exaggerated language, but I ask hon. Members opposite to tell me what they think these people can do. You have deprived them of any voice anywhere. You have established 7,000 officials without the slightest responsibility to the people, and we cannot control them here. What do hon. Members opposite suggest they should do? Vote every four or five years? I am not going to use exaggerated language, but I hope that if the Regulations which are brought in worsen the condition of people in my district they will behave in such a manner that you will require to send a regular army to keep order. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"] I say that without the slightest hesitation. Hon. Members sit on those benches in cynical indifference to what has happened.
  Mr. SPENS rose—
  Mr. BEVAN: I am not going to give way. There is not a single Member opposite who has the guts to defend this Report, and they expect us to sit silent whilst thousands of our people are under the control of this Board for the next year. I say quite frankly—I am weighing my words carefully—that there is only one way in which hon. Members opposite can be brought to reason, and that is by trouble outside, because argument inside the House has failed to move them. If Income Tax is under consideration those benches are packed. If electricity is under consideration those benches are packed. If there is some opposition to a little municipal Bill for which hon. Members have been subsidised by private concerns, those benches are packed. If it is a sugar subsidy they are packed. If it is a swab the benches are packed, but if it is the poor, they are empty. There is only one way in which the poor can
  1534
  make their voice heard here and that is by making trouble outside. I have been filled with utter contempt and disgust at the British House of Commons, which has failed to become the forum for the distress and the grievances of nearly 3,500,000 British subjects.
  What are we going to do? Argument has failed. This Report envisages that the people of South Wales and Durham, 400,000 people, are going to have their standards of living reduced when the new Regulations are made. Is that not so? If the Minister means what he said he justifies the Report, and the Report justifies the old Regulations. It has been written by the chairman as an attack on the House of Commons for having turned down his Regulations. This Board was supposed to take the problem of unemployment out of politics. All you have here in this Report is a political manifesto. We are paying £5,000 a year to the chairman to write a political manifesto for Conservative Members of Parliament. Read from beginning to end of the Report. There is a selection of facts, a misrepresentation of cases, a deliberate travesty of circumstances, all in order to provide material for speeches for hon. Members opposite in their constituencies.
  I have read carefully the reports of the officers in the various districts. Those reports are a disgraceful exhibition of cynicism and arrogance. An example of that is to be found in their remarks about the operation of the means test and the breaking up of families. I would like, in passing, to ask the Minister of Labour to ask the Board—because he is only an errand boy for the Board—why it is that the officer responsible for the Monmouthshire area does not answer the question as to what is the effect of the means test upon the family. There is not a word about the effect upon the family of the operation of the means test in Monmouthshire. Why is that?
  Mr. EDE: It is because too many homes have been broken up there.
  Mr. BEVAN: Either it is that, or it is because it would compare unfavourably, for the Board, with the rest of the country. As I have said, I do not intend to address myself, as I had originally intended, to an analysis of the Report, because after having listened to the Debate this evening, I have come to the

  1535
  conclusion that it is a sheer waste of time to talk to empty benches and to hon. Members who are indifferent. I was convinced when this Board was established that a wrong kind of machinery was being set up. The argument was that the establishment of the Board was necessary because of the great variation in the treatment of the unemployed in different parts of the country and because the local authorities making the transitional payments were irresponsible owing to the fact that they were paying out money which they had not to find. It was said that some machinery was necessary to meet such cases. In other words, the argument was that as the Exchequer had to find the money, it should make itself responsible for the administration of those funds.
  What does the Report disclose? On the admission of the Board, more than 20 per cent. of the cases have had to be considered on the discretion of the officers of the Board. This means that for the irresponsibility of elected representatives there has been substituted the irresponsibility of non-elected officials. That is what has been done. There are 7,000 officials. Does any hon. Member with experience of public administration suggest that any system of inspection can control the administration of 7,000 officials in a vast variety of circumstances? There is a number of officials all over the country responsible to nobody. To the extent that they are responsible they apply the Regulations; to the extent that they apply the Regulations they are rigid in their administration; to the extent that they are rigid, they are unjust; and to the extent that they are flexible, they are irresponsible. Therefore, in point of fact, there are 7,000 irresponsible officials all over the country, but unfortunately their irresponsibility works only in one direction.
  I challenge the Minister of Labour or the Parliamentary Secretary to mention to me a single officer of the Board who has been censured or dismissed for giving too little assistance. I can give examples of officers having been censured for giving too much. What happens is that every official is irresponsible in one direction, because the people among whom he is living have no control over him. Nobody can question him and there
  1536
  is no public opinion to which he is answerable. From the point of view of the people, he is irresponsible; but from the point of view of the auditor and of the inspector he is responsible for not giving too much. He becomes a safety-first official. The irresponsibility of the Board operates one way only, to the disadvantage of the man who applies for allowances. I challenge hon. Members in any part of the House to deny that statement.
  If hon. Members had any experience of Poor Law administration, they would realise that these reports disclose a shameful and distrusting mentality. One officer in a division actually boasts, in discussing the means test, that he was able to disclose to the parents that their sons and daughters were earning much more money than they had told their parents. There exists a system of domestic espionage subsidised by the State. What a splendid way of keeping a family together. What happy homes this will make. The assistance officer goes along to the mother and father and says, "It is not true that your son is earning £2 a week; he is getting £2 10s. a week and has not told you of the 10s." This mighty nation is paying £1,500,000 a year to employ officers to sneak on sons and daughters. That is what is happening.
  I suggested in 1934 that the establishment of the Unemployment Assistance Board was bound to work to the detriment of the people it was charged to support. Without the means test—and I know I cannot argue against the means test—it would be unnecessary. The Board exists to operate the means test. It has been asked to advise the Minister on what the new Regulations should be. If the Board advised the Minister that the means test should be so modified—to use the statement of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith)— that it would include only the individual applicant for allowances, the recommendation of the Board would mean that the amount of money that would be saved by the Board would be less than its administrative expenses.
  I know there are hon. Members who really believe in a means test, but who have grave doubts about the family means test. Many of them suggest that there ought to be a means test because

  1537
  a man ought not to receive public funds if he is able to keep himself, but they nevertheless think that the application of a family means test has grave disadvantages. Obviously hon. Members in that position ought to be able to obtain the advice of a disinterested body of investigators informing themselves whether it is possible to carry out that principle. What have they done? They have established a Board; they have established 7,000 officials with a vested interest in the maintenance of a means test. So far as I know, it is the first time in the history of British politics that persons have been appointed whose interest it is to make things more difficult for the people.
  That is the position now under the Board, and I want the Minister and hon. Members opposite to consider that position. These people were appointed in substitution for the old guardians of the poor. If a guardian gave less or more to any applicant for public assistance he was not concerned at all about it; he was not affected particularly by it. But this body of people, appointed in substitution for the old boards of guardians, would commit suicide as an administrative body if they gave more, because the more they give the less justification there is for their official existence. In other words, you have created not guardians of the poor but enemies of the poor. You have created a vested interest in the perpetuation of the poverty of the poor. If those people recommended a modification of the means test so substantial that a large expenditure of money would be involved, the Board would have no further justification for its existence and would disappear. But we consider these gentlemen to be so philanthropic, so altruistic, so idealistic, that they would make a recommendation which might result in their own dissolution on the following day. It is a fantastic situation, and the House of Commons and the country ought to consider the position before it is too late.
  As I said at the outset, I do not propose to analyse this Report. That has already been done microscopically by hon. Members on this side, and I am sure I could not better what they have done in that respect. I do not want to conclude by warning hon. Members, because I know from experience the impossibility
  1538
  of making a warning appear real in so unreal an atmosphere as that which has been created by this Debate. But I would suggest to hon. Members that they ought not to remain satisfied with the speech of the Minister this evening. In my judgment it was one of the most ominous speeches to which I have listened since becoming a Member of the House of Commons. It means that the Minister has identified himself with this Board. We are told that a tug-of-war has been in progress between-the Minister and the Board, and I do the Minister the justice of believing that he is not as bad as the recommendations of the Board would represent. But his speech this evening caused me grave misgivings. It seems to show that he has surrendered. If the new Regulations are in accordance with the mood and the temper which underlie this Report, I am sure we shall see grave disturbances in this country. I do not believe that the South Wales area will rest content with any Regulations which worsen existing conditions there, and I believe the same to be true of the rest of the country. I sit down in the full consciousness that, if events of a disturbing and alarming kind occur in the country the responsibility will rest upon those Members of Parliament who are abrogating their representative functions to-night.
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. GUY: I was rather surprised at the suggestion of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) that it would be more useful to stir up trouble outside than to address a speech to the Committee upon the merits of this Report. He suggested that the remedy required was not a Parliamentary remedy and thereby went right against the argument which, as he reminded the Committee, he used in 1934 when he objected to the setting up of the Board on the ground that it would take the relief of the able-bodied poor outside the sphere of politics and outside the control of Parliament. We all know that that forecast has been falsified because within a few months of the passing of the original Regulations, we had the whole question of the Unemployment Assistance Board brought within the political arena, and it is still within the political arena, and we are shortly to have new Regulations. Therefore, I think the suggestion

  1539
  that the setting up of the Board would take away Parliamentary control has been falsified by events.
  Mr. BEVAN: Does the hon. Member suggest that the kind of Debate we have had this evening is an adequate review of the administration for a year of the Unemployment Assistance Board which is responsible for 750,000 people?
  Mr. GUY: I would point out in reply to that question that hon. Members opposite, instead of applying their minds to the merits of the Report, have endeavoured to create an atmosphere of prejudice against the Board. I wish to deal with some points in the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale as showing the nature of the arguments used by him. He admitted that he was not going to deal with the merits of the Report, and although he referred to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister, he made no attempt whatever to reply to the questions which the Minister put to hon. Members opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "It would have been out of order."] It is no reply to say that the questions would have been ruled out of order. That is a matter for the occupant of the Chair, and not for hon. Members opposite. If any attack is to be made on the speech of the Minister, it should be made on the merits of that speech. Another point which the hon. Member used was that the officials of the Board had an interest in making the administration of the Board as difficult as possible. That is a fantastic suggestion. If the officials deliberately set themselves to hamper and obstruct administration and to make it more and more unpopular, their term of office would be limited to a few months. It would be just as reasonable to say that the officials of the Board who hold temporary appointments have a vested interest in maintaining the volume of unemployment, because, as the volume of unemployment falls, their chances of retaining their posts become more precarious, and therefore they deliberately go out of their way to foster unemployment. I think that is a test of the value of the arguments submitted by the hon. Member.
  I wish to devote myself to what, I think, is the main question that we ought to be considering, and that is whether, in the last 12 months, judging the value
  1540
  of the work of the Board by this Report, the Board are justified in their existence, and whether the time that they have spent and the work that they have done have laid a useful foundation for subsequent alterations to be made in the administration. I will admit, as has been admitted by several other Members who have addressed the Committee, that one must to a certain extent discount this Report. One must make allowances for the fact that this is their first full Report and that it is inevitably rather highly coloured.
  Mr. BEVAN: From what other source can we get information except from the Board's Report?
  Mr. GUY: I make the frank admission that there is a certain amount of colouring in this Report. There is quite definitely an attempt to justify the work that the Board have been doing during the last 12 months, but discounting all that, there remains a very solid record of achievement by the Board during those 12 months, and I think that the Board in their Report have made a very valuable contribution to the consideration of this great human problem, the treatment of the able-bodied poor, and that without that Report our task in discussing the new Regulations when they arrive would have been infinitely more difficult.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Why?
  Mr. GUY: Because we would not have had the record of progress made by the Board.
  Mr. BUCHANAN: The hon. Member says they coloured the Report. Will he tell me one fact in that Report that he, as an intelligent Member of Parliament, could not have produced himself?
  Mr. GUY: I would refer to one administrative reform effected by the Board in their interpretation of the word "family," not contained in the 1934 Act or in the Regulations. They have, in dealing with the case of the girl who stayed with the married sister, interpreted the word "family" in that case by saying that she was not a member of the family. I regard that as a small but not unimportant administrative reform in the right direction. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) made a violent attack on the Board earlier to-night and referred to a certain

  1541
  rumour in connection with the senior Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh). While the hon. Member was speaking, I remembered another rumour that was circulated some few years ago that he him-self had received an invitation to join the Board. I do not know the truth or otherwise of that report, but if it be true, I think it comes rather badly from the hon. Member if in fact he did refuse to join this Board—and if he did, I am not blaming him for that at all—to jeer and gibe at those people who have undertaken the task that he himself refused.
  I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, if he will say a word about the setting up of the advisory committees. That has been one of the great problems in the administration of the Board, to set up some kind of machinery that would keep the Board in contact with local opinion in terms of the Government election manifesto, and I know, as we all know, that because of the standstill arrangement there has been delay in the setting up of these advisory committees. I hope that the appointment of these committees will not be long deferred, and I would like to know if the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us what the present position is.
  There is one other point, in connection with the welfare responsibilities of the Board. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), who opened the discussion to-day in a very moderate and well-reasoned speech, if I may say so, suggested that the Board should have certain responsibilities which I think were clearly beyond the scope of their activities. The Minister has already dealt with that point. The hon. Member suggested that the Board should undertake responsibility for industrial development. I think that is clearly beyond the scope of the Board, but the Board have a definite legal responsibility, not merely for paying out sums of money to applicants. We cannot go into that question to-night, but I think I am entitled to deal with the other duty that the Board has of dealing with the welfare of applicants, and I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary could amplify in some way what exactly is the scope of the welfare duty of the Board, because I have been rather puzzled, in reading the Report, to find out where this duty begins and where it ends. As to the value of this work, either
  1542
  done entirely by the Board or in conjunction with the Ministry of Labour, the local authorities and private efforts, I have no doubt whatsoever, and I should like to see a larger sum spent upon this branch of the Board's activities.
  Before I sit down I will make a definite reply to the challenge of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, who said that no Member on this side of the Committee had said a good word for this Report. I think this Report is a very valuable Report. It shows steady progress by the Board. We have been under a standstill agreement, but the Board has not been standing still; it has been making progress towards a satisfactory settlement of this great social problem.
  10.15 p.m.
  Mr. MALCOLM MacMILLAN: I crave the indulgence of the Committee on this the first occasion on which I have addressed hon. Members. I do not intend to enter into the technicalities of this subject. I have been able to study the results of the operations of the Unemployment Assistance Board in that part of the country which I represent, namely, the Western Isles of Scotland. These conditions are not confined to the Western Isles, but that area is the most familiar to me. The more we study the Report of the Board the more we come to the conclusion that the Regulations were framed for industrial areas, for districts where there is a reasonable hope at least of regular employment and the regular payment of contributions. We must deplore the fact that the Regulations so framed are there applied to conditions that do not exist. In a rural area like the Western Isles there is no such thing as regular employment all the year round, that is to say, employment which is insurable. In that district the failure of fishing means the failure of fishermen and women to get work. That means failure to pay contributions, and when they are not paying contributions in certain seasonable work they cannot get benefit, and they are put in a difficult position.
  I shall speak of the case of the fishing capital of the western coast of Scotland, namely, Stornoway. There is a limited demand for workers there and those who are lucky enough—I say "lucky" advisedly—to get work in Stornoway during the fishing season may or may not get a

  1543
  sufficient number of contributions paid and a sufficient number of stamps to qualify them for benefit. Those who are not sufficiently lucky will not qualify for benefit at all. Those who are not lucky enough to secure employment in a limited market for a limited time very often, in order to qualify for benefit, go to other parts of the country, to other fishing ports, and work there, just as long as those who were fortunate enough to get work in Stornoway. They often work longer and pay more contributions and receive more stamps, and yet they are disqualified unless they have been lucky enough to obtain employment in Stornoway. The principle is very unfair and unjust that people who work far more than other people should be denied benefit simply because they were not fortunate enough in a limited market and limited time to get work. They have been penalised simply because they have not been able to find work, as happens in so many other cases.
  Another point that may be raised tonight is that even the possibility of getting the 30 stamps as the first statutory condition is rather uncertain because their work involves matters all the time outside their control. These people have not the certainty of good fishing for a reasonable period in the year which would enable them to qualify. If the fish fail, then the workers cannot get unemployment benefit. These fishermen and women are prepared to work all the time. They lay themselves open to be called to work at any time, but because there is not enough work they are denied the right to benefit. At the fishing they are denied it because of a mere freak of nature. A number of these people find great difficulty in procuring the number of stamps required under the first statutory condition. They are dependent on very uncertain seasons, and even over two seasons often can only get 30 or 31 or 32 stamps. If a man goes before the officer with 31 stamps, he is at once under suspicion of fraud. There have been cases where people have been challenged on the question whether or not their employment was bona fide because they had 31 stamps or 32 stamps. It was surely not their fault that they had only 31 stamps.
  Again, in connection with the exact number of stamps required to satisfy
  1544
  that condition the question arises whether those people have patched together odd jobs in order to make up a sufficient number of stamps. I should not blame them very much if they had been doing so. The people there have had to choose between wages of from 2d. to 6d. an hour and unemployment benefit. I should not blame them very much if they decided to do nothing and draw more rather than to work and draw less. These people working under the county councils, and at times under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport, have been offered wages of from 6d. to 2d. per hour, and any man who can secure more money by doing nothing is a fool unless he accepts it in these circumstances. Instead of suggesting that there is immorality in that I would suggest that the immorality is on the part of those who present such a choice to these people.
  We are told that the people resort to trickery in order to qualify for unemployment benefit. I should say they would have to resort at times to trickery to obtain work in the Western Isles. There is a very limited demand for labour there, and regulations which can be applied in industrial areas where there may be the possibility at least of regular work over regular periods will not apply there at all. That is the whole position. You cannot draw deductions from what happens over the country as a whole, or in places like Glasgow and London, and say that is what ought to happen in the Western Isles. The people there have a cynical proverb which they quote among themselves. I do not suppose I am allowed to say it in Gaelic. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] It is: "Trog so orm agus bheir mi dhuit 'stamp'!" That simply means: "Help me with this job and I will give you a stamp!" That is merely a cynicism, however that is not a practice. It is a proverb which the people quote jocularly against themselves, because they can make a joke against themselves even in their present conditions. I know that I am not permitted to propose legislation in Committee of Supply, but I suggest that the Minister should consider adapting the present administration to permit allowances to be made for the very different and difficult conditions of the people in those parts.

  1545
  I know those people as nobody else in the House knows them. If they can get work at decent wages they will take the work. They are always open to take work. They do not even specialise in one type of work. They aye fishermen or crofters, and they will do anything—make roads or do anything else—as long as they can get decent wages for the work; but they have only this choice between public assistance and wages which are even lower than public assistance in runny instances. These are facts. It is not a sentimental appeal that I am making. I have already put my point of view in this House, and on several occasions I have written to the Minister of Transport, the Secretary for everything in Scotland and the Minister of Labour himself, but it is of no use. All they can tell me is that certain Regulations have been framed and that the Minister can do nothing. I hope, however, that he will do whatever he possibly can to disentangle himself, and at least to disentangle the tangle the islands are in, in relation to this question of unemployment assistance.
  10.24 p.m.
  Mr. D. GRENFELL: The very pleasant duty falls to me of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) on a very agreeable and nicely-phrased maiden speech. I have now to call attention to the extraordinary behaviour of Members opposite during this Debate. In the earlier part of it we had a few speeches from Members on that side of the Committee, but the talkers have departed, leaving only the dumb, driven supporters of the Government to await the call to the Division Lobby. We have presented them with an opportunity of voting for it, if they care to do so. We warn them that we shall come back to the subject in a few days, at the very earliest opportunity, in order to give this side of the Committee a chance of saying what they have to say in further condemnation, and the silent Members on that side of the Committee a further chance of voting with us.
  The Debate to-day has assumed the form of a general survey of conditions in our constituencies, and has disclosed a remarkable unanimity of disapprobation of the area officers and of the terms of this Report. The information given by hon. Members has thrown much more light
  1546
  upon the subject than have the artificial and carefully chosen examples submitted by area officers. There are occasions when we are disappointed with ourselves in this House, and to-night is one of them, as I view it. We are always best when hearing questions which reflect our direct responsibility to the people who have sent us here, but to-night is an exception. To-night is a tragic exception, because of the failure of hon. Members to respond to those responsibilities. I would very much like to congratulate this Committee on its manifest sympathy with the unfortunate fellow citizens who are receiving the attentions of the Board, and who are the subject of this Report. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), who opened the Debate, threw out a challenge to the Minister to justify the operations of the Board during the last year and a-half. He dealt with the effects of this vast and complicated machinery upon the physical welfare of those who have received the ministrations of the Board. This question has loomed large in the Debate from this side of the Committee.
  I would warn the Minister of the shock awaiting him should he rely placidly upon this Report, and upon the further proceedings outlined in it. The hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. G. White) strongly criticised the Board, and challenged the propriety of entrusting to such a body, independent of Parliamentary control, the intensely humane responsibilities which are now so inadequately discharged by it. He denounced, in words of exceptional eloquence, the imposition upon the slender resources of a household the burden of maintaining the victims of the great social scourge of unemployment. The sentences he quoted showed the painful effects upon family life, and carry 100 times more conviction than the smart and cheap comments upon this subject by the area officers. The hon. Lady the Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh)—I am sorry she is not in her place—who is such a loyal heart to the Government, always ready to bear the burden of party duties and to be hitched on to any creaking old vehicle bearing the Government mark, tried to get over the family means test. She jibbed at carrying what she described as a tribe masquerading as a happy and contented family, and she finally kicked the traces at the sight of the underground dens to

  1547
  which the poverty which the Board perpetuates has condemned so many of her constituents.
  The hon. and learned Member for East Newcastle (Sir R. Aske), in a speech which showed his great interest in and knowledge of the subject, summed up the position of the unemployed relatively to the position which they occupied before the Regulations were introduced a year ago; and he rightly said that more than half the applicants had been assessed at a lower figure in consequence of the Regulations. We have not been given, and I would like the Minister who is to reply to give us these figures. The Board is strangely reticent upon some of the aspects of this matter. We have not been given the aggregate figures for the assessments under the Regulations and for the assessment of transitional payments under the public assistance committees. As the second category represents the actual payments made under the standstill agreement, the excess of the second over the first represents the extent by which the unemployed would have suffered if the Regulations had remained in force. We have not had that information.
  There are one or two other pertinent matters of information to which I desire to call attention. Every speaker in the Debate has said in effect that the Unemployment Assistance Board is not doing what we believe should be done for the unemployed. There is one exception. Just one solitary individual in the whole of to-day's Debate has expressed any measure of satisfaction with these Reports. The Minister of Labour tries to keep smiling. We know that he is uncomfortable, but he has no wish to disapprove publicly of the Board and its works. The House is anxious to relieve him of a discomfort. We know him to be very keen and alert, and he cannot have mistaken the omens to-night. He is responsible to the House of Commons for the further communications that are to be made in the course of a few days, this summer—spring has gone—or perhaps later. We shall await those communications. We advise the right hon. Gentleman not to hurry unduly. Let him rather take these unemployed people back into his own fold, and not separate them from their fellows who are unemployed.
  1548
  There is one aspect of this question with which I shall conclude. The resources of a large number of people who are unemployed, and their dependants, are given in some detail on pages 80 and 81 of the Report, where it is stated that 45 per cent. of the applicants for unemployment assistance have resources of their own, or resources in their households which they are required to share. Those resources amount, I understand, to a total annual value of £24,500,000—a triflingly small figure, a tragically small figure, to be divided over the large number of people with whom we are dealing. The remaining 55 per cent. of the applicants have no resources. Those without resources get the ordinary unemployment benefit. The Report does not give complete details of the number of persons assisted; whether it is 2,500,000 or a smaller number we do not know. We are not told in the Report how many men, women, young persons and children are included. The total of the allowances covering all the persons assisted is given at £42,000,000.
  A more pertinent question, to which I find no answer, is the total number of persons included in the households to which applicants belong. That figure is not given. Their resources are stated to be £24,500,000. If we add to that figure the £42,000,000 which the Board pays out in unemployment allowances, we find that for the whole of this vast body of people the annual income amounts to £64,000,000. I have made the computation that the number of persons involved in these households cannot be less than about 4,000,000, so that, when you add the amount paid in allowances to the existing resources of the household and divide it by the number of people, the average income per person is between £18 and £19 per annum. If we take an average family of four or four and a half persons, the income per family is somewhere about £70 per annum. If you take £20 of that for rent and another £20 for clothing and ordinary domestic accessories, the amount left at the disposal of this mixed community of men who work and men who do not work, and women who are employed and women who are engaged in their ordinary domestic duties, and young people of both sexes from adult age to childhood, the average available for food for all these people—not the unemployed only, but all

  1549
  the employed people associated with them—is less than 4s. a week. This is the condition to which this Board, this machine, this very scientific system for the perpetuation and standarisation of poverty, has reduced not only the people who are unemployed, but all those who share with them the community life in the family, which is the fundamental basis of our modern society.
  The original intention of the means test was not to remove poverty, but to lessen the cost of unemployment relief to the Treasury. We must not allow the Government to forget that. We must not allow our own people to forget it. That is the charge that we level against the Government. They have been successful in saving expense to the Treasury, but they have condemned millions of our fellow citizens to a lower standard of poverty, from which there is no escape so long as this Board is given the authority that it possesses to-day. We read in the Report, under the heading, "The Welfare of Applicants," this statement:
  "To promote the welfare of applicants for assistance is one of the statutory functions of the Board."
  There is much pretence of that kind in the Report. A little later we find:
  "Subject to the general standards laid down for them by Parliament, the Board and its officers must on individual cases try to do what responsible public opinion at the time would wish them to do."
  We charge them with having ignored public opinion. We are told that the Board is in this respect a trustee for the public conscience. I am sorry that the still small voice of the public conscience has been overwhelmed by the blatant trumpetings of supporters of the National Government inside and outside the House. There are signs that the public conscience is moved on this question of poverty. We hope to give a new set of deeds to those who offer themselves for trusteeship, and this Committee must try to put themselves into line. Their first duty is to protest against the standards contained in this Report, then to denounce the Report itself, and finally to demand the abolition of the Board and the entire system, lock, stock and barrel. It is all very well to remain silent, but you cannot avoid the responsibility. Let hon. and right hon. Members ask themselves this question: Would you vote for yourselves what you
  1550
  propose to vote for the unemployed tonight? Would you vote it for your own children?
  Let me warn hon. Members in one final word. Great events are stirring mankind in these days. There is a demand for national unity because of the possibility which may be upon us. A grave national emergency may come upon the people of this country almost overnight, and again, I repeat that you will not get national unity on those terms. There is not a man on this side of the Committee who will help you to get national unity on the terms of the Unemployment Assistance Board and the Regulations. If hon. Members wish to vote as trustees of the public conscience to-night they should vote on the side of those who wish to change the condition under which this Board has been operating. They will be doing an act of great national disservice if they remain quiet or abstain from voting. They should not abstain from voting, but should show that they are detenmined radically to change the conditions under which relief and succour have been given to the unemployed.
  10.43 p.m.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead): I should like in his absence to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacMillan) on a very well-timed and most successful maiden speech. This is the first time in my experience of the House that I have heard anyone speak in Gaelic, and in many ways it has an advantage of its own. I think it enables an hon. Member who quotes it to say most unparliamentary things. I believe that the hon. Member for the Western Isles really said dreadful things about the Minister and myself, and when he said, "That's what it means," he put it into the most Parliamentary language for the edification of the House and for you, Sir.
  I need not spend very long to-night in answering the points, because my hon. Friend intervened comparatively late in the Debate and covered a good deal of the ground himself. My right hon. Friend deft the Committee and hon. Members opposite in no doubt as to his own point of view, and when an hon. Member on the opposite side said that

  1551
  there were many Members in this Committee who were far from satisfied with it, I think he spoke the truth because there are those Members who have pursued an absolutely unceasing and unthinking course of abuse of the Board and the chairman and all their works. I can assure them that my right hon. Friend did not mean them to be satisfied with his speech. A good number of hon. Members complained because in the Report the Board said a certain number of nice things about itself. The hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Guy)—[An HON. MEMBER: "He is only one!"] He may be only one, but I think that his speech was worth a great many of the other speeches put together. The Board is only giving an account of its own doings, and it naturally gives a true account. If the true account of its doings happens to be good, the Board has no hesitation in saying so. The Board has introduced in the Report a certain number of what we may call abuse cases, and hon. Members opposite take up the line that it was very unfair for them to do so. Let hon. Members consider why the Board did it. I am certain that the Board would not have introduced those cases had it not been for the campaign of abuse and misrepresentation with which they have been met by hon. Members opposite. [Interruption.]
  Mr. BUCHANAN: Now we have got to the position—
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: If hon. Members opposite like to take up that attitude, they must not complain that the Board put up a certain number of points in their defence. That is what the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) said. You must not accuse the Board of being a vicious animal because it defends itself. That is what the Board has done. The number of what I may call abuse cases form such a small proportion of the Report that it is entirely wrong to say that there is nothing else in it. There is a great deal of very solid, sound reading in the Report, quite apart from these cases. That emphasises what I am certain all reasonable Members of the House desire and that is that the Board, whatever people may have thought about the situation in January, 1935, the Board and its officers have had 18 months' experience through-
  1552
  out the country, and it is obvious that any organisation, starting as the Board did 18 months ago, must have acquired an enormous amount of useful experience in that period and must, therefore, be better qualified to go forward with their work.
  Dealing with some of the detailed points that have been raised, the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) asked for the number of cases dealt with under the Regulations and the number dealt with under transitional payment. The number dealt with under the Regulations—these are the figures for December, 1935—is 305,000, or 44 per cent., and 388,000, or 56 per cent., under transitional payment.
  Mr. GRENFELL: I asked whether the Minister would give the amounts, so that we could find out the benefits under transitional payment and the Regulations.
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: I thought the hon. Member asked for the number of cases. I hope to give him the figures before the end of my speech. We have heard a great deal about the break up of homes. I suppose it is of little value to quote the Report to hon. Members, but seeing that we have to discuss the Report in order to keep within the terms of order, that situation rather brings me to a standstill. The Reports from the district officers with regard to the effect on homes are very material. They give cases of four districts — Durham, Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Cardiff, where the question is appreciable. In four districts—in London (1), in Newport, in Glasgow (1) and in Inverness it does not obtrude itself and the Board's officers do not mention it. In the remaining 20 it was a factor but certainly inconsiderable.
  Miss WILKINSON: They were the judges.
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: It is true, of course, that there is quite a difference of opinion and perhaps a certain amount of disquiet in many districts about whether the earnings rate is the best or not. Do not let anybody think that I am suggesting that all is well in the garden, but that is quite a different thing from suggesting that the whole of England is in an absolute upheaval about the effect on the household.
  Miss WILKINSON: Every social worker in Durham tells you that.
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: In making determinations regard is had to the Reserve pay and a certain amount is taken into consideration as and when received. Half of the amount of Reserve pay is disregarded; the remainder is brought into the calculation of the determination. It comes in, perhaps, as a lump sum once a month and is worked off possibly in that week or next week, and when that has been worked off the ordinary determination goes on being paid. In point of fact, that disregarding of half of the Reserve pay is appreciably better treatment than was the case in a large number of determinations made by local authorities. The hon. Member opposite with his experience of the War Office would naturally consider the effect on the Service and before this arrangement was introduced the Service Department was consulted if concerned.
  Mr. LAWSON: Do they accept it now?
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: They do accept it. With regard to the general discretionary operation of the Board's officers and as to where authority lies, the Committee knows the organisation, and it has been the aim of the Board to try to introduce a certain amount of elasticity in the administration which is thoroughly desirable. Quite clearly the responsibility is known to the hierarchy—the area and district officers, the Board, the Minister and Parliament. [Interruption.] The hon. Member opposite does not understand the advantages of delegation of duty, and it is quite clear that unless you do that you get that hard, rigid mechanical administration to which I am certain the hon. Member would object. As the Report says:
  "Every applicant is a separate human being with his own needs and his own environment, and the Board has through-out encouraged and instructed its officers to take this view of each case."
  To show that this is so in no less than 20 per cent. of the cases the officers of the Board have used their authority to grant allowances above the normal rate.
  The Board has encouraged, and gratefully acknowledges, the co-operation of local authorities and other voluntary bodies. That is all to the good. There is no reason why everything should be done by the Board. I do not suppose there is any country in which voluntary effort is so highly developed as in this country,
  1554
  nor a country in which the co-operation of voluntary and statutory effort is more highly developed. With regard to the details of the welfare work of the Board, it is quite true that welfare work is not laid down within the strictest limits, but the Board is co-operating with the Ministry of Labour and with the Commissioner for the Special Areas and with bodies such as the Land Settlement Association. As the Board says, the highest form of social work in which an immense deal can be done is by personal relations with the applicants themselves. The hon. Member for Gorbals was rather scornful of the idea that you can patch up a family quarrel between husband and wife with a sum of £2, but I am certain that if the hon. Member knew of a case where by saving 1s. we had parted husband and wife he would very soon let us know about it. He must give the Board the benefit of the doubt when the boot is on the other foot. With regard to the question of advisory committees raised by both the hon. Members for East Edinburgh and West Middlesbrough—and I do not take any exception to the criticisms of the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough—I can say this. The composition of the Advisory Committee is very far advanced. There is one further point, the question of school meals. There again the Board was confronted with a diversity of local authority practice. There has been some debate as to the actual nature of the Unemployment Assistance Board, and the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough said that they were civil servants. The Board is a statutory body.
  Mr. K. GRIFFITH: I did not say that they were civil servants but that such bodies were generally considered as such.
  Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: That is why I wanted to make the distinction plain. They are a statutory body. It has been said that they are outside the control of this House. That is not so. The Unemployment Assistance Board was set up by an Act of this House, and the Regulations under which they work have been or will be passed by this House. The Minister of Labour is daily subjected, or can be, to Parliamentary questions and, finally, you have the time-honoured and ultimate measure of control which the House can exercise by bringing forward its operations and dis-

  1555
  cussing them by moving a reduction of the Minister's salary. That has been done to-day, and I have no doubt that the reduction will be heartily defeated by the Committee.
  Question put, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,369,900, be granted for the said Service."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 124; Noes, 187.

  Division No. 246.]

  AYES.

  [11.0 p.m.

  Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Morrison, R. C (Tottenham, N.)

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Muff, G.

  Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Naylor, T. E.

  Adamson, W. M.

  Groves, T. E.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

  Owen, Major G.

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Parker, J.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.

  Barr, J.

  Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

  Price, M. P.

  Batey, J.

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

  Pritt, D. N.

  Bellenger, F.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Richards, R. (Wrexham)

  Benson, G.

  Holdsworth, H.

  Riley, B.

  Bevan, A.

  Holland, A.

  Rltson, J.

  Broad, F. A.

  Hollins, A.

  Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)

  Bromfield, W.

  Hopkin, D.

  Rothschild, J. A. de

  Brooke, W.

  Jagger, J.

  Rowson, G.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)

  Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

  Salter, Dr. A.

  Buchanan, G.

  Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Burke, W. A.

  John, W.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Cape, T.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Silkin, L.

  Chater, D.

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Silverman, S. S.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Simpson, F. B.

  Cove, W. G.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Daggar, G.

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Dalton, H.

  Lathan, G.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)

  Lawson, J. J.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  Leach, W.

  Thurtle, E.

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Lee, F.

  Tinker, J. J.

  Dobble, W.

  Leslie, J. R.

  Viant, S. P.

  Ede, J. C.

  Logan, D. G.

  Walker, J.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Lunn, W.

  Watkins, F. C.

  Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Watson, W. McL.

  Frankel, D.

  McGhee, H. G.

  White, H. Graham

  Gallacher, W.

  Maclean, N.

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Gardner, B. W.

  MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)

  Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  MacNeill, Weir, L.

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  Mainwaring, W. H.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Marklew, E.

  Woods, G. S. (Fintbury)

  Graham. D. M. (Hamilton)

  Maxton, J.

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Messer, F.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)

  Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Mathers.

  NOES.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Emery, J. F.

  Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

  Colman, N. C. D.

  Everard, W. L.

  Albery, I. J.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. D. J.

  Fildes, Sir H.

  Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

  Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

  Fleming, E. L.

  Apsley, Lord

  Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

  Assheton, R.

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Fraser, Capt. Sir I.

  Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Fremantle, Sir F. E.

  Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Furness, S. N.

  Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Gluckstein, L. H.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Crooke, J. S.

  Goldie, N. B.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Goodman, Col. A. W.

  Blair, Sir R.

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Gower, Sir R. V.

  Boulton, W. W.

  Cross, R. H.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Crossley, A. C.

  Grimston, R. V.

  Boyce, H. Leslie

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Guest, Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll, N.W.)

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Culverwell, C. T.

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

  Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.

  Guy, J. C. M.

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Davies, Major G. F. (Yeovil)

  Hamilton, Sir G. C.

  Bull, B. B.

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Hanbury, Sir C.

  Burghley, Lord

  De Chair, S. S.

  Hannah, I. C.

  Caine, G. R. Hall-

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)

  Cartland, J. R. H.

  Drewe, C.

  Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Holmes, J. S.

  Cary, R. A.

  Dunne, P. R. R.

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Channon, H.

  Eckersley, P. T.

  Howitt, Dr. A. B.

  Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

  Edmondson, Major Sir J.

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Munro, P.

  Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st),

  Hulbert, N. J.

  Neven-Spence, Maj. B. H. H.

  Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Smlthers, Sir W.

  Hunter, T.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  James, Wing-Commander A. W.

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Somerville, D.G.(Willesden, F.)

  Joel, D. J. B.

  Patrick, C. M.

  Southby, Comdr. A.R. J.

  Jones, L. (Swansea, W.)

  Peat, C. U.

  Spens, W. P.

  Keeling, E. H.

  Penny, Sir G.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Petherlck, M.

  Storey, S.

  Kimball, L.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Plugge, L. F.

  Strauss, H. G.(Norwich)

  Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)

  Radford, E. A.

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Law, R. K. (Hull, S. W.)

  Ralkes, H. V. A. M.

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

  Leckie, J. A.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Tasker, Sir R. I.

  Lindsay, K. M.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmln)

  Touche, G. C.

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Train, Sir J.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)

  Tree, A. R. L. F.

  McCorquodale, M. S.

  Remer, J. R.

  Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Com. R. L.

  McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Wakefield, W. W.

  McKie, J. H.

  Ropner, Colonel L.

  Warrender, Sir V.

  Maclay, Hon. J. P.

  Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Magnay, T.

  Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

  Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)

  Williams, C. (Torquay)

  Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

  Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. M.

  Salt, E. W.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)

  Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Sandeman, Sir N. S.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Sanderson, Sir F.B.

  Young, A. S.L.(Partick)

  Mitcheson, Sir G. G.

  Savery, Servington

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

  Scott, Lord William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Selley, H. R.

  Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert

  Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Unlv's.)

  Shakespeare, G. H.

  Ward and Dr. Morris. Jones.

  Mulrhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Original Question again proposed.
  It being after Eleven of the clock and objection being taken to further Proceeding, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  MEASUREMENT OF GAS.
  Ordered,
  "That so much of the Lords Message [17th June] as relates to the appointment of a Committee on Measurement of Gas be now considered."—[Sir G. Penny.]
  So much of the Lords Message considered accordingly.
  Ordered,
  "That a Select Committee of Four Members be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords to consider whether it is expedient and, if so, in what circumstances and subject to what conditions, to authorise the measurement of gas supplied by gas undertakers to consumers by means of meters so designed as to register in therms instead of in cubic feet."—
  Committee nominated of,—Mr. Ede, Mr. Entwistle, Mr. Holmes, and Mr. Reed.
  Ordered,
  "That leave be given to the Committee to hear parties interested by themselves, their counsel, or agents, so far as the Committee think fit."
  Ordered,
  "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records."
  Ordered,
  "That Two be the quorum."—[Sir G. Penny.]
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

  BEVERLEY RACECOURSE COMPANY (PASTURE OF HURN).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]
  11.14 p.m.
  Mr. MUFF: I wish to raise the point of the encroachment on common land by the Beverley Racecourse Company, which has been given permission by the Minister of Agriculture so to do. I would like to bring to this honourable House the position of the aldermen and burgesses of the minster town of Beverley, and I would suggest that their rights have been seriously in-

  1559
  fringed by the Ministry of Agriculture. In the year 1664 the Archbishop of York of that day granted for all time about 1,000 acres of land in the district of Beverley called Westwood and also the pasture of Hum, and in doing so he laid it down distinctly that the land should be held free by the community for their pleasure, free access and recreation. This was regularised exactly 100 years ago to-day by the passing of the Beverley Common Pastures (Regulation) Act. That Act has 76 Clauses. I do not propose to enumerate them, but I wish to emphasise the fact that in the Preamble it is stated that the soil of this land shall be in the possession of the mayor, aldermen and burgesses of Beverley for ever. It also states that the operative Clause is Clause 74: "provided also and be it further enacted that nothing in this Act contained shall authorise the said pasture freemen or pasture masters to exclude or deprive the public from resorting to the said common pasture for the purpose of exercises, amusement, recreation, etc., as freely as they have been heretofore permitted and accustomed to resort."
  In the course of time races and other amusements took place on this common land of the pasture of Hurn. They were not highly organised races—I should say jolly point-to-point meetings. As time went on a committee was appointed to organise proper horse racing, to which I have no objection on this occasion. Racing has gone on for 200 years, and the public have had free access and have been able to bring their own nags and alleged race-horses to take part in the racing. In more modern times temporary stables and stands were erected. Finally, a grand stand was erected in recent years, and in 1903 a private company was formed, consisting of eight members, with no issued shares. There are no shares issued in the company created to control this racecourse and the races which take place two days every year. The limit of liability of each of the eight directors or members is £5 each.
  The Minister, in stating that he would allow these men to enclose part of the Pasture of Hum, said it was to enable them to make a profit and stave off bankruptcy, when all the time there has never been any danger of that bankruptcy taking place. Moreover, the Minister said it was to enable these people to pay
  1560
  £200 to the pasture masters. In every one of the 76 Sections of this Act the pasture masters are regulated, and the charges they can make are sufficient to enable them to carry on without any outside assistance.
  The Minister says that these people have been carrying on at a loss. In 1903 their assets were £4,600. To-day they are over £15,000, chiefly in property, and quite recently they have spent £2,700 in buying additional property. The concession that the Minister gave them through his officials only ten days ago is worth an additional £1,000 to them, because it means the exclusion of the public from this fine Pasture of Hurn, which occupies the same position—a little bit of it—as, say, Tattenham Corner on Epsom Downs, where people have free access to see the races. The burgesses of Beverley are now excluded, though the Race Committee give a free ticket to every pasture master who has really no right to it. The Race Committee also scatter their tickets with prodigal Yorkshire hospitality among their friends in order to give them free admission. I want the Minister to reconsider his attitude. I want him to allow the burgesses to have the right to see the races for nothing, as the people have at Epsom. Their rights are protected by this Act of Parliament, Clause 76 of which says their rights are protected so long as the Act remains on the Statute Book.
  I want to remind the hon. Gentleman that one member of the firm of solicitors for the company was until recently the Town Clerk of Beverley. Certainly with free tickets and with other methods they have managed to keep things sweet. The only protest was in a petition organised by a public-spirited woman. The Minister said there were only 200 signatures. Two hundred grown up people in a town like Beverley represent a not inconsiderable portion of the population. I contend that the Minister, instead of listening to this firm of solicitors and the ex town clerk, might have listened to the burgesses of Beverley. There has been the classic case of Hackney Marshes quite recently. Hackney Marshes are protected by a similar Act of Parliament to this. When the Minister of Health gave his consent to the London County Council building workmen's dwellings on Hackney Marshes, influential people in

  1561
  London took the matter to Court and the Lord Chief Justice said definitely that the Minister had no right to take even a portion of Hackney Marshes for dwellings. The position is this: At Epsom people can see the races for nothing, though Epsom is controlled not by an Act of Parliament but by the Lord of the Manor; we have the decision of the Lord Chief Justice in the classic case of Hackney Marshes; and I appeal to the Minister to give some concession to the burgesses of Beverley. By his action he leas given £941 last year and £1,000 this year to this company, without giving one benefit to the burgesses of Beverley. Not one copper has gone to the benefit of the rates of Beverley, the £200 has been given to the pasture masters who have no legal right to the money. I ask the hon. Gentleman at least to reconsider his decision, so that these people who have very little money shall riot have to go to law in this matter.
  11.25 p.m.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Ramsbotham): I am sure that the House is indebted to the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) for raising this very interesting matter and for the antiquarian and historical researches in which he has engaged. I do not quarrel with them, and I would endorse what he says in regard to the antiquity of these races, which, as he rightly says, have been going on for the last 200 years. As he also correctly says, about 1767, a grandstand was erected which, to that extent, restricted the rights of the public. In 1837, another grandstand was erected, and I think about 6d. per annum was paid to the corporation by way of acknowledgement. I mention these points because they show that, for a long time, the public have had rights over this land, subject to certain users by the racecourse company.
  Mr. DAVID ADAMS: Have the public had free access to these stands?
  Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: I gather not. Certainly not. The hon. Member then raised a legal point in regard to what he says is the analogous case of the Hackney Marshes. I would point out to him, with respect, that there is no simi-
  1562
  larity between these two cases. In the first place, the Hackney Marshes case was a question whether the Housing Act of 1925 overrode the London Open Spaces Act, 1893, and the court held that it did not, and that the Act of 1893 still governed the situation.
  In this case the Minister makes no claim to override the Act of 1836. All that the Minister does is to give consent, under the Law of Property Act, 1925. But he in no way expresses an opinion, or invalidates or validates the rights of the public under the Act of 1836. With great submission, I suggest that there is no similarity between those two cases, and I imagine that any court would distinguish one from the other without any difficulty.
  In regard to the racecourse company themselves a few years ago they got permission to make an enclosure for seven days in the year. The racecourse company, according to my information, has been losing money steadily. The pasture-masters themselves have had an insufficient income to carry out their duties under the Act of 1836, so much so that, I am informed, certain trees which were cut down for fuel at the time of the coal stoppage some years ago have not yet been replaced on account of shortage of funds. Their actual income from the racecourse company at the present moment is £200 per annum. The permission to make this enclosure on seven days in the year should add substantially to the amount received by the pasture-masters, and thereby enable them to carry out their duties, which it is to the advantage of the country that they should carry out. They have to provide fencing, benches, seats for the public, and so on.
  Unless my information is quite erroneous, their income is barely sufficient to enable them to carry out their existing duties, and it would be a very great advantage to the pasture-masters to have this additional income from the Racecourse Company. It would only exclude the public from the full use of this area on seven days in the year, and on the remaining 358 days the public will have the advantage of the additional revenue from the Racecourse Company. I think that, on the whole, the public will balance one advantage against the other,

  1563
  and will agree that the pasture-masters should be provided with an adequate income, as a result of this proposal, with which to carry out their duties and provide for the public amenities to which the public under the Act are entitled. For these reasons, I am sorry to say that
  1564
  the Minister cannot accede to the very well-expressed request of the hon. Member.
  Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (TREASURY STAFF).
  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (TREASURY STAFF).
  TAX REVENUE.
  TAX REVENUE.
  LEAGUE OF NATIONS (REFUGEES).
  LEAGUE OF NATIONS (REFUGEES).
  COAL INDUSTRY (EXPORTS FROM SCOTLAND).
  COAL INDUSTRY (EXPORTS FROM SCOTLAND).
  HORSES (EXPORTS).
  HORSES (EXPORTS).
  INDIA (SEARCH OF MUBARAK ALI).
  INDIA (SEARCH OF MUBARAK ALI).
  POST OFFICE (TELEPHONES).
  POST OFFICE (TELEPHONES).
  WIRELESS RECEIVING LICENCES.
  WIRELESS RECEIVING LICENCES.
  ALIENS (GERMAN NATIONALS IN GREAT BRITAIN).
  ALIENS (GERMAN NATIONALS IN GREAT BRITAIN).
  PETROLEUM (UNITED STATES EXPORTS).
  PETROLEUM (UNITED STATES EXPORTS).
  MOTORING OFENCES (POLICE COURT CHARGES).
  MOTORING OFENCES (POLICE COURT CHARGES).