§ Mr. BENNETTasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the suggestion put forward on behalf of the tailors and garment workers of this country that unemployment would be relieved by the better distribution of clothing contracts over the whole of the year; how many Departments order their own clothing; and how co-ordination could be secured amongst these Departments to ensure action on the lines suggested by the workers specified.
§ Mr. McNEILLThe desirability of so arranging contracts for tailoring work as to relieve the seasonal unemployment in the trade has been brought to the notice of the purchasing1298W Departments from time to time both by the Tailors and Garment Workers' Union and the Ministry of Labour. The procedure adopted by the Admiralty for the supply of uniform clothing enables the work to be spread over the year. The amount of the contracts placed with the trade for Army and Air Force uniforms are inconsiderable, but the possibility of spreading them so as to relieve unemployment during the trade's slack months is engaging the attention of the War Office and the Air Ministry. The purchase of standard patterns for the civil Departments is concentrated in the General Post Office, which already distributes over the whole year deliveries of uniform clothing. The small purchases of other Departments would not have any appreciable effect on the seasonal unemployment in the trade.