§ Mr. BUCHANANasked the Minister of Labour if she has yet appointed the new chairmen and deputy-chairmen for the courts of referees in the Glasgow area; and if she can state the names of the persons so appointed?
§ Mr. LAWSONI am afraid I cannot yet add to the reply given to my hon. Friend on Thursday last.
Mr. JAMES C. WELSHasked the Minister of Labour what steps, following on the meeting held in Glasgow on 13th June, she has taken particularly with a view to improving the attendance of insured contributors' representatives summoned to attend as members of courts of referees?
§ Miss BONDFIELDI have taken certain steps with a view to ensuring that the machinery of courts of referees is fully effective. It is most important that 514W insured contributors' and employers' representatives on the panels of courts of referees should attend sittings of courts when summoned, in order that the courts may be fully constituted and may adequately discharge the functions entrusted to them in the decision of claims to benefit. The selection of these representatives for appointment on the panels is normally made on the advice of the local employment committees. It seems to me appropriate, therefore, that wherever there is difficulty about the attendance of such representatives at sittings of the courts a sub-committee of the local employment committee should be charged with the duty of looking into the matter and proposing such remedial measures as may seem appropriate and likely to be effective. I am, in the first instance, suggesting the appointment of such sub-committees to the local employment committees in certain areas, including Glasgow and Lanarkshire, and I propose to watch carefully the results which they achieve. As there appears still to be some misapprehension with regard to the standing of the panel members on the courts of referees, I wish to make it clear that they are full members, and not merely assessors, and have each equal voting power with the chairman, except that in case of equality of voting the chairman has a second or casting vote. Any member dissenting from the decision of the court is entitled to record his view and his reason for them. Arrangements are being made to supply each court, for the use of the two panel members, with two copies of recent important decisions of the umpire and also of a volume containing an analysis of umpire's decisions, as soon as the necessary copies of this volume can be printed.