§ Mr. C. EDWARDSasked the Minister of Labour whether managers of Employment Exchanges have been instructed to refuse unemployment benefit to those who were recently deprived of the same through not having the requisite number of stamps on their cards, notwithstanding the fact that they have since been employed sufficiently long to have obtained eight stamps, or, if not, is any such order contemplated?
§ Mr. BETTERTONThe answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.
§ Colonel DAYasked the Minister of Labour if he will issue instructions to Employment Exchange managers and staff that bona fide skilled men registering for employment are entitled to full rate of benefit, and that length of employment, especially in the branches of the engineering trade, shall not, in view of the long-continued depression in that industry, be regarded as an excuse to refuse benefit if the skilled man refuses work at less than the established rate?
§ Sir A. STEEL-MAITLANDThe rate of wages for work, the refusal of which may be a reason for the disallowance of benefit, is laid down in the ease of standard benefit by Section 7 of the Act of 1920. Under that Section it is provided that the rate of wages should, speaking generally, be (1) in the district in which the applicant lived the rate which he has habitually obtained, or (2) in the case of employment in other districts, the standard rate for that district. In cases of extended benefit, in which the worker may be required in certain circumstances to accept work other than that to which350W he has been accustomed, such work must still be on terms and conditions which are fair for that work.