HC Deb 17 March 1925 vol 181 cc2108-10W
Colonel DAY

asked the Minister of Labour the number of claims for benefit made at the Walworth Road Employment Exchange during the years 1922, 1923 and 1924; how many of these claims were referred to committees; how many were rejected on the ground that the applicants were not making reasonable efforts to obtain suitable employment; how many for the reason that they would not accept suitable employment; and how many for the reason that they had not had a reasonable period of insurable employment since 1922 or a subsequent period?

Mr. BETTERTON

It is not possible to give accurate and comparable totals of the number of claims to unemployment benefit made in the past three years. I am able, however, to give the numbers of claims to extended (or uncovenanted) benefit referred to, and allowed or rejected by the local employment committee for the Borough Employment Exchange in each of the special periods or benefit years which cover the period from 3rd November, 1921, to 12th January, 1925. As the information includes several tables I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the figures:

In respect of the first three periods shown above, no statistics of reasons for rejection are in existence. The following is an analysis of the rejections in the last two periods:

II.
18th October, 1923, to 31st July, 1924 (first benefit year) Number rejected.
Not normally in insurable employment 136
Not genuinely seeking whole-time employment 2,014
Not 20 contributions and not a reasonable period of insurable employment 370
Single persons living at home 91
Married women living with their husbands, to whom they can look for support 107
Short-time workers 40
Aliens 8
Other reasons (failure to attend hearing, etc.) 709
Total rejections 3,475

III.
1st August, 1924, to 12th January, 1925 (individual benefit year). Number rejected.
Not normally insurable and not seeking to obtain a livelihood by means of insurable employment 69

1st August, 1924, to 12th January, 1925 (individual benefit year). Number rejected.
Insurable employment not likely to be available 80
Not a reasonable period of insurable employment during the preceding two years 2,403
Not making every reasonable effort to obtain suitable employment or not willing to accept suitable employment 371
Other reasons (failure to attend hearing, etc.) 1,228
Total rejections 4,151

As regards Tables II and III, I should mention that

  1. (a) Some of those entered under the last heading ("Failure to attend hearing, etc.") may have had their claims allowed at a subsequent hearing, and the total number of final rejections is therefore somewhat less than that given in the table; precise figures on this point are not available.
  2. (b) It would not be safe to draw any conclusions from a comparison of figures in categories of apparently similar description in Tables II and II, respectively.

No record of numbers disallowed for refusing suitable employment is available for individual Exchanges.