§ LORD ASKWITHasked His Majesty's Government to lay before Parliament as a White Paper, at the earliest possible date, extracts from the rules of registered trade unions showing in the case of each such union the conditions necessary in respect of seeking work before receiving or continuing to receive unemployment pay or benefit.
§ LORD PARMOORAs the noble Lord is aware, there are a large number of registered trade unions which pay unemployment benefit to their members. The Annual Report of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies for 1928 shows that in 1927 nearly 300 registered unions in Great Britain paid such benefit, of which about 100 paid £1,000 or more. The amount of labour entailed in the extraction of the desired particulars from the rules of all these unions would be very great, and in the case of the unions paying only small amounts of benefit, the value of the information would not be commensurate with the expense involved; but His Majesty's Government will arrange that a White Paper shall be prepared and circulated giving the relevant extracts from the rules of those registered unions which, paid £1,000 or more in unemployment benefit in 1928 (the latest year for which complete statistics as to the amount of benefit paid are available). It would be impracticable to complete the work of extracting and printing this information before the Christmas Recess, but arrangements will be made for publication at the earliest possible date.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.