Lieut.-Colonel MOOREasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will consider the issue of instructions to the various Government Departments that where Government contracts are placed with private contractors there should be a clause in the contract to ensure that all unskilled labour required must be drawn, as far as possible, from the Employment Exchange in the locality where the work is being carried out?
§ Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCEIt is not practicable to make this requirement a condition of the acceptance of Government contracts, but the contracting Departments have adopted arrangements for bringing to the notice of each contractor whose contract is accepted, the facilities provided by the Employment Exchange service for the engagement of workpeople. I am informed that Government contractors do, in fact, make considerable use of the Employment Exchanges, and I hope that this practice will be increasingly followed both by them and by employers generally.