§ Mr. Grieveasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he proposes to take to deal with the practice of persons working for high wages for only part of each week, drawing unemployment benefit for the remainder of the week.
§ Mr. OrmeThe hon. and learned Member no doubt has in mind the practice of putting employed persons on to short-time working when the work available206W for them is insufficient to last a full week. In these circumstances an employee would be entitled to unemployment benefit for the days on which he was unemployed; if he satisfied the normal conditions for receipt of such benefit; but any benefit paid would seldom equal the amount of wages lost. I have no proposals to put forward at the present time for an alteration of the law in this respect.
§ Mr. Churchillasked the Secretary at State for Social Services if a claimant in receipt of union dispute benefit is entitled to claim unemployment benefit; and, if so, how far the level of dispute benefit is taken into account in assessing any payment from public funds.
§ Mr. OrmeEntitlement to unemployment benefit is a matter for decision by the independent national insurance adjudicating authorities. However, if a man were in receipt of dispute benefit it is likely that he would be held to be participating or financing or directly interested in the trade dispute and would, therefore, be held to be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit under section 19 of the Social Security Act 1975. So far as supplementary benefit is concerned, payments of dispute benefit would reduce the supplementary benefit payable for the dependants of such a person, subject to the disregard of up to £4 which applies to certain kinds of income.