Orders of the Day — Unemployment Insurance [Money].

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 30 March 1922.

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Photo of Mr Arthur Hayday Mr Arthur Hayday , Nottingham West

I wish to raise a point or two upon this Money Resolution, because I feel that there is considerable misunderstanding both inside and outside the House as to the financial obligations that the State is undertaking, and as to the restrictions that the passage of this Resolution may place upon Members when the Bill is in Committee upstairs in moving Amendments to the Bill dealing with the payments. In view of some of the statements made yesterday upon the general question of the payment of what was then termed "doles," and in view of the assumption that in the main the State is the general paymaster and supplier of the funds, overlooking the money that comes from the joint contributions, it is just as well to remind the Committee that there stood to the credit of the fund a sum of £20,000,000 or thereabouts in 1920 when the Amending Act, embracing a further 8,000,000 workers, came into 1581 Unemployment Insurance operation. We heard from the Minister of Labour during the discussion that in the first three months of the operation of the 1920 Act there was expended in unemployment benefit about £15,000,000, and that in the succeeding 12 months, including, I imagine, the period up to 5th April this year, the expenditure was £62,000,000. The Money Resolution now before us is intended to provide the Treasury's quota for the further period ending June, 1923, being the period covered by the Bill before the House. The estimated expenditure until June, 1923, is a further sum of £60,000,000. It is just as well to remember, therefore, that out of this total which is anticipated to be spent from November, 1920, to June, 1923, the State will only have contributed £30,500,000 towards the sum total of £137,000,000, £106,500,000 being the contribution expected from employers and from workmen. I should like, therefore, to dispel that stupid egotistical notion that this is a form of out-relief, that you would not have to pay this if you would only permit men to be unemployed without income in order that they might compete to pull down the standard of wages with employés who happen to be in work. Such a ludicrous, idiotic or cruel attitude at a time like this I should really never have credited to the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson).

In view of the fact that you take £106,500,000 from two of the partners to this great effort to pay an amount which will enable the unemployed in the desert of adversity to tide over the journey, and your contribution is only £30,500,000, it appears to me that there is not very much to shout about, and there is not much credit to the State itself for its smallness of contribution. It is a third party interest. It is more than a third party interest, for indeed it is the determining authority as to the conditions under which the joint contributions shall be paid out. The three parties are never called together as to what amount the fund will stand paying out. They are never called together to determine the conditions under which it shall be paid out. Conditions vary and the State is the sole arbiter. They determine and decide all the conditions, and yet the other contributors have to pay by far the larger amount of money. I do not want us to be in the same position we were in on the last occasion. We were then informed that the mere fact that the Money Resolution had passed through this House precluded us from amending any part of the Bill so as to vary the periods for which payment could be made or the amounts of such payments, or the share in contribution that the State should make towards the whole. I imagine this Resolution will tie our hands to that extent. I want to say that the State should pay a third share. I appreciate the fact that under the existing Act their share is a fifth. They now propose to increase it to a fourth.