Orders of the Day — Clause 1. — (Amalgamation with unemployment benefit of grants payable; under 11 and 12 Geo. 5, c. 62, in respect of certain dependants.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 6 April 1922.

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Mr. J. JONES:

I am more than ever proud of the fact that I happen to come from one of the poorest constituencies in Great Britain, where we try to level up the situation as near as we can out of our local funds. When the great British Empire can only find 1s. per head for the children of the poor in case of necessity, and we in West Ham are paying 5s. for each child that comes before us, then I think I have reason to be proud of the constituency I represent. And we are not extravagant, because the scale we are paying as a local board of guardians was laid down by the Minister of Health, who will never go to Heaven for paying too much to anybody. In this particular instance no Member of the House, hon, or right hon., could possibly justify the 1s., because it costs 2s. 6d. a week to keep a dog in the Battersea Dogs' Home. Nobody in this House has yet got up to justify the amount. All that is said is that the State cannot afford it, and yet there is not a board of guardians in the country that is not paying to these recipients of Poor Law relief more than is laid down in the provisions of this Bill, and, as representing one of the poorest constituencies, I want to thank the two hon. Gentlemen who have just addressed the House for the sympathy they have expressed. It shows, after all, that sometimes the Labour party do put forward a good case.

Of course, I know that in all the other Amendments we have moved millions have been thrown about. I do not know much about figures, and I know less about finance. The only thing I can understand about it is the fact that I have been without it nearly all my life. But I want, if I can, to make this appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, seeing that he admits that this will amount to about £2,000,000 annually. He is going to pawn the credit of the State, as he says it is, or the credit of the contributors, because it is supposed to be an insurance scheme. In my opinion, it is an insurance scheme against revolution, because if you leave these people to starve, and if their children have to go down into the welter of poverty, you will have to face the responsibility, perhaps, at another period. But you are going to draw on part of the fund for potential results in the future, and you are going into debt. The scheme itself is at present insolvent, and therefore you have to draw post-dated cheques on the banks of security. You might have objected to the larger amounts embodied in previous Amendments, but surely this smaller amount could be added to the potential debt which the right hon. Gentleman says is part of his responsibility, and this is for the sake of the children, of whom he has always been the champion. How are you going to educate children who have been starved on 1s. a week? How are you going to build up the national asset of a healthy population? You have here the chance of redeeming the promise of 1918 of building up an A1, instead of a C3, population.

This Amendment is a reasonable one, and I hope my hon. Friends will take it into the Division lobby to test the sympathy expressed. I have heard so much sympathy expressed since I have been a Member of this House, that I expected to see this country a land flowing with milk and honey. If sympathy could solve our problems, there would not be a hungry child in this country. But sympathy can only be backed up by people who have power to do it, and the Government have the power if they will. There is a dinner going on downstairs, and I venture to suggest there will be as much money spent there to-night as would feed the children of London for twelve months. The children who want this 1s. would be well provided for by the extravagance displayed now. In asking, on behalf of the poorest section of the community in the East end of London, that this additional 1s. shall be granted, I am asking that Great Britain shall prove, after all, that it is a place fit for children to live in.