Orders of the Day — Unemployment Insurance.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 9 March 1925.

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People turn round and say that small holdings are not economic, but I think the facts do not bear that out. If you get the figures from the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council, you will find that they have an annual rent roll from their small holdings of something like £27,000, and that the amount of outstanding rents is not more than 2 per cent.; and you can go to other sections of rural England and find similar conditions, and it may be that you have the same thing in Scotland. I would like to plead that we do something to make the rural worker, who is deprived of unemployment insurance benefit, contented, and give him some opportunity of following his occupation on the land for himself. The Minister of Agriculture, speaking the other day, said he hoped in a short time to introduce something in regard to the provision of small holdings. May I make the appeal that the restriction to 50 acres in extent or £50 rental shall be removed, and that we shall provide small holdings suitable, first, to the capacity of the family that desires to go on them, and, secondly, with regard to the nature of the soil in the particular locality where we may be setting up the holdings.