Orders of the Day — New Clause. — (Payment of benefits in respect of persons under sixteen.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 10 December 1929.

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Dr. VERNON DAVIES:

I have had a long experience of people in industrial life. We have heard to-night of one or two cases of the very important age of 14 to 16, the adolescent age, when the child is growing mentally, psychologically and physically and how very important it is that at that age nothing should be done to upset the child in any way whatever. We have in the industrial districts the rule that a child of 15 is paid his wages and is entitled to take them home. What would be the effect on the child if sonic one turned round and said, "We cannot trust you to take your wages home. We cannot trust you to take your unemployment money home." That is immediately going to put into the child's mind a feeling of resentment and suspicion either that the people surrounding him do not trust him or, worse still, that his mother does not trust him and, therefore, I think a great deal of the argument that has been used on this side is really rather irrelevant, and I agree in the main with the arguments used by the Government. I think even those arguments are quite irrelevant. The money would be paid at the unemployment office to the child unless the mother in writing demanded it. I am sure there is no one opposite who would object to that. If the mother for some reason, probably a good reason, states that it is not in the child's interest that he should draw the money, and she went to the trouble of writing to that effect, I imagine every father in the Committee would say the mother was justified in her action and, therefore, this Clause is important. The question of not trusting the child does not arise and, therefore, all the opposition that has been offered has been quite unnecessary. But I should like to associate myself with the Members of the Government in their trust in the boys of the working class.