Orders of the Day — Third Schedule. — (Enactments Re- pealed.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 16 December 1929.

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Photo of Mr Ernest Brown Mr Ernest Brown , Leith

All I can say is that, if the hon. Member says that, he does not believe in his own argument about this being an Insurance Bill and an insurance system. Under this Bill money is to be spent in certain ways which, if I had my way, I would spend in other ways. [HON. MEMBERS: "Which way?"] For instance, I would rather have had a reduction of the waiting period than an increase of 2s. for dependants. [Interruption.] I was asked the question, and I answered it. I take the Bill as it is. To me the heart of the Bill is in what was known as Clause 4, and I am bound to say that I welcome the change that has been made. I do not agree with the statement that has been made that it was a climb-down on the part of the right hon. Lady to the extremists. The men who are known as extremists in this House had very little to do with that change; speeches came from every quarter of the Chamber in favour of the change. Moreover, whether or no the hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot) approves of the change, he certainly did not approve of the Clause as it was originally drafted. He made that quite clear on the Second Reading. Let me recall to his mind what he said. Whatever he may say about the present Clause, in discussing the original Clause he made the same criticism that I made myself when I first read it. He said: The tests proposed are of a vague and unsatisfactory character, and that opinion is shared by a great many people on the right hon. Lady's side of the House. She says with the utmost assurance that this proposal shifts the onus from the applicant to the Employment Exchange but some of her own colleagues say with equal emphasis that it leaves the onus where it is now."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st November, 1929; col. 763, Vol. 232.] There is another point in the same speech to which I will come in a moment, but I want to say about this change that it is a victory of the House of Commons over the Departmental mind. A great deal has been said inside the House and outside in recent months about the new despotism. This is the third major Bill dealing with this problem on which I. have spoken in the last five years. There has been the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw), the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth (Sir A. Steel-Maitland), and this Bill. It is lime that this House, as a House, paid attention to the deep-seated feeling in the necessitous areas, where the bulk of these men are to be found. The House in 1924 accepted too easily the adaptation from extended benefit to standard benefit of the words "genuinely seeking work." The right hon. Gentleman's mechanical majority in 1927 in my judgment—II said so- when I sat two seats behind here — accepted Departmental opinion far too easily as to the effect of his rendering of the necessary legal formula to put into operation the phrase "genuinely seeking work."

The Bill gives me one thing that I want. Whether it gives it in the way that I want it is another matter. It gives me, for the first time, an objective test which is to be applied by the insurance officer to the case of men seeking benefit. Whatever the higher officials of the Department may think, the officials who have to do the practical administration in the Employment Exchanges will welcome having to deal with objectives rather than subjective tests. It is no wonder that Members for industrial seats feel warmly about the matter. The old system was called "not making every reasonable effort." In 10 months in 1926 in the port of Leith, where there are 25,000 insured persons and nearly 5,000 unemployed, through no fault of their own. There were 445 claims ruled out. Under "not genuinely seeking work" in the 10 months of this year there were 1,357 claims disallowed.

There is no man who knows the port of Leith, or any other of these districts, who does not know that what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said is literally true. The fares of my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot) need not trouble him. The great mass of these men, if they can smell a job, will make every effort to find it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Speak up!"] I intend to speak up on this matter. If these 1,357 claims, representing hundreds of men, could come here to-night, they would speak up, because they would feel as warmly as I feel on their behalf. The great bulk of these men will make efforts to find available work no matter what form of words this Bill may have in it, or any other Bill. We have for the first time a chance of catching the man who is a shirker instead of getting, as we have always had before, an Act which has let slip the shirker and entrapped the honest man. The re-drafted Clause 4 in a faint degree, at any rate, shows that the House of Commons at last is more aware than the Department has been, or than Ministers have been, as to the deep-seated feeling there is in these areas as to these subjective tests and their results. The form of words in my judgment gives the insurance officers a great deal more power than some of my friends recognise. I shall not be surprised in a month or two to hear complaints that the objective tests are not too mild but too stringent.