Unemployment Assistance Act, 1934.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 21 July 1936.

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Photo of Mr Ernest Brown Mr Ernest Brown , Leith

I have two advantages instead of one. After all, the voice is the most personal thing about any man. [Interruption.] We have got on quite happily as far as I am concerned. One advantage I have had is that at any time in the last 12 months I could have sat down and written out at length a list of the adjectives which hon. Members opposite are going to apply to me. It would not have mattered what Regulations I had brought, the adjectives would have been exactly the same, [Interruption.] Hon. Members have been very good to me, and I will conclude in two or three sentences. I want to say a personal thing. I want to pay a tribute to the secretary and officials of the Board, and to that wise counsellor the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, Sir Thomas Phillips, and the staff there—[Interruption]—because the consideration of this problem, in addition to the enormous number of other problems which the Ministry have to face has put a strain upon them.

The other two things I intend to say are these. The firmness of the Regulations is in the scales and their accompanying arrangements. The flexibility is in the wide discretion given to the Board and its officers. Since in these Regulations the House of Commons has been asked to give the Unemployment Assistance Board these powers of discretion—the greater the flexibility the greater the discretion—the House is entitled to give the Board its support. I know that it is the intention of the Board to use that discretion to the full. The other thing is this, that since Parliament has put upon the shoulders of the Unemployment Assistance Board this great task under Part II of the Act, then, when Parliament votes, as I am sure Parliament will, to pass these Regulations and this Draft Order, the Board is entitled to ask for Parliament's loyal support and to know that, having put our hands to the plough, we shall not look back.