Orders of the Day — Unemployment Insurance Act, 1935.

– in the House of Commons at on 15 February 1938.

Alert me about debates like this

11.13 p.m.

Photo of Mr Jack Lawson Mr Jack Lawson , Chester-le-Street

I beg to move: That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Unemployment Insurance (Insurable Employments) Regulations, which were presented to this House on the 22nd day of December, 1937, be annulled. Most Members of the House are aware that the Minister of Labour has made Regulations for the purpose of extending Unemployment Insurance to certain classes of domestic servants. It is true, as the Statutory Committee say in their report, that those Regulations represent a considerable extension of insurance to domestic servants, but it is also true that certain domestic servants, men as well as women, have been excluded from those Regulations. The Minister has power under the 1935 Act to make Regulations including certain classes of workers hitherto excluded from the Unemployment Insurance Acts. In this case he has exercised his privilege and has made a draft Order which he submitted to the Statutory Committee. They have accepted, generally, what he proposed but they have excluded a certain class, mainly employed in residential and educational institutions. Those who are familar with the problem of domestic servants in relation to unemployment insurance know that there is a long history behind this matter.

Many years ago, the High Court decided that domestic workers in profit-making establishments should be insured, but similar workers in other institutions were not insured. That caused a very great deal of difficulty for many years. When the Unemployment Insurance Act was before the House in 1934, it was decided that the Minister should have certain powers because of the embarrassment that had been caused owing to the exclusion of certain classes. Domestic servants in private establishments were excluded, of course, but the High Court decision excluded certain stokers, storekeepers, pithead bath attendants, lavatory attendants, orderlies, club stewards, lodge-keepers and caretakers, and certain other classes. The Royal Commission which dealt with Unemployment Insurance considered this matter at considerable length. There were two points of view. The minority took the view that all domestic servants, both in private homes and in public institutions, should be insured. There has always been a strong feeling that really the only way to handle this problem is to include all those engaged in domestic service. The majority, however, decided upon the method of giving the Minister certain powers.

There are three different classes of domestic servants, according to the Royal Commission. First, there are domestic servants in private houses. They are not concerned in these Regulations, and whatever I may think about it, I shall not raise that matter to-night. Secondly, there are domestic servants in commercial enterprises, such as hotels and boarding houses, who are already insured. Thirdly, there are those engaged in institutional work. They are concerned in these Regulations. They are engaged by local government authorities; they work in Government hospitals and other establishments; in voluntary hospitals; in Army, Navy and Air Force institutions; they are caretakers, and servants in canteens, in non-residential colleges and schools and in residential colleges and schools. The Regulations include all the workers I have mentioned in the third class and they represent, as the Statutory Committee rightly says, a considerable extension of Unemployment Insurance. The subject covers such a wide field that I am sure that, if we had been dealing with it earlier in the evening, there would have been a lengthy Debate; but that is not our object to-night.

My object is to make a protest against the fact that the Statutory Committee has decided, while including for insurance men and women engaged in non-residential colleges and schools, to exclude those engaged in residential colleges and schools. I gather that what happened was that Oxford and Cambridge colleges and other well-known schools protested that their domestics had a certain security of tenure which other domestics had not. I must say that I fail to see the difference in most cases between the domestics engaged in non-residential colleges and schools and those engaged in residential colleges and schools. The fact that students do not reside upon the premises does not always make a difference to the work of the domestics. It seems to me that the position is quite untenable that any domestic servants or any class of workers should be excluded from the operation of the Insurance Act and from its benefits merely because they have security of tenure. I have never understood why it was that the general public outside should have the impression that the only time anyone should be insured was when they either wanted benefit or when they were likely to lose their work, and surely the whole attitude of governments in the past, including this Government, has been that we ought to make insurance real insurance and that we ought to include good lives. The argument apparently on the part of the authorities of the great colleges—and the London colleges too, excluding one of them, which made representations in favour—was in the direction of saying that their workers represented good lives and therefore should be excluded from the operation of the Act. I think it is time there was an end of that kind of thing, and that, if insurance is to be insurance, those who are what are called good lives should be included.

But my main objection to this method is that, while domestic servants in private institutions are excepted, the Minister takes a whole class with the object of including them in insurance and making an end of certain anomalies, but then creates fresh anomalies, because he has taken a whole class, and one single body out of that class has been excepted. The Minister was given the right to make Regulations in order to clear away the rough edges of certain parts of unemployment insurance, but it seems to me that in this exclusion he has made more rough edges instead of taking them away. He has made an exception to certain exceptions. Instead of improving the situation it looks as though he is going to make it worse.

We object to this exclusion, and I move this Prayer because we think that all workers in domestic service ought to be in unemployment insurance, and because no sound reason was put forward by the educational authorities for excluding them. If there were any reasons for excluding them, the same reasons applied to local authorities, hospitals and the rest of the institutions whose workers have been brought within unemployment insurance. The voluntary hospitals put up a good case—and I thought it was a better case than that of the educational institutions—that their domestic servants should be excluded because they had security of tenure. The exclusion of this class is a blunder, for it increases instead of decreases the anomalies which the Minister was supposed to clear up; and it will make for confusion. Altogether it is a bad business. We do not intend to take this matter to a Division for we are conscious of the fact that insurance is being extended to a great mass of workers. We welcome that fact, but we take this opportunity of making our protest against this stupid way of doing things and making bad worse instead of clearing up the difficulties as the Act originally intended.

11.28 p.m.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

Credit is due to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) for raising this matter. As he has rightly pointed out, it is almost impossible for us to oppose the amended Regulations, but they raise larger issues than the subject of the Regulations itself. They raise the time-worn issue as to who is to be in unemployment insurance and who is to be out of it. This kind of piecemeal way of adding a little here and a little there has almost broken down in the last few years. I have long thought—and I believe my view is shared by the majority of Members above the Gangway—that nobody should be out of unemployment insurance. The more privileged a workman, like a railwayman, the more reason there is for being inside the insurance scheme. Those who argue that the employés of voluntary hospitals and educational institutions should be left out say that they are in privileged employment; but I believe that in the long run these institutions will find they are taking the wrong line. Some time ago a class of the community that is not always praised in this House had some conversation with me about the employés of this class and unemployment insurance. Among bookmakers, some of the employés are left out of unemployment insurance and some are in. If you work on the credit side, that is, the legitimate side, you are in, but if you work on the illegal side you are out. The bookmakers say frankly that they would like everybody to be in, for the reason—it sounds a rather peculiar one—that if their employés come within unemployment insurance they get a rather better type of employé. In the main the employés want to be within the scheme.

I would say to the voluntary hospitals that a girl who has been in an occupation in which she has been insured will think twice or thrice before going into an occupation which will take her out-with unemployment insurance. While in the old days we had considerable difficulty in persuading people of the benefits of unemployment insurance, to-day the difficulty arises from the numbers of people who want to come into unemployment insurance, and if the Minister wants to assist the voluntary hospitals he will bring them in, because then the hospitals would attract an even better type of workers than they get now. I have a little niece who has come to work in the Middlesex Hospital. She is not without something of the spirit of adventure in leaving her home to come to work in London. Whether she will fit in with the work or not remains to be seen, but she and others would enter upon such an adventure with the more readiness if there was the knowledge that they were covered by unemployment insurance, and that if the venture did not turn out successfully there would be something upon which to fall back.

I am the more puzzled by the attitude of the Minister for the reason that to some extent these workers in hospitals are covered by insurance, being eligible for unemployment assistance. When a girl in an hospital is flung out of her job, she is, having been subject to health insurance, automatically eligible for unemployment assistance. Why she should be a charge on the Unemployment Assistance Fund and not put on the unemployment insurance scheme I fail to understand.

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

Perhaps I may shorten the discussion if I say that the domestic employés of voluntary hospitals are not excluded by these Regulations, and are, in fact, all in.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

Certain classes of them are. I should have referred to the educational centres, because the workers there become chargeable to the Unemployment Assistance Fund. I should like to add that I am thankful that the Statutory Committee did not recommend that these workers should be brought into a scheme similar to that for agricultural workers. I was frightened when this extension was suggested that they would be kept out of the general scheme of unemployment insurance. Educational centres like Cambridge University and Glasgow University are in many cases partly State-aided, and I cannot see what hardship there would be in bringing them in. I share the view of the hon. Gentleman who has spoken from the Opposition Benches, so far as we have gone, and I would plead with the Minister that, having taken this comparatively large step, he should take the comparatively small step now, and include the educational centres. The class that is left out is small. There is a good deal of coming and going between insurable employment and non-insurable employment with that class of worker, and to do as we suggest would make them much more alike. I cannot understand why the Minister of Labour does not do this, because he would attract the best type of person to this type of work. We think that he is making a serious mistake. Extension of insurance makes for a much better type of worker than formerly, because they feel that their future is safeguarded. I hope that the Minister, after what was said by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street, will not take the report of the Committee as the final word, and that he will at an early stage include this class of worker within the Bill.

11.38 p.m.

Photo of Colonel Sir Joseph Nall Colonel Sir Joseph Nall , Manchester Hulme

I intervene to oppose the Motion, not because I think the Regulations are good, but because I think it desirable to reply to what has been said by speakers who preceded me. It is becoming more and more apparent that the inclusion of so many categories of women workers is a direct means of causing many thousands of good, respectable girls to go into some sort of insurable occupation for just as long as is necessary to qualify for benefit, so that as long as they are allowed to they may scrounge on the dole.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

What proof has the hon. Member of that?

Photo of Colonel Sir Joseph Nall Colonel Sir Joseph Nall , Manchester Hulme

I have quite a lot of proof. If there is an occupation in this country in which there is ample room to spare to-day—

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

On a point of Order. An hon. Member has made a gross and offensive remark about a certain class of people in this community and he proposes to adduce no proof. Is it in order for an hon. Member to come here without one iota of proof and slander women who are as good as he is?

Photo of Mr Dennis Herbert Mr Dennis Herbert , Watford

I do not think there was any thing personal in what was said, nor is it a proper matter on which to raise a point of Order. The charge was too wide.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

Would it not be customary and gentlemanly that he should give us some proof when making the charge?

Photo of Colonel Sir Joseph Nall Colonel Sir Joseph Nall , Manchester Hulme

It is not my habit, and it is certainly not my intention now, to slander any women or class of women. What I said was that the present system of bringing numerous categories of women workers into the insurance scheme is causing a good many to come into those categories for just as long as is necessary to qualify for benefit, whereafter they can try to get dismissed and seek to draw benefit in order to scrounge on the dole.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

My impression is that the hon. Gentleman does not know a single thing about it. He does not know one inch about it.

Photo of Colonel Sir Joseph Nall Colonel Sir Joseph Nall , Manchester Hulme

I know quite a number of cases of young women—

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

Give us their names and the cases so that we shall have— [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] Yes, but the hon. Member is not to be allowed to charge people in this way.

Photo of Colonel Sir Joseph Nall Colonel Sir Joseph Nall , Manchester Hulme

—become qualified for benefit and try to get dismissed from their occupations for comparatively small offences, and they become an acute problem in questions of social welfare with which we are faced. Any further extension of these schemes of insurance should be directed wholly and solely to those categories of occupation in which there is serious unemployment, when it is right and proper that the people engaged in them should be insured and able to draw benefit. It does need to be emphasised that for young women there are ample and sufficient opportunities of occupation and there is no need for extension of insurance in their case. Hon. Members know that it is much better for young girls to be employed in various categories of domestic occupation, whether in private houses or in institutions, than to be on benefit with nothing to do, when in many cases they fall into temptation to their great moral detriment. I hope that these Regulations will not form a precedent for extension on a wide scale. That certain categories ought to be included from time to time is quite possible, but that the further extension which the Opposition are now advocating would be disastrous is more than proved.

11.42 p.m.

Photo of Mr Dingle Foot Mr Dingle Foot , Dundee

I should not have taken part in this Debate but for the speech of the hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall). I wonder whether hon. Members who make remarks like that have the faintest knowledge of the machinery of the administration of unemployment benefit. Is not the hon. Member aware, when he speaks of girls or others scrounging on the dole, with what particularity the attempts made to find work are scrutinised by courts of referees, and how frequently those who are suspected of any practice of the kind to which he has referred are struck off benefit? He alleges that girls try to get into insurable occupations for a short time and then receive benefit, and that for that reason they are reluctant to go into domestic service. It seems to me that the point he has in mind actually strengthens the proposal of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson). Surely the hon. Member for Hulme must be aware of the reluctance that is always shown by girls or any other class of the community to pass from an insurable into a non-insurable occupation. The very reason why there is so much reluctance to enter domestic service is that it is a non-insurable occupation, and if the hon. Member for Hulme wants to remove the difficulty he has in mind, his best course would be to support the proposal from the Opposition benches that we should not proceed in these matters on piecemeal lines, but that all these categories of workers should be brought within the insurance scheme.

11.44 p.m.

Photo of Mr James Ede Mr James Ede , South Shields

I think the first answer to the hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) is that among the people who are exempted by the provision against which the Opposition are protesting are more men than women. One knows that the college servants at Cambridge are more men than women, and in many of the big public schools, I understand, a substantial number of the college servants are men. Those are the class of people who are being excluded as a result of the representations that have been made.

I was for two years chairman of the Departmental Committee on Private Schools, and I want to draw attention to the very wide range of schools covered by the term "residential private school." It includes places like Eton, Harrow and Rugby, but descends to a very inferior type of institution in which some of the labour is very badly paid and insecure in its tenure. I know, as the representative of a north of England constituency, living in the south of England, the number of persons who get engagements at these private schools in country towns and villages in the south of England who are left stranded, sometimes after only a few weeks of employment, because of the failure of the school to make a financial success or because they have had some quarrel with the proprietor. At present I am conducting a correspondence with the proprietor of a private school at Haslemere on behalf of people who were dismissed on grounds that seem to me to be unjust. There are places other than Oxford, Cambridge and the great public schools involved. On the general point, I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) that it is no good taking in merely the good lives and rejecting the bad lives if it is intended that this should be merely an insurance scheme. I regret that the Statutory Committee have made this exception, and I hope the time is not far distant when the whole of these people will be included.

11.48 p.m.

Photo of Mr Aneurin Bevan Mr Aneurin Bevan , Ebbw Vale

The speech of the hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) was an astonishing display of superiority and lack of sympathy. It was absolutely amazing to hear a Member of the House of Commons, in 1938, making a speech of that kind. I consider his speech mere impudence, and I hope his constituents will learn all about it. The suggestion that working-class girls make use of insurance benefit in order to become exempt from employment is a charge that I wish were true. My complaint about the working classes is that they are too fond of working. The people who try to avoid work are those represented by the hon. Member. My object in rising, however, was not to say that. The speech of the hon. Member was so stupid that it answers itself. I rose to say that I did not share the view of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) or the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) on these matters. There seems to be a great tendency on the part of the Opposition to call for the extension of unemployment insurance into too many different categories. I do not believe it is necessary to press the Government to do this. I believe there is a very excellent leverage in the hands of the Government which will cause them to do it more and more as time goes on, because the more the categories of insurance the more the Treasury is going to be relieved of the obligations of maintaining unemployed people.

The only distinction between unemployment allowance and unemployment insurance benefit is the means test. I should be in favour of addressing all our efforts to the abolition of the means test because the more we reduce that, the more we remove the difference between the insured worker who is still in receipt of benefit and the man or woman who is in receipt of unemployment assistance. The people I represent would be only too pleased to be rid of the means test. The sooner we can get that the better. We have the extension of insurance principles to wider and wider categories of workers. We have recently added agricultural workers. The general result of extensions of this sort is to unload on to the shoulders of the working class the burden of maintaining unemployed members of the working class. What I want to do is to minimise and modify and ultimately abolish the means test so that all workers who are unable to find employment shall receive maintenance at the expense of the Treasury and not of the contributions of the rest of their fellow workers. The Prayer deplores the fact that unemployment insurance has not been extended to a larger number of workers. I do not consider that to be a very important matter at all. I consider that we on this side need care less and less for that aspect of the matter. What we ought to be addressing ourselves to and what we are neglecting is the abolition of the means test, which makes a distinction between people who have exhausted their benefit and people who have not.

Photo of Mr Dennis Herbert Mr Dennis Herbert , Watford

I thought the hon. Member himself said some time ago that he could not discuss that matter.

Photo of Mr Aneurin Bevan Mr Aneurin Bevan , Ebbw Vale

I am not addressing my remarks to the merits or otherwise of the means test but to the fact that it exists at the moment as a distinction between those in receipt of benefit and those in receipt of unemployment assistance and I do not think it is necessary for us to reinforce the Treasury. Whenever a category of workers comes along whose contributions will be useful to subsidise the other workers who may be out of work the Treasury will include them in the area of unemployment benefit. They have an excellent leverage in their hands. I do not desire to reinforce that leverage. Therefore I say with reluctance that I do not share the view of others who have spoken. Rather would I see the abolition of the difference that divides unemployed workers into two categories. I would rather see them in one category receiving maintenance in consequence of not being able to find employment.

11.55 p.m.

Photo of Mr John Tinker Mr John Tinker , Leigh

Before the Minister replies, I want to say a few words on behalf of Lancashire women. The hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall), as the representative of a Lancashire constituency, criticised our womenfolk and said that they are different from other womenfolk. That is what I assume from his remarks.

Photo of Colonel Sir Joseph Nall Colonel Sir Joseph Nall , Manchester Hulme

I did not say anything of the kind.

Photo of Mr John Tinker Mr John Tinker , Leigh

The hon. Member said that by including other categories of women, it would lead women to work long enough to get whatever benefit unemployment insurance might give to them. That was entirely uncalled for. He appealed for the inclusion of various categories, and said that while extending it they might go further and bring all of them into it. He then added the remark about the womenfolk. They are a part of the community on an equality with men. They are put on the same level as men, and to criticise them in such a way is a slander upon them. I have nothing more to say, but I did not think that it would be fair to let this go unchallenged, as it would appear to the House that our women are worse than other women. I resent that.

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

There are several hares which I could pursue, some of them attractive and some of them very unattractive, but at this very late hour I will speak to the point which has been raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite. I am very glad to notice that he does not propose to challenge a Division upon the Prayer which he has moved. I think he has appreciated that the Regulations laid by my right hon. Friend will include some 170,000 new persons in unemployment insurance, and I think that it is an acknowledgment of that advance that he and his hon. and right hon. Friends have decided not to challenge a Division. I should like to acknowledge the attitude he has shown, and I feel sure that this is the general view of hon. Members as a whole.

The point at issue this evening concerns some 30,000 workers, who, it has been decided, shall not be included in these particular Regulations. All these 30,000 work in some domestic capacity in residential educational establishments. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) is correct in saying that by no means all of them work in the colleges in what are known as the ancient or modern universities. Many of them work in residential schools, and he was right in bringing out that point with regard to our discussion. There has been a certain criticism of the exclusion of this type of domestic workers. They were included under the draft Regulations originally submitted to the Committee, but it was decided by the Government, on the advice of the Statutory Committee, to make these Regulations in the above sense. Therefore, this particular batch is not included on this occasion.

Photo of Mr Edward Williams Mr Edward Williams , Ogmore

Not because they are malingerers?

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

No, certainly not. We considered the point very carefully indeed, and it is one upon which there is a balance of argument either way, and I frankly confess that it is an interesting and difficult point to decide. Therefore, it is in that spirit that we approach the position. I would like to make it quite clear that the fact that the hon. Member opposite does not wish to challenge a Division to-night, and the fact that we allow these Regulations to pass and so include some 170,000 in insurance, does not preclude the possibility of including this batch at a later date. I will give the assurance that we shall consider the case put forward and bear in mind this particular category in the future. Further than that I cannot go this evening.

Photo of Mr Albert Alexander Mr Albert Alexander , Sheffield, Hillsborough

I am very interested in this matter because I gave evidence before the Statutory Committee upon this point. Will the Parliamentary Secretary say, after the Minister had decided to accept the advice of the Statutory Committee and lay the Regulations, what has moved him to accept their advice in this case? Surely, we are entitled to know why these persons axe excluded. It is not sufficient to tell us that it is the recommendation of the Statutory Committee.

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

I was about to give the reasons. The first reason is best described by the Statutory Committee itself on page 9 of their report, in which they say: To push the boundaries of insurance as far forward as is proposed under the Draft Regulations would bring it into regions so similar to that of private domestic service as to produce indefensible anomalies on that border. The Statutory Committee thought it would approximate too closely to private domestic service if we were to extend insurance to this particular class of work. That argument is borne out by further statements in the report, and also by the further consideration which the Government have given to the subject. We have found that the conditions of these workers approximate closely to domestic service in the private houses of the country, and, as hon. Members know, domestic service is not included in insurance. The work done in these residential educational establishments does approximate to the kind of work done in families and private houses. That is one aspect of the question. Another aspect is raised in a rather interesting statement made by Mrs. Stocks, a member of the Statutory Committee, in the "New Statesman," on Christmas Day last year, in which she said: It appears from the evidence that hospitals and non-residential colleges recruit their staffs mainly from Employment Exchanges from workers who alternatively seek insured employment in hotels and restaurants, while residential schools and colleges draw mainly from the domestic servant class, who alternatively seek non-insured employment in private service. It is desirable, other things being equal, to avoid anomalies such as would arise, for instance, when workers go in and out of insured employment while continuing to perform the same type of work. It seems to the Statutory Committee that by drawing the boundaries of insurance in the way suggested such anomalies are likely to be minimised. We have to draw the line somewhere, and private domestic service is not included. The conditions in residential educational establishments approximate as nearly as possible to private domestic service, and therefore the Government decided after anxious consideration that it was better to draw the line at that stage between non-residential and residential establishments, than to do it a little further down in a region in which conditions of work and recruitment more closely approximate.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

In other words it was not because there has been any "scrounging" on the part of these people but because the Government felt that it approximated to ordinary domestic service?

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

That was our reason. I do not want to pursue that matter.

Photo of Mr George Buchanan Mr George Buchanan , Glasgow Gorbals

I think the hon. Member should make it clear that these people are not getting something for which they have not contributed.

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

I say again that I frankly accept the statement of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot). There is a theory in the country that girls do, as has been described in this Debate, scrounge on the dole; I shall be very glad to say, in my official capacity to-night, that we do not accept that position at all.

The other reason that has been raised has been the more permanent employment of these persons in the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges. It was raised by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson). I accept his philosophy on the subject that it is a pity to leave out good lives from insurance and to legislate so that you have only bad lives in the insurance scheme. My argument about the line to be drawn in the method of recruitment in those spheres of domestic work is one on which I would stand to-night, without entering on that broader subject on which we shall enter later.

Photo of Mr Jack Lawson Mr Jack Lawson , Chester-le-Street

Do I understand that there is to be further consideration of these Regulations?

Photo of Mr R.A. Butler Mr R.A. Butler , Saffron Walden

Not of these Regulations. I stand on what I said earlier. The fact that these Regulations are passed does not preclude the possibility of further considering these classes of workers. These Regulations should be passed as they are. For the most part, these classes have superannuation schemes and their future is carefully arranged by the colleges which they serve. The need for an insurance scheme is, therefore, not so vital in their case. Another objection to including this class of worker is the fear that in the Oxford and Cambridge colleges there might be a tendency to casualise employment by turning them off automatically in the summer months. These arguments have convinced the Government that at this stage it is wiser to draw the line where we have put it.

I trust therefore, that hon. Gentlemen opposite and others who are interested in this point will agree that it is wiser to let these Regulations go forward, substantially increase the number of insured, and allow these benefits to be enjoyed by this 170,000 class, and then to let the question be further considered, without prejudice to what decision may be taken in the future.

12.8 a.m.

Photo of Mr Albert Alexander Mr Albert Alexander , Sheffield, Hillsborough

I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour for the somewhat more detailed reasons he has given, although I am bound to say, having studied this matter rather carefully before I went before the Statutory Committee as governor of one of the London colleges, that I am disappointed at the situation that has arisen. The remark which the hon. Gentleman quoted about pushing the boundary of these cases to such an extent as to bring within the region of private domestic service the workers employed by the institutions, and thereby create an anomaly, has resulted in the adoption by the Government of the recommendations of the Statutory Committee. That creates the anomaly that 30,000 workers who have just as much right to be insured against insecurity as any of those in the nonresidential institutions are now to be excluded. That is a perfect anomaly. It seems totally unreasonable that these persons should not have the same protection as those in the other classes of institution.

The hon. Gentleman said something about a comparison of the residential employés with the non-residential showing that they are more related to private domestic service, because they are recruited from domestic service agencies and not from Employment Exchanges. If one looks at the staffs of most of the colleges which have put forward this point of view, I do not think that can be substantiated. The staffs of those great institutions are composed of persons who are now excluded from insurance, but who are doing real manual work, although they are classed as domestic servants. The general work of the persons on the domestic staffs of those institutions cannot possibly be likened to the work of the small private household, employing from one to four men. Those who have visited these colleges—and certainly those hon. Members who have lived in them in a way which most of us have not had a chance of doing—know quite well that it is much nearer the standard of service of the first-class hotel than that of a small private domestic establishment. Insurance is given to hotel servants, but it is refused to servants in the large residential educational establishments. That is a complete anomaly. As the Parliamentary Secretary has kindly said that, while the Regulations stand to-night, they will be reconsidered, all I ask is that that reconsideration should be quick.

Question, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Unemployment Insurance (Insurable Employments) Regulations, which were presented to this House on the 22nd day of December, 1937, be annulled,

put, and negatived.

The remaining Orders of the Day were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, upon Tuesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.)

Adjourned at Twelve Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.