Mr James Reid: 27. asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps, if any, are to be taken to carry out the recommendations regarding registration of writs and other matters contained in the Departmental Committee's Report of 1928?
Mr James Reid: I must crave the indulgence of the Committee in rising to speak for the first time. I feel gratifled that I am enabled to make some remarks on the question of finance, not that finance is a likeable subject—at least I do not find it so—but because I find that it lies at the base of the whole of our present position. It seems to me that until we -have settled our financial difficulties we...
Mr James Reid: 20. asked the President of the Board of Trade what respective quantities of baths of iron or steel and of stoves, grates, and ranges for domestic cooking or heating have been imported into the United Kingdom during each month since September, 1931?
Mr James Reid: I beg to second the Amendment, from a slightly different point of view, perhaps, than that of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Milne). I do not think the hon. Member meant, and I certainly do not mean, to suggest that every Measure that affects Scotland should be in the form of a separate Bill. Very far from it. There are many Measures in regard to which it would not only be no advantage to...
Mr James Reid: My purpose in addressing the Committee is to add my voice to the voices of those who seek to forward the cause of economy. I welcome —and I think we all welcome, apart from the Opposition—the very considerable economies which have hitherto been achieved, and I think that the Minister deserves great credit for those economies. But I do not think that the matter can stop there. It was...
Mr James Reid: I rise as a Scottish Member to support the Government and to oppose the Amendment, which seems to me to be entirely ill-conceived, and conceived in the interests of one trade alone. Let me give one example to show how it would work out in practice. We have been told that a £6 bicycle is let out at 2s. 6d. per week. At the end of the first week the person who hires it may find that it does...
Mr James Reid: My answer is that he ought to be charged a reasonable sum for hire. If an article depreciates rapidly, as bicycles apparently do, to charge only 2s. 6d. a week for a machine that costs £6 is an entirely vicious method of doing business. It means that you are charging too little for even the hire of a bicycle, let alone the purchase.
Mr James Reid: Certainly not as to total price, but, if a bicycle depreciates at the rate of more than 2s. 6d. a week, obviously the instalment ought to be more than 2s. 6d. a week, but it should not go on for so long. If my hon. and gallant Friend's constituents are getting business by spreading the instalments 'over too long a time, that is a vicious system. Hire purchase ought never to be in such a state...
Mr James Reid: No one would imagine from the tone of the speech which we have just heard that the last Estimates introduced by the Government supported by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) were £60,000 short of the Estimates of which we are going to approve to-night. One would think that economy had fallen with peculiar force upon Scottish housing, judging from the speech we have just heard. It...
Mr James Reid: My main object in rising to address the Committee is to deal with the point with which the Minister of Health has just been dealing, namely, the transfer of additional liability to the Poor Law. As I understand the proposal of the Resolution, it will entitle Poor Law authorities not only to give additional money to able-bodied unemployed, who, it is true, are in a very similar position to...
Mr James Reid: 31. asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he has taken, or proposes to take, for preserving Scottish records and making them available for research purposes?
Mr James Reid: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the national records are at least being preserved from decay?
Mr James Reid: I should not venture for a moment to support this Amendment if it meant mean or shabby treatment to anybody, and we rather resent the accusation that because we wish to do things in a businesslike and not an un-businesslike manner we are therefore being mean or shabby. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that the Poor Law has stood in exactly the same position for the last 12 years. Both...
Mr James Reid: I am using the Minister's own word.
Mr James Reid: I am not putting the blame on anybody. The Bill as it stands will be exceedingly difficult to work and will lead to many anomalies as between one area and another, because the problem proposed in the Bill for each local authority is this, that when each individual case comes before them the public assistance committee will have to decide: "Is this man deserving, in which case we will give him...
Mr James Reid: I think the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. I will read what the Minister of Health said last night, and I take it that he knows the law in this matter. He said: I have argued that there is a big class of those in receipt of public assistance who are indistinguishable on the merits of their cases from those who are in receipt of transitional payments. They ought to receive the...
Mr James Reid: The hon. Member must know that there are many cases where outdoor relief is offered, where indoor relief might be offered.
Mr James Reid: I am taking the Minister's own view, and he ought to know how the law is being administered. It seems to me that this intermediate class must be dealt with in a very different way from the way proposed by the Bill. If you are going to draw a distinction between people all of whom are unemployed, some of whom are deserving and some undeserving, you are putting on the shoulders of public...
Mr James Reid: In view of the lateness of the hour, I will restrict myself to certain practical points which I wish to put forward, and cut very short indeed any general remarks which I may have to make. I do not think any hon. Member up to date, apart from the Secretary of State, has touched upon the statement in the Gracious Speech that we are to have a Court of Session Bill this Session. I think the...
Mr James Reid: I had intended to preface my remarks by an examination of the problem as it stands to-day, but the problem has been so clearly stated by the Under-Secretary, and by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) that not a word more is necessary. I accept the view of the right hon. and gallant Member for Caithness that the minimum requirement of houses in...
