MEANS TEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 11

MEANS TEST

REMOVAL IN BRITAIN

"REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE"

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received February 15, 1 p.m.)

RUGBY, February 14.

Under the formal title Determination of Needs BUI, the House of Commons last night gave the second, reading to a measure which is. calculated to remove a long-standing grievance of British workers over the method of granting unemployment assistance or supplementary pensions. The "household means test" meant that the resources of all members of the applicant's household should, be considered. Sir Kingsley Wood has now announced that under the Bill this is absolutely abolished. • ■ Although there were a few dissenters among the more, extreme Labour members, Mr. Pethick-Lawrence, the veteran Labour leader, spoke for an overwhelming majority of the party when he. said that the Bill, although not giving the workers 100 per. cent, of what they had been asking, constituted a revolutionary change in a principle which dated back to .the days of Queen Elizabeth.' It shifted the obligation of looking after the old and unemployed from their families, to the State

Mr. Bevin, Minister of Labour, gave a pledge that the minimum standard laid down in the Bill, before a citizen could be called on in any way to take responsibility for another citizen would be based on the normal-wage of the-industry and that such things as overtime and Sunday work .would not be taken into account.