UNEMPLOYMENT BILL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 313, 1 December 1933, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT BILL

NEW BRITISH MEASURE. DRASTIC INSURANCE CHANGES. ‘ OUTLINE OF PROGRAMME. (British Official Wireless.) (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received December 1, 11.30 a.m. RUGBY, Nov. 30. The new Unemployment Bill, which is the most important Government measure in the first part of the present session, was debated in the House of Commons to-day. It makes drastic amendments to the previous unemployment insurance Acts, establishes the solvency of the insurance fund, provides outside unemployment insurance for assisting and promoting the welfare of able-bodied persons and extends the period of the benefit. In moving the second reading, the Minister for Labour (Sir Henry Betterton) described the Bill as one of the most comprehensive pieces of social legislation introduced for over a generation. It represented the logical development of the policy pursued by every party in Great Britain during the last thirty years. It was significant that the peqple of other countries who previously derided the British system were now in their bewilderment and perplexity hastily improvising an imitation of it. The present Bill was based on the fundamental principle that on one hand there should be a contributory insurance scheme covering as much of the field as possible and on the other hand an outside body assuming general responsibility for the relief of able-bodied unemployed. The broad principles on which the insurance part of the Bill was based were:—

(1) That the scheme be financed by contributions from employers, workers and the State.

(2) That the benefits be dependent upon the contributions. (3) That the scheme be placed on a solvent self-supporting basis. No change is made in the provisions whereby insured persons who had paid 30 contributions in the last two years were qualified for the minimum period of the benefit for 26 weeks. • That period of 26 weeks would, however, be extended to contributors with the best record. When the present Government took office excessive expenditure on the ordinary insurance account was made at the rate of £60,000,000 yearly. At present, following the recent improvement in employment, the rate of the increased income would now exceed the fate of expenditure by about £8,500,000 yearly on a live register of 2,500,000 persons. The Minister proposed to use this balance by extending the period of the benefit to persons with the best industrial record. For instance, if a man during the previous five years had paid all the contributions, which were £260, and bad drawn no benefit then such a man would be . entitled to 26 weeks in addition to the 26 weeks which he now got as the minimum. Per contra, where the record was not so good, where a man had some benefit and his contributions had not been fully paid, then he would get, according to the state of his balance, something less than 26 weeks. There would be 167,000 more persons entitled to the benefit and fewer persons would be subjected to the means test. The Bill not only put the insurance scheme on a sound financial basis for the immediate future, but it also established machinery to enable it to be kept solvent.

The second part of the Bill was based on three main principles:— (1) That assistance be proportionate to needs. (2) That the worker wlic had been long unemployed might receive assistance other than, and in addition to, cash payments. (3) That the State should accept general responsibility for their industrial able-bodied men outside the insurance scheme.