Budget matters were revived on Monday when a new clause
respecting the restoration of benefits was moved by the Government in Committee on the Unemployment Bill. The House was pleasantly startled to hear from Sir Henry Betterton that the restored rate will have the same purchasing power as £1 had in 1931. This fact made Mr. Greenwood's criticism of the delay in restoring the rate until July 1st sound like peevish twittering. The Budget, indeed, has enormously eased the passage of the Bill. The Report stage, which once promised to be anxious, is likely to check only upon the proposals to charge the Fund with the whole repayment of its debt, to increase children's allowances (a point which the Statutory Committee under the Bill can meet), and to change the unit of assessment of need from the family to the individual. Mr. Chamberlain explained on Monday that the increase in the rate of benefit would have a great reflection in the rate of relief payable to uninsured unemployed. It remains true that the Fund will do more than the Exchequer for the unemployed, but that is only because employ- ment has so improved that the Fund is prosperous.
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