Unemployment Assistance
The announcement by the Minister of Labour in the House of Commons on Tuesday that the new Unem- ployment Assistance Regulations would, at last, be published on July 14th, provoked very reasonable criticism. The Government has taken over sixteen months to prepare the regulations. The House is to be given hardly a fortnight in which to examine them, master them, debate them and pass them. Yet they concern one of the country's gravest problems, and any injustice or error in them may cause suffering to the 2,500,000 men and women whom they will affect. A fortnight is, in fact, not sufficient time for studying them in detail, and the irritation caused, first of all by the long delay in their publication, and now by the feeling that the House and the Opposition are being unfairly treated, will inevitably impair the quality of the debate. Since the regulations are believed to be already in draft, there seems to be little reason why the date should not be a week earlier. But it is, in any case, reassuring to know that the regulations will not come into force before November, when the House will again be sitting.
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