On Friday the Maxton group boldly attacked the administration of
the so-called Anomalies Act, which was one of the last legislative efforts of the Labour Government. The Act applies special tests to married women and to seasonal workers who claim unemployment benefit, and was passed upon the contention that these classes of persons had prima facie left the insurance field either permanently or temporarily. The debate pro- duced two worthy antagonists in Mr. Buchanan, who has made a reputation for knowing the Socialist case in these matters, and Mr. R. S. Hudson, the new Par- liamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. Mr. Hudson was one of that band of Conservatives in the 1924-29 Parliament deftly called the Y.M.C.A., but he escaped the sentimental futilities into which some of his colleagues fell, and during an enforced absence from the last Parliament he has made a profound study of unemployment insurance. The debate showed that the strength of the Anomalies Act was its insistence on the principle that, whatever a person had. paid in premiums, no insurance system can entitle him or her to draw benefit when the risk of unemployment has in fact disappeared, as it does disappear when that person is not normally in the labour market at all. The weakness of the Act is that it creates great ostensible anomalies in that, for example, it disqualifies persons who have paid many more contributions than those who can still qualify.
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