Details of the Government's plan: for dealing with unemployment, issued to-day in a White Paper, show an estimated expenditure on schemes under the Development Act and under the Unemployment Grants Committee totalling just over £20, 000,000.
The expenditure on roads and ridges is dealt with separately. is stated that schemes for road development, for which grants out of the Road Fund have been applied for, have been approved in detail, or in principle, to the value of over ££24,000,000. It is estimated Road Fund liability in these schemes will be approximately £16,000,000 and that the work provided will be equivalent to the employment of 100,000 men for one year, The Insurance Bill The House of Commons to-day completed the committee stage the Unemployment Insurance Bill after rejecting, by 279 votes to 21, new clause, moved by members of the Left Wing of the Labour Party, reducing from six days. to three the period a man has to wait before drawing the "dole." concession, if adopted, would have cost about £4,000,000 a year.
The Liberals abstained voting, but some Conservatives supported the Government.
The Bill will involve a total charge to the Exchequer this year £24,500,000 compared with £12,. (000,000 provided in the Estimates for 1920-80. Most of the increas: goes to extend "the transitional period" for the payment of benefit persons not possessing 30 contributions, This is designed to obviate the risk of depriving 120,009 persons of benefit in 1930.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.