The Unemployment Vote for this year consists of £350,000, of which £130,000 is a revote. The House will remember that last year there was a revote of £150,000. In the previous year, somewhere about £2,000,000 was provided for the purpose of unemployment relief, and in working out the different uses to which that money could be put, we found that while there were certain uses to which it could be put immediately there were uses, and very valuable uses, such as Local Government work in drainage and sewerage, and water works and things of that kind, which required a very considerable amount of preparation, and that if any organised scheme of distribution as between different activities of the Unemployment Vote was to be carried on, it would be necessary to find a means of anticipating the inevitable time lag between the preparation of schemes and the carrying of them on, and anticipating in the sense of providing money in advance so that schemes could be started. For instance, if you want to start a sewerage scheme, it is necessary for the Local Government Department, first, to have the scheme and all its circumstances examined. Then it is necessary for them, having estimated the price of it, to make a definite and firm offer to the local authority as an inducement to the local authority to put up a certain considerable or inconsiderable proportion of the total amount required.
For that reason, it is impossible to get local government sewerage and waterworks into a scheme on a definite time schedule unless you make financial preparation in advance and, therefore, in that year, when there was an amount like £2,000,000 for the purposes of unemployment relief, we decided to put aside in that form about £150,000 in works which had already been authorised but which could not be carried out. The effect of that is that each year finances the preparation and time lag in the works of the next year and just as in the first year, it was financed to the extent of £150,000 which was not spent in the year for which it was originally voted but was spent in the succeeding year, so, too, in this and subsequent years, it will be necessary to use some of the actually voted money for the purpose of anticipating and making preparation for the next year. That had the defect in the first year of tying up £150,000 which otherwise might have been used upon works which could have been immediately done but which could not have been used, as I tell you, on more desirable works which did, in fact, require to be done, but as each year goes on you will see that the defect is only in the first year and that this carrying on of the re-voted money means that, in practice, in every year in the future, an amount equal to the amount actually voted will in fact be spent. This year it came down from £150,000 to £130,000 and next year we might become closer, to the extent that we might come to £100,000, but, in any case, it will be necessary for re-votes to be taken for the purpose of anticipating the necessary preparation. I do not think that point has been understood and there has been some illusion as to the significance of that re-vote. I move to report progress.
