asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider arranging consultations with county agricultural committees as to the possibility of absorbing a large number of unemployed workers into agricultural work during the summer months on condition that they still continue to receive unemployment benefit, that the work is of such a nature that other agricultural workers will not be displaced, and that it shall only apply to such unemployed persons as shall volunteer to participate?

Arrangements have been made regularly for some years in co-operation with representatives of the farmers to offer to suitable unemployed workers during the summer months agricultural work in areas where sufficient numbers of agricultural workers are not available; but I am afraid the adoption of the condition suggested by my hon. Friend is quite impracticable.

asked the Minister of Labour the names of the workmen's representatives on the appeals and other committees under the Unemployment Assistance Board dealing with Rotherham and district?

I am sending to the hon. Member a list of the names of the workpeople's representatives on the panel of the apeals tribunal for the Rotherham district. There are no other committees connected with the Unemloyment Assistance Board.

asked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed and the percentage of unemployment registered at the Taff's Well Employment Exchange on the last available date?

The number of unemployed persons, aged 14 years and over (insured and uninsured), on the registers of the Taff's Well Employment Exchange at 25th February, 1935, was 679. I am unable to state what percentage this figure represents of the employable population in this area, but among insured persons aged 16–64 the proportion recorded as unemployed at the same date was 34.4 per cent. of the total number insured at July, 1934.

asked the Minister of Labour whether he will issue instructions that, in recruiting the seasonal workers for harvesting the potato crop in the Channel Islands, preference is to be given to ex-service men; and whether he is in a position to give an assurance that, on the return of such workers, they will not suffer in respect of the payment of unemployment allowances?

Selection of men for this work must be based primarily upon their industrial qualifications, but subject to this consideration preference is given to ex-service men among equally suitable applicants. The employment does not render the workers ineligible for unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance on their return to England.

asked the Minister of Labour how many employers have arranged with their employes… to share out the work so as not to put some of them out of employment; and can he give the number of workers affected and the total who would be out of work but for the arrangement?

pursuant to his reply [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1935; col. 18, Vol. 298],supplied the following statement:The sharing of work by means of short-time working has been for many years the ordinary practice in certain industries, notably the cotton textile industry and coal mining, as a means of avoiding or reducing discharges during a depression in trade. Of recent years it has been adopted, for similar reasons, in many other industries. In most cases of this kind there is not, so far as I am aware, any prior consultation with the workpeople, but sometimes there is discussion of the details of the arrangements to be made, and there are cases in which the arrangements were definitely agreed with representatives of the workpeople or adopted at their suggestion. In the tinplate industry in South Wales arrangements have been made between representatives of employers and workpeople for the substitution of a six-hour for an eight-hour shift in certain mills. In the shale oil industry in Scotland there are arrangements under which workpeople in employment have an idle spell every fourth week. This last-mentioned scheme