NATIONAL INSUEANCE BILL. (Hansard, 18 July 1911)

§ Mr. SNOWDEN
I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (3).
If the obvious interpretation of this Subsection is correct it is surely the most extraordinary provision in the Bill. It 994 proposes to give a reduced benefit to the1 insured person who is over fifty years of age at the date of making any claim for benefits and has not paid at least 500 weekly contributions. For instance, a man joining at forty-two years of age may make his first claim shortly after reaching fifty, but, not having paid 500 weekly contributions, if this Sub-section is retained, he will not be entitled to benefit, whereas if he made his first claim thirteen months after becoming an insured person, he would be entitled to 10s. a week. After having paid only fifty-three or fifty-four premiums he would be entitled to the full benefit of 10s., but he might have paid 499 premiums, and never drawn any benefit, and then be entitled to only 7s. a week. 995 Surely that is altogether indefensible, and I shall await with interest the explanation from the Treasury Bench.

§ Mr. McKENNA
Under the scheme of this Bill the contributor who gets the greatest advantage is the oldest man who comes in, and the one who gets the smallest advantage is the youth of sixteen. If a man of fifty went to an ordinary friendly society and wished to obtain the benefits which the Bill now gives, he would have to pay something like Is. a week. The Committee will remember that the contributor pays 4d., the employer 3d., and the State the equivalent of 2d., so that the man of fifty gets for a contribution of 9d. the equivalent of 1s. That is under the Bill as it stands. If the Amendment of the hon. Member were carried, it would raise the necessary contribution from 1s. to 1s. 1d., so that the man would be getting for 9d., of which he pays only 4d., the equivalent of a weekly contribution of 1s. 1d. There must come a moment when the advantage of the senior contributor stops. Wherever you draw the line you will be able to point to the hard case of the man just above the line as compared with the easy case of the man just below the line. But the line must be drawn somewhere. The hon. Member will be able to make the same criticism wherever, in any scheme or Bill, the line might be drawn. What the Committee has to consider is whether the man of fifty is or is not badly treated under the Bill as it now stands? He is, as I have explained, getting the equivalent of a contribution of 1s., and I do not think the Committee ought to be asked to go further and to give him the equivalent of a contribution of 1s. 1d. at the expense of the other contributors. The hon. Member must remember that a Resolution of the House having been passed limiting the contribution of the State, the whole of this additional charge would fall upon the other contributors to the scheme. Is it fair to ask the other contributors who are reaping, all of them, less advantage than the older men, to forego still further their small advantages to give a still greater additional benefit to the older men?

§ Mr. FORSTER
The right hon. Gentleman who has just set down has spoken to us of the benefits conferred by the Bill as it now stands. I thought the general impression was that the man who became an employed contributor was going to get 10s. per week during sickness? We have 996 been told that upon the shoulders of the younger members of the community there must be placed some portion of the burden taken off the shoulders of the older men. We were told that the younger men were to make some sort of contribution in respect of those who were older. We have been told in the most picturesque speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Birmingham, that while the burden which would have been imposed upon the friendly societies if the State had left them unassisted would have been intolerable, the State was going to put its shoulder to the wheel and take upon itself the burden and the task of rejuvenating the nation. A large amount of misconception has been created by what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said. Many people had not the slightest notion that the benefit was going to be reduced from 10s. to 7s. per week when the claimant was over fifty years of age. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Blackburn pointed out the hardship of the case of the man who has contributed for nearly 500 weeks. He gets only 7s. per week, whilst the man who has contributed only fifty-three or fifty-four weeks gets 10s.

§ Mr. SNOWDEN
The same man!

§ Mr. FORSTER
The same man. The First Lord of the Admiralty has pointed out that this is one of those cases of hardship which it is almost impossible to escape. The First Lord has spoken almost entirely with respect to the compulsory contributor. I want to touch upon the position of the voluntary contributor. I think the latter case is one not met by anything the First Lord said. Under Clause 5 the voluntary contributor, if he comes in within six months after the Bill comes into operation, if he is under the age of forty-five, pays the same contribution as the compulsory contributor. If he is over forty-five he pays a premium appropriate to his age. There is no 4d. a week about that! The contribution of the voluntary contributor of forty-five or forty-six years of age will be nearer 1s. A shilling a week for what? For 10s. a week benefit! For how long? Until he is fifty! He will have a period of four and a half years only, as I read the Subsection, during which he will be entitled to the sickness benefit of 10s. per week. In four and a-half years he will have reached the age of fifty. When he reaches that age, although he has paid not the flat rate of 4d. per week, but 1s. per week, he 997 will only receive benefit at the rate of 7s. per week. This proposal is to all intents and purposes for the first ten years. Where the contributor has paid 500 weekly contributions I suppose he will receive 10s. per week sickness benefit, but the voluntary contributor who comes in after forty-five never has a chance of paying the weekly contributions for ten years, for he reaches the age of fifty in five years or less, and, therefore, he never has had the opportunity of paying ten years' weekly contributions, which would entitle him to 10s. after he reached the age of fifty. I may be wrong in my reading of the Sub-section. I put in a manuscript Amendment in order we may have a discussion upon it, and if I am wrong my misconception can be cleared up. I ask the Chancellor to tell me how this Sub-section is going to operate in the case of the voluntary contributor?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
What the hon. Member has stated is certainly not the intention of the Government, but I think there is some doubt about the drafting of the Clause, and I see an Amendment has been put down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. A. Chamberlain) to make that perfectly clear. The intention of the Government is correctly interpreted by that Amendment, and we propose to put the matter right, not exactly in the words of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but in some words which my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has got here. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn raised another point, but my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty dealt with that. It is not the intention at all that a voluntary contributor should pay his 1s. and have his benefit cut down when he reaches the age of fifty.

§ Mr. SNOWDEN
We had not the advantage of hearing the Chancellor of the Exchequer down here, and I do not know whether he dealt with my criticism or not. The First Lord of the Admiralty never tame within one hundred miles of touching my criticisms, and I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain my point. It was the case of a man who, at the beginning of this Act, will be forty-one or forty-two years of age, and having contributed, will be entitled to sick pay of 10s. a week. Suppose he is an insured person for just under ten years, and never comes on the fund at all, at fifty years of age he would 998 not have the benefit he had some years before, and he would be entitled only to 7s. a week.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
That is the same point I have just replied to. I am sorry I did not make myself heard. What the hon. Member for Blackburn has just stated is not our intention, and we shall put the matter right.

§ Mr. SNOWDEN
I understand that a man who has been a good member is not going to be penalised?

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
That is so.

§ Mr. SNOWDEN
I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
I beg to move in Sub-section (3) to leave out the word "is" ["is over fifty years of age"] and to insert instead thereof the words "becomes an employed contributor within one year after the commencement of this Act, and is at the date of so becoming an employed contributor."
Those words will meet the case of the hon. Member for Blackburn and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire. The words "at the date of any claim by him for such benefit" will be left out, and I also propose to insert the words "at the date of any claim by him for such benefit." The Sub-section will then read as follows:— (3) Sickness benefit shall be reduced in accordance with Table C in Part 1 of the fourth Schedule to this Act in the case of any insured person who becomes an employed contributor within one year after the commencement of this Act, and is at the date of so becoming an employed contributor over fifty years of age and has not at the date of any claim by him for such benefit paid at least five hundred weekly contributions. I think that will make the meaning clear.

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
moved, in Subsection (3), to leave out the words "at the date of any claim by him for such benefit."

Mr. WORTHINGTON - EVANS
The Government seem to have gone half way towards meeting the Amendments which are on the Paper, and one which I was intending to propose, but they do not seems to have gone all the way. The Government get rid of the first and greatest diffi- 999 culty, namely, that the age of fifty was to be calculated from the date of claim. It is now to be calculated, as I gather, within one year from the date of the Act. That is a great improvement, because it will remove a large number of inequalities which would otherwise exist. As the Bill was drawn, those who claimed the latest would receive less benefit than those who claimed earlier, assuming they entered into insurance at the same age. Still, the Government have not gone far enough, because they put in the qualification, "those who have not paid 500 contributions at the date of the claim are to be reduced." It seems to me that still contains most of the objections which the original Clause had. If a person is over fifty at the date of entry into insurance, then I agree he ought to have a lower rate of benefit, but if, on the other hand, he is under fifty at the date of entry into insurance, it does not seem to me the date of the claim has anything whatever to do with it. The date of entry is the governing point, and not the date of the claim. Under the Amendment moved by the Attorney-General, unless both at the date at entry he is under fifty and 500 contributions have been paid—

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
It is the reverse.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
This being one of those manuscript Amendments sprung upon the Committee at the last moment, a copy of which has not been handed to the Members on. this side of the House, it is extremely difficult to follow it. I would suggest to the Attorney-General that he should postpone the consideration of it until we have had an opportunity of ascertaining exactly what it means. It does not seem to me fair. The Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day objected to a manuscript Amendment, and, in one of those expansive moments of his, brushed it on one side. If we could brush this aside, and refer it to a later period, we might be able to understand it. There are, as it appears, two things, one of which is objectionable and the other of which I agree is a great improvement to that on the Paper; that is to say the date is now to be the age of entry into the insurance. But you have still an extra qualification.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The hon. Gentleman completely misconceives the effect of the Amendment. It is quite the other way about. All we have done here is to accept the Amendment of the right hon. Gentle- 1000 man the Member for East Worcestershire, although we have put it in language which is better from our point of view. It is not the case that we introduce another qualification which we say is if he has paid 500 contributions he gets full pay.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I will accept the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But there is still another point. I have an Amendment on the Paper, and I would ask the Government are they willing to accept that portion which limits it to his first becoming an insured person either under this Act or as a member of any society which shall become an approved society under this Act?

§ The CHAIRMAN
We cannot discuss that now.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
If it is in order to limit the benefits to those who have paid 500 contributions it must also be in order to extend it to those who have done other things, such as become a member of other societies which subsequently become approved societies. If the Chancellor thinks it is out of order I will not say any more, but I should like to make one or two remarks upon it.

§ The CHAIRMAN
It has already been ruled out of order by the Deputy-Chairman. It has been laid down that a member of a friendly society which subsequently becomes an approved society will not be specially exempt from deductions or post-ponements under this Act.

Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANS
I do not wish to argue the question, but this is a totally different question to disqualification.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I want to make sure that the case of the voluntary contributor is covered. I am, of course, bound to accept the assurance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it is covered, but my recollection of the form of words read out by the Attorney-General is that they have no reference to the position of the voluntary contributor at all.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
May I point out that there is no reduction at all in the case of the voluntary contributor. He has paid the full rate and there is consequently no reduction in his case such as there is in the case of the employed contributor.

§ Mr. FORSTER
I am, of course, bound to accept the assurance of the Government. Of course if it is found later on that some 1001 doubt arises an opportunity will be afforded of solving it. May I inquire how far the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to go to-night.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
We sat rather late last night and there is perhaps a general desire we should get away early to-night. If we get Clause 9 I think we might then report Progress.

§ Mr. JAMES HOPE
I should like to ask as to the position of the man aged forty-eight at the commencement of this Act. As the Bill is drafted, I understand it will be impossible for him to make 500 contributions. In order to get full pay he would have to wait till he is fifty-six. To pay his 500 contributions would take eight or nine years of his life. When we see the Amendment on the Paper it may be all right. In the case of the man of forty-eight it is impossible for him to pay his contributions.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
The man of forty-eight is all right. The 500 has nothing to do with the matter.

§ Mr. R. COOPER
I want respectfully to submit that we should have all the Amendments down on the Paper. We do not know what we are discussing in the Amendment the Government are putting forward.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT
I do not know whether it would be proper for me to offer an explanation of the Chancellor's Amendment, but I propose to do so. I do it for this reason: I want to know whether the explanation I have is the correct explanation. I certainly do not want to be voting for an Amendment under a misapprehension of what it is. The Clause as it stands places a limit on the benefits of those who are over fifty at the time they make a claim.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
No.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT
The Clause as it stands seems to me to limit the benefit of those over fifty at the time they make the claim. I am bound to believe the evidence of my own sight. That applies for all time unless some Amendment is made. The Amendment which the Chancellor makes and which we have not on the Paper—I quite appreciate the difficulty of hon. Members opposite in dealing with an Amendment which they have not in writing—seems to me to propose that this 1002 limitation shall be confined to those who are over fifty at the time this Act is passed or within one year after the Act is passed.

§ Mr. STEPHEN WALSH
I beg to move in Sub-section (4) to leave out the words "and maternity benefit" ["the rate of sickness benefit and maternity benefit."]

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
This is a reasonable Amendment. I do not think maternity benefit ought to be reduced.

§ Mr. LEES SMITH
I beg to move, in Sub-section (4), after the word "college" ["has been spent in a school or college"], to insert the words "in indentured apprenticeship or otherwise under instruction without wages."
This Sub-section (4) gives some privileges to those who are at school or college or otherwise completing their education, but it only gives them in the case of scholastic education. That is not the only kind of education. To my mind anyone who is training himself for the work of his life should be given similar privileges. In order to achieve that object I move the wider form of words.

§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think this is a reasonable Amendment. I do not think that in cases of this kind there ought to be a reduction.