§ 5. Mr. McKayasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what would be the total extra contributions for increased pensions paid by a man with a wage of £12 per week if he joined the graduated scheme at the age of 40 years, including the extra payments each five years; what would be his additional pension at the age of 65 years; what would be the value of these contributions if paid into a bank at 3½ per cent. compound interest rate; and for how many years he could, after reaching the age of 65 years, draw from the bank at the rate of 10s. per week.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterSuch a man would pay extra contributions above the present totalling just over £140 and would qualify for additional pension of a little over 10s. a week at 65, payable during his lifetime, with a right to half that amount for a surviving widow. The value of the extra contributions, if accumulated at 3½ per cent., would be about £205 and, assuming that interest continued to accrue after age 65, this would suffice to pay him a pension of 10s. a week for a little over nine years.
§ Mr. McKayIs it not correct to say that that amount of money would be sufficient for the average life of the ordinary individual, and if that is so, is it not rather a mean State scheme which only provides the amount of benefit that a man's own contribution would give and under which he would receive no benefit whatsoever from the employer or yet from the State?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe hon. Member is, I am afraid, under a misapprehension in his calculation. The period given in my Answer was about nine years. 813 At age 65 the expectation of life is about 12 years; and there is also the question of survivor's benefit for the widow.
§ 6. Mr. Mulleyasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if, in view of the increasing amount of short-time working in industry, he will amend the rules governing the payment of unemployment benefit so that workers normally employed on a five-day week receive benefit for the days they are unemployed at the rate of one-fifth instead of one-sixth the benefit of a full week for each day for which they qualify for benefit, since they receive no payment for Saturdays.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe provision to which the hon. Member refers is embodied in the National Insurance Acts. It was fully discussed during the debates on the National Insurance Act last year, and legislation would be required to vary it. I should add that any departure from the principle that daily rates of both sickness and unemployment benefit are the same for all claimants would cause formidable difficulties and anomalies.
§ Mr. MulleyDoes not the Minister take the view that he is getting it both ways? If he takes the present Regulations, it means that a five-day week worker is entitled to claim only one of those five days when unemployed—he gets no benefit for Saturday—and yet he only pays in for that one day at one-sixth of the weekly rate instead of one-fifth. Surely, in order to meet an anomaly in the unemployment insurance benefit rate, that benefit could be administered separately from any rates for sickness. The problem of short-time working is relevant to unemployment, and I do not think it would have any other consequence for the other rates of benefit which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. Could the Minister look at the matter to see if any amendment could be introduced?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe hon. Member will recall that we discussed this matter at length on last year's Bill, and the understanding of the House was that it was quite impossible to separate the treatment of sickness benefit and unemployment benefit in this respect. After all, the same man may be entitled to both in consecutive periods.
§ Mr. S. SilvermanDoes the right hon. Gentleman not understand that a great many things have happened since we discussed this matter a year ago, notably the rapid and rather appalling deterioration in the textile trade in Lancashire? Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that this position in Lancashire is very relevant to what my hon. Friend has been asking him, because a great deal of the unemployment is concealed unemployment by reason of its being short-time working and under-employment in the factory itself, which neither appears in the Ministry of Labour returns nor is compensated by any unemployment benefit? Does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that if the Government can do nothing for the cotton workers in their employment, at least they should not cheat them of their unemployment pay?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe question of the adequacy of these fractions was fully thrashed out a year ago, when the House came to a very different conclusion from that expressed, in somewhat intemperate language, by the hon. Member.
§ 8. Mr. Wadeasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance under what regulations and by what authority he does not allow a National Insurance contributor, or the widow of such contributor, to receive full benefits under the present National Insurance Scheme on the grounds that, prior to the date when the present National Insurance Scheme came into effect, such contributor was a voluntary contributor and that his voluntary contributions had temporarily lapsed.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe National Insurance (Pensions, Existing Contributors) (Transitional) Regulations, 1948, made under Section 65 of the National Insurance Act, 1946.
§ Mr. WadeIs the Minister not exceeding the powers conferred on him by the National Insurance Act, 1946? Since Section 65 of that Act provides for the preservation of rights conferred by previous enactments, surely it is going both beyond the letter and the spirit of that Act to reduce a pension under the existing scheme merely because the contributor happened to be a voluntary contributor some time in the past?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterSo far as the legal validity of the Regulations is concerned, since ten years have elapsed since they were made by my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Llannelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), and since, as far as I know, they have not been challenged, I should think it extremely doubtful that there is any substance in the point made by the hon. Member. On the merits, it was, of course, in general an advantage to contributors that pre-scheme contributions were taken into account for the much higher post-scheme benefits.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe hon. Member, no doubt, has sufficient experience of administration to know that most rules covering general propositions have disadvantageous effects on a limited number of people.