NATIONAL INSURANCE (MARRIED WOMEN) (Hansard, 14 December 1960)

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith)
I beg to move, That the National Insurance (Married Women) Amendment Regulations, 1960, a draft of which was laid before this House on 29th July, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved. These Regulations make a technical amendment to the National Insurance (Married Women) Regulations, 1948. The amendment is necessary to implement the intention of the National Insurance Act, 1959, that married women earning over £9 should be required to pay graduated contributions under the new graduated pension scheme, on the same basis as other people.
Married women will still have the option not to pay flat rate contributions and rely on their husbands' insurance, or to pay such contributions and establish their own individual insurance right. But where they earn over £9 a week they will, as outlined in the White Paper "Provision for Old Age", be equally liable as other employees for graduated contribution, unless they are in a scheme which is accepted as "contracted out".
In a country where so many women are in employment, and where the rights of the married woman are so actively championed, there is no justifiable reason for differentiating between married and single women in relation to their obligations and their rights under the graduated scheme.
Thus, Section 14 (4) of the National Insurance Act, 1959, provided that Section 59 of the National Insurance Act, 1946, which requires the Minister to make regulations providing for the exception of married women from liability to pay contributions, should not require him to make provision for excepting them from liability to pay graduated contributions.
To implement the intention of the 1959 Act fully, however, it is necessary for the Minister not merely to refrain from making new Regulations excepting married 552 women from liability to pay graduated contributions, but also to ensure that the Regulations already made, before the passing of the 1959 Act, do not have that effect—since it might be argued that they apply automatically to graduated contributions as well as to flat-rate contributions. The proposed amending Regulations are accordingly designed to secure that the existing Regulations are not interpreted as conferring upon married women a right to elect not to pay graduated contributions under the 1959 Act. In terms they provide that the word "contributions" in the existing Regulations does not include graduated contributions under the 1959 Act.
It is, I know, appreciated that under the graduated scheme a wife cannot receive any graduated pension on the graduated contributions paid by her husband, so long as he is alive. Therefore, these amending Regulations also take into account the right of a married woman to build up a graduated pension in her own right.
The amending Regulations also secure that various other minor references to "contributions" in the existing Regulations, which are inappropriate to graduated contributions under the 1959 Act, are not construed as including such con tributions. For example the existing Regulations provide that certain women who have at one time chosen not to pay, or have been precluded from paying, flat-rate contributions cannot thereafter pay such contributions at the non-employed rate, or cannot have their contributions taken into account for unemployment benefit and sickness benefit purposes, until they have paid, or have been credited with, 52 contributions as an employed or self-employed person. It would be clearly inappropriate for graduated contributions to be taken into account for this purpose in the case of women who were not otherwise insured under the flat rate scheme in their own right, first, because they are designed to count, for graduated pension purposes only, and second, because they can be paid by women who are not paying flat rate contributions.
I know all this sounds rather technical, but I am sure the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), is very well aware of this point. Certainly the intention was agreed during discussion of the 553 Bill and in Committee, and these Regulations are to make clear beyond doubt the obligation of married women earning over £9 a week to pay contributions towards a graduated pension.

§ Mr. Douglas Houghton (Sowerby)
As the right hon. Lady has explained, the Regulations do nothing new. They only carry out the Intentions of the 1959 Act, intentions which were written into the White Paper published earlier to explain the new graduated scheme. It appears that the Regulations are necessary for technical reasons.
With the constant flow of Regulations coming before the House, it is becoming abundantly necessary for serious thought to be given to publicity of the new scheme which will be coming into operation in less than three months after we return from the Christmas Recess. My experience is that there is an enormous amount of ignorance still prevalent about what the new scheme is, what it will do, who will come into it, and what for.
As regards the draft Regulations, many married women still wonder why they retain the option of not paying flat-rate contributions under the original scheme, but have no such option in regard to the graduated contributions under the new scheme. Without some explanation, many married women will think that they are being deprived of some right under the graduated scheme which they have had under the flat-rate scheme ever since 1948.
There is a very good reason why they should pay their graduated contributions. The right hon. Lady has explained that the married woman will have no benefit from her husband's graduated contributions so long as he is alive. If she is left a widow, under the graduated scheme she can enjoy a proportion of the additional benefits that her husband had earned in the graduated scheme at the time of his death.
A married woman exercising her option not to pay contributions is, nevertheless, still eligible for benefits in her awn right under the flat-rate scheme. If her husband dies, subject to specified conditions, she may have a widow's pension. If she does not qualify for a widow's pension, she will be able to draw on her husband's contribution record for the purpose 554 of qualifying in due course, on a combination of her own contributions and those of her late husband, for retirement pension in her own right. If both husband and wife live to pass the retirement age of the husband, she enjoys a wife's pension by virtue of her husband's contributions.
Therefore, it is important for married women to realise that by remaining in the graduated scheme they are qualifying for benefits in addition to those which they will enjoy under the flat-rate scheme, whether they remain contributors or exercise their option not to pay contributions under the flat-rate scheme.
This is most important. Otherwise, a great many married women will think that all that has happened here is that they are being compelled to pay a graduated contribution when they do not want to pay it, and that it will be tucked away and held in trust by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance for an unduly long period, and will then get about 4d. in pension paid to them many years after. But, however small the graduated benefit may be, it will be in addition to the benefits that she will enjoy under the flat-rate scheme, and, therefore, will not in total be negligible.
Married women must also appreciate, as probably all hon. Members do, that this new graduated scheme may not be the last word—that it may be extended. The Minister or his successor may feel bolder and introduce a scheme providing bigger benefits, albeit on higher contribution. It is, therefore, very wise to get the foundations right and, in the opinion of my hon. Friends and myself, these Regulations should be accepted by the House.
I must again appeal for a really serious approach to the promotion of public understanding of all this. The proliferation of Regulations and the jumble and jargon now being built up around the new scheme will bewilder the whole nation in three or four months' time unless a really bold attempt is made to get this across to the public.
I hope that the trade unions will play their part, because the graduated scheme relates only to employed persons, and all the trade unions and all those bodies representative of salaried staffs, and wage earners as well, will have an opportunity of explaining to their members all 555 about the new scheme, especially where—as we come in a moment to the next Order—the trade unions themselves have been brought into consultation on Regulations that are laid before the House from time to time. I find that even in such cases there is a signal lack of understanding of what is being done—and why.
I hope that the right hon. Lady will convey to her right hon. Friends this very earnest message: "For goodness' sake, let us have the fullest possible publicity of the new scheme and all that it entails. Let us explain to the various categories of insured persons why they are being treated in this way." The Act that we passed last year is too far away for any publicity that the long Committee stage received to be of much value for current purposes. It therefore has to be done afresh.
As I think the right hon. Lady realises, much of the publicity that has lately gone out is already out of date because the new Bill that has gone through this House, is now in another place, and will shortly be passed into law will alter nearly all the figures of contributions that appeared previously. This is a serious matter. If it is not attended to, the time of the House will be taken up at the beginning of April—when we may have other things to think about—in trying to dispose of misunderstandings and grievances that people may have and feel but which, with advance publicity, may be avoided.

§ Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North)
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) will not mind if I put what is, perhaps, another point of view. If the superannuation to which these married women could look forward when they came to pensionable age were worth while, then, like him, I would be more ready to support these Regulations. As he has suggested, we may in some 556 years' time have a worth-while scheme, and perhaps that will be the only reason why some of us on this side of the House could accept these Regulations; so that the married women during the few years until we have a worth-while scheme are part of the original scheme.
My hon Friend said that we needed much more explanation. I agree with him. He said that without a proper explanation married women would be wondering why they were deprived of the right, which they have under the flat-rate scheme, of opting out. My fear is that when an explanation is given to the married women, when they are told what contributions they will have to pay under the scheme and what they will receive, they will object far more to the scheme than they would if they had no explanation at all.
I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary knows how many married women earning over £9 a week will come into the scheme. They must not be in a recognised occupational scheme. Are there many? Have the Government any idea? Is there going to be a proper explanation to those married women, who are going to be deprived of a right, that under this graded contribution arrangement they will have to pay far more than they have to pay to any outside commercial institution to get the same miserable pension when they attain retirement age?
I have the greatest hesitation in accepting these Regulations. I accept them only in the hope that before many years we shall have a Government which is determined to give value for money paid, instead of milching ordinary working people of money to support a burden which ought to be borne by the Exchequer.