NORTHERN IRELAND (SELECTIVE EMPLOYMENT PREMIUM) (Hansard, 13 March 1975)

§ The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Roland Moyle)
I beg to move, That the Selective Employment Premium (Northern Ireland) Order 1975, a draft of which was laid before this House on 13th February, be approved. The main purpose of the draft order is to deal with a situation arising on the coming into force of the Social Security 973 Act 1973. Selective employment premium —which is what it is called in Northern Ireland—corresponds to the regional employment premium available in development areas in Great Britain, and it is payable to eligible employers in manufacturing industry in respect of each employee for whom the employer pays a fiat-rate national insurance contribution.
However, as the House knows, the flat-rate national insurance contribution will disappear on 6th April 1975, and there will then be levies related to earnings—in other words, earnings-related payments. We therefore need a new condition to replace the old one upon which the payment of selective employment premiums can be based, and this order lays down that new condition.
Briefly, it provides that selective employment premium will be payable when an employee is employed for eight hours or more in a week and is paid for it. This new condition is identical with that laid down for Great Britain in last year's Finance Act. The selective employment premium is one of those services in respect of which Northern Ireland keeps in line with Great Britain, generally speaking.
One possible loophole has to be stopped. Clearly, a person might work for eight hours in a week for more than one employer, and there would in such a case be a resulting liability for more than one selective employment premium payment. The draft order contains a provision designed to prevent this possibility from being exploited. It is to be found in the new subsection (1A) to be added to the Selective Employment Payments Act (Northern Ireland) Act 1966 by paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the order.
It is proposed also to nullify by the order an amendment which was made by the Finance (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 to Section 4 of the Selective Employment Payments Act (Northern Ireland) 1966. This section as amended would have allowed payment of selective employment premium to certain public bodies in respect of all their employees. The corresponding provision in Great Britain allows certain public bodies to receive the premium but only in respect of a small number of distinct and substantial branches of their undertakings which are of a manufacturing character and 974 which have no comparable counterparts in Northern Ireland warranting such treatment. In fact, no payment has been made in Northern Ireland under Section 4 as amended, and it is proposed to abrogate the power to pay the premium under it by this order. This brings Northern Ireland into line with the general situation in Great Britain.
The selective employment premium has been of considerable assistance in supporting industry in Northern Ireland and is an industrial aid which the Government are keen to see working smoothly and effectively. For that reason, I commend the draft order to the House.

§ Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Epping Forest)
The hour is late and we have another debate to follow this. The order follows from our desire that Northern Ireland should, so far as possible, be in line with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Minister's logic seems impeccable.

§ Mr. McCusker (Armagh)
On behalf of my colleagues in the United Unionist Party I welcome this order. I have been in touch with a number of manufacturing industrialists, large and small, in the past week. They all have a great regard for this premium. At a time of financial stringency, when cash flow problems are particularly difficult in Northern Ireland, they see this payment as a way of alleviating some of these difficulties. If they are happy with it I and my right hon. and hon. Friends are too.

§ Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)
May I refer to the subject of a brief interchange earlier between the hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) and myself. The Minister has pointed out that as a result of this order the selective employment premium procedure and mechanism in Northern Ireland is now, as it should be, completely in line with that in the rest of the United Kingdom. If that is so, it would appear that it would be possible from now on to legislate for the whole of the United Kingdom at the same time on this subject.
There can be no advantage in having a separate debate for the sake of having a separate debate, or an order for the sake of a sepal ate order. Last night the House was discussing a calf subsidy 975 scheme which happened to refer to the whole of the United Kingdom. Fortunately in that case we did not have to have a separate order for Northern Ireland and to make the same points over again. I submit that the Government, and all of us, should now be on the lookout—it can only be a gradual process—for ways in which this House can, as it should, legislate at one and the same time for the whole of the United Kingdom wherever there is no necessary difference between the law in different parts of the kingdom.