SICKNESS BENEFIT IN RESPECT OF INDUSTRIAL INJURY (Hansard, 25 June 1982)

§ Mr. Rossi
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 23.

§ Mr. Rossi
I understand that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) would like an explanation of the amendments. Amendment No. 13 is minor and beneficial. It ensures that after injury benefit has been abolished people over pensionable age who are injured at work, as well as those under pensionable age, will be entitled to State sickness benefit at the standard rate until that benefit comes to an end under the normal rules—that is, until the person retires or reaches the deemed retirement age of 65 for women and 70 for men.
Amendment No. 23 is consequential on the provision in clause 39 waiving the contribution conditions for sickness benefit for the industrially injured. After sickness benefit has been paid for 168 days, the long-term invalidity benefit becomes payable. It is intended that it should be payable to those for whom the contribution tests have been waived under clause 39(4). Clearly, it is right, however, that the long-term benefit in such cases should be payable only where the industrial accident or disease continues to be the cause of the incapacity.
537 The amendment enables regulations to be made to achieve that result. That is why we refer in the amendment to "restricting". I am not sure whether that makes the position clear to the hon. Member. If it does not, I can give an additional explanation.
At present, people who do not satisfy the contribution conditions for sickness benefit and who have an industrial injury receive injury benefit for 156 days. Thereafter, they are not entitled to sickness benefit or invalidity benefit. The Bill provides that when injury benefit is abolished such people will receive sickness benefit and then invalidity benefit if they remain incapacitated from the industrial cause. This is an improvement on existing conditions.
Title to invalidity pension will be earned by industrially injured employees whose sickness benefit is granted under section 50A, to which reference is made in the amendment, because the incapacity is caused by an industrial accident or disease. It makes sense to restrict the provision of the special title so that it remains dependent upon attributing the cause of the incapacity to an industrial accident or disease.
The amendment will enable regulations to be made to prevent invalidity pension in such cases being payable for incapacity which is unrelated to the accident or disease that gave rise to the original qualifying period of 168 days. I appreciate that that is not immediately apparent from the way in which the amendment is drafted, but I hope that the explanation satisfies the hon. Member for Perry Barr.

§ Mr. Rooker
It does. The Minister kindly sent the Opposition Front Bench a note on the Lords amendments. The problem is that we thought that there was a gain. The Minister has confirmed that there is. We are so unused to any gain for social security beneficiaries from this Government that we wanted confirmation. I am not carping. The Bill has been substantially altered in many respects. We are grateful to the Government for the way in which they have met us on many issues related to the low paid and people who are off sick for long periods. Because of the way in which the amendment was drafted, it appeared to take away that which we understood was there. I am grateful to the minister.

§ Mr. Rossi
The hon. Member viewed us with some suspicion at the beginning of the Bill's progress. He now appreciates that we have tried to be flexible and helpful wherever possible.