NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) BILL. (Hansard, 10 June 1948)

§ LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, in asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill, I do not wish to erect some sort of a metaphorical Roman wall to hold back those noble Lords who are anxious to take part in the next discussion with my noble friend Lord Morrison. This is a very short Bill to amend the 647 National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, which comes into force on July 5 next. As your Lordships will remember, that is a Statute which puts an end to the old system of Workmen's Compensation, under which a man who was injured in an industrial accident had rights to payments based on the loss of his earning power. In its place the Bill provides for a pension, based on the degree of disablement. In the course of the discussions during the progress of that rather revolutionary measure—for it altered the whole foundations on which industrial accident compensation had been paid in the past—various anomalies came to light.

One, in particular, related to partial disability of a character which might prevent a man from returning to his old occupation. It was felt that in cases of that kind some sort of additional payment was needed. As a result, a new clause, which eventually became Section 14 of the Act, was introduced, and under that section where, as the result of a loss of faculty arising from his injury, the man is incapable and likely to remain permanently incapable of following his regular occupation, and is also, for the same reason, incapable of following employment of an equivalent standard which is suitable to his case, he is to have increased disablement compensation. It was fixed at the sum of 11s. 3d. In the course of the administrative arrangements which have had to be made for the purpose of bringing the Act into operation, a good deal of discussion has taken place on various points. Amongst other things, it was found that this sum of 11s. 3d. which was regarded in 1946 as being adequate—and was, in fact, fixed after consultation with the T.U.C.—was too small. So the main object of the Bill before your Lordships is to raise that amount from 11s. 3d. to an adjustable amount which may be up to 20s. It is felt that instead of fixing a definite sum, as was the 11s. 3d. it is better to have an adjustable amount up to 20s., because it might well happen that if a fixed sum of 20s. were to be put into the Act a man whose disablement was small might be better off than he had been before the accident.

As an illustration let me take the case of a man who was earning, say, £6 before 648 the accident and who was afterwards found to be capable of doing a job for which the standard was, say, £5 10s. 0d. Obviously, with the 20s. compensation he would be better off because he would get a total of £6 10s 0d. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that that is not what was aimed at in the Act, and that it would be wrong to establish a situation of that kind. Therefore the first point in the Bill is that the amount, the fixed amount of 11s. 3d., is taken out and an adjustable sum which may be up to 20s. is substituted.

There are a number of other matters in the Bill to which I ought to direct your Lordships' attention. The first arises in reference to the difficulty of deciding whether an injury is likely to result in permanent incapacity. As your Lordships are aware, astonishing progress has been made in recent years in rehabilitation methods. Many injured men who within our own life-time would have been regarded as completely incapacitated for the rest of their lives are now, after a short period of training, able to get back to work—in many cases in jobs just as good as those which they had before they were injured. Even when they are not able to get back into such good jobs, they are, in a great many cases, still able to do good work. In these circumstances it has become quite difficult for a doctor to certify that permanent incapacity exists. In order to get over that difficulty, the Bill provides a new subsection (2A) in Section 14 of the Act, providing for an extension of the period in which the possibilities of treatment may be gone into by the doctor before it is necessary for him to decide finally whether or not there is permanent incapacity. Your Lordships will agree that this is a very useful amendment. It is also important in these cases that a man should have an opportunity of a trial period to satisfy himself and the doctor that he is capable of going back to his own job, or, if not, to discover exactly what job he is capable of undertaking. As the Act stands, that trial period would disqualify him from benefit. The Bill gives the Minister power to make regulations to deal with the situation. These regulations will have to go before the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, which advises the Minister in matters of this kind. There are one of two other small amendments to the Act 649 which are consequential to those to which I have drawn attention, and I do not think it is necessary to go into them. I hope your Lordships will agree that it is a very useful measure, and will give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.