§ 2.49 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF BIRKENHEAD rose to move, That the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Mariners) Amendment Draft Regulations, 1954, reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 23rd June, be approved. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the object of these Regulations is to make some technical adjustments to the provisions of the industrial injuries insurance scheme concerning mariners, because of the extension of the scope of those provisions under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1953. Broadly speaking, the original Industrial Injuries Insurance Act, 1946, covered seamen only if they were employed on British ships. Under the 1953 Act and the Mariners Insurability Regulations, which were laid before your Lordships' House on June 17, British seamen who are engaged in this country to serve on foreign ships will in future be covered by the industrial injuries insurance scheme if their employer has a place of business in this country. The 1953 Act also provides that if a seaman is engaged to serve on ships on which he will be covered by the scheme when he joins a crew, he will also be covered by the scheme even when he is not actually a member of the crew of a particular ship—for example, when he is travelling out as a passenger to join a ship at a foreign port. The present Regulations simply adopt the provisions of the main Regulations which, among other things, give seamen the right to receive benefits when they are outside this country, so as to ensure that the seamen who are brought into the scheme by virtue of the 1953 Act get the benefit of these provisions. These Regulations are entirely non-controversial and of considerable benefit to mariners. I beg to move.
423§ Moved, That the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Mariners) Amendment Draft Regulations, 1954, reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 23rd June, be approved.—(The Earl of Birkenhead.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.