§ 3.8 p.m.
§ LORD HAWKE rose to move, That the Draft National Insurance (Married Women) Amendment Regulations, 1956, reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 28th of November, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, these Regulations spring from the Report of the National Insurance Advisory Committee on the question of widows' benefits, Cmd. 9684, of February, 1956. In the summer we passed the Family Allowances and National Insurance Act which provided for the implementation of the Committee's Report and these are the Regulations which implement that Act in respect of the re-establishment of widows in insurance.
§ The general purpose of the Regulations is to ensure that when widows cease to draw widows benefit they shall be treated as if they had been paying contributions in Class l and, therefore, are entitled to full unemployment and sickness benefit. They are relieved of the usual limitation on the amount of sickness benefit they can draw in one spell where the contributions paid have been less than 156. They also allow unemployment benefit to be drawn up to the maximum of nineteen months in one spell. Widows are also relieved of the requirement to 807 pay 156 contributions to qualify for a retirement pension on their own record. The provisions apply not only to future widows but also to all women who are widows at present and who have received a widow's benefit under the National Insurance Scheme or a 10s. contributory pension. There are quite a large number of women who have not been paying contributions, and who therefore are not entitled to unemployment or sickness benefit, who will be able to get them in full as a result of these Regulations. But, of course, if they wish to continue to draw benefits in future, they will have to keep up the necessary qualifying contributions. That is why the Minister has called these Regulations a "flying start."
§ I will give your Lordships a few instances of the type of person who stands to benefit under the Regulations. There is the widow of a small shopkeeper: she helped in the shop but did not pay contributions. She can go on keeping the shop, and under these Regulations she becomes automatically qualified for sickness benefit. If she decides to give up the shop she is automatically qualified for unemployment benefit until she can get a job. Then there is the factory worker. So long as she was looking after a family and was drawing a widowed mother's allowance she worked only spasmodically; but when her allowance ceases she wants whole-time work. The "flying start" enables her to qualify for sickness or unemployment benefit in full without waiting for her to pay the necessary qualifying contributions. Then there is the "10s. widow" under the pre-1948 contributory insurance scheme. If at present she is unable to draw sickness or unemployment benefit, she will be able to do so immediately after these Regulations are passed. There are quite a lot of chronic sick "10s. widows" who will benefit from this change.
§ The Regulations themselves are extremely complicated, as anything to do with this subject always is. I should specially mention the new Regulation 8A (1), which appears in Regulation 3, which contains the principal substantive provisions for giving effect to the National Insurance Advisory Committee's recommendations. It provides that where a widow ceases to be entitled to a widow's allowance, or widowed mother's 808 allowance, without becoming entitled to a widow's pension or retirement pension, she gets the benefits of the concessions I have outlined. I should also mention Regulation 4 which brings in the "10s. widows" and the widows who previously enjoyed widows' benefits. The remainder of these Regulations, in between the two that I have mentioned, deal with anomalies and particular cases, and I do not think your Lordships would wish me to go through them in detail; but, of course, I shall be happy to expound them to the best of my ability if anybody wishes me to do so.
§ The Special Orders Committee have reported that the Regulations do not raise important questions of policy or principle and are founded on precedent. I hope that they will be generally welcomed by your Lordships, as they were in another place. I can say that no-one will be worse off and quite a number of people will be better off if they come into force. If they are passed, my right honourable friend the Minister intends to bring them into operation on January 7 next. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Draft National Insurance (Married Women) Amendment Regulations. 1956, reported from the Special Orders Committee on the 28th of November, be approved.—(Lord Hawke.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.