§ Lord ROBERT CECILasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will consider the possibility of supplying insurance stamps of larger value for use of employers who pay wages at longer intervals than one week?
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§ Mr. MASTERMANHealth insurance stamps representing thirteen contributions will be supplied to employers to whom quarterly stamping facilities are given. As regards other employers, such stamps would only be of use if the employers were prepared to pay the contributions in advance, or if the quarterly wages day coincided approximately with the expiry of the contribution card. Such cases are presumably few, and in no other case could a thirteen-week stamp be used without a breach of the regulations. The question of supplying such stamps under proper safeguards to those employers who could use them is, however, under consideration. As regards stamps representing less than thirteen contributions, the Act requires that societies shall be able to ascertain the particular weeks for which the contributions are paid, and the use of stamps representing several contributions would make this impossible unless some ether machinery for indicating to societies the particular weeks to which the stamp relates were set up. The subject is receiving careful consideration, but no system which would not give employers at least as much trouble as the one of single-contribution stamps has yet been devised.