Captain CLAYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the National Insurance Commissioners have power to pay 1035W rent for an insured person who has been ordered domiciliary treatment for tuberculosis by the county medical officer and who is destitute owing to his inability to earn a living?
§ Mr. MASTERMANNo, Sir, I am advised that the Commissioners have no power to authorise payments of insured persons' rent from the funds available for sanatorium benefit under the National Insurance Act. Sickness benefit of 10s. a week (or 7s. 6d. for women) will, however, be payable after the six months' waiting period under the ordinary conditions, to insured persons who are receiving domiciliary treatment in their own homes.
§ Mr. POLLOCKasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated number of persons in the United Kingdom suffering from tuberculosis; whether he can state what number of persons are so suffering in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland respectively; and what proportion of the number so suffering are entitled to sanatorium benefit under the National Insurance Act?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe numbers of persons who died through tuberculosis in 1910 in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in Ireland were 51,317, 8,517, and 10,016 respectively. No figures are available as to the number of persons suffering at the present time, and no estimate could be formed except on the basis of an assumed ratio between deaths and cases, which is necessarily speculative and must vary in the different forms of tuberculosis. The proportion of tuberculous persons who may obtain treatment under the Insurance Act would, if insurance committees extend the benefit to dependants, ultimately exceed 50 per cent; but as only those who have been at work at some time since 15th July can be insured, the present proportion must be, and remain for some lime, very much lower.