Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Comptroller of the Household, as representing the National Health Insurance Commissioners (1) whether his attention has been called to the recommendation passed by the National Insurance Acts Committee of the British Medical Association to the effect that no insured person should, because he is suffering from venereal disease, be refused sickness benefit if, in the opinion of his medical attendant, he cannot be efficiently treated without enforced rest; whether he pro- 1080W poses to take any action; and (2) whether his attention has been called to the rule generally adopted by approved societies which precludes any person suffering from illness due to his own fault from receiving sickness benefit; whether he is aware that the Koyal Commission on Venereal Diseases has reported that the effect of this rule is to prevent persons suffering from the primary stages of venereal disease from subjecting themselves to a proper course of treatment which would involve cessation from work for a period; whether he is aware that in its primary stages this disease is very amenable to curative treatment, while in its later stages it has disastrous effects upon the patient himself and upon future generations; whether it has been represented to him that in the long run the funds of the approved societies would benefit by encouraging patients to subject themselves to proper treatment in the early stages; and whether he proposes to take any action?
§ Mr. C. ROBERTSI beg to refer my hon. Friend, in reply to the two questions which he has addressed to me on the Papers for to-day, to the answers given by me to the hon. Member for Oldham on the 31st July and to the hon. Member for the Thornbury Division of Gloucester on the 2nd August.