Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Umpire acting under the provisions of Section 91 of the National Insurance Act has given some 1,200 decisions including or excluding workmen from the benefit of the Act; whether he is aware that workmen working side by side on practically similar work are some of them insured persons and some of them are not; whether he is aware that this is causing confusion and dissatisfaction; and whether he will use the power conferred on him under Section 103 of the Act, and bring within its scope all workmen who have served an apprenticeship to any of the trades named in Schedule 6 and who are earning their livelihood by working at that trade or calling?
Mr. BUXTONThe number of decisions given by the Umpire under Part II. of the National Insurance Act up to and including those given on 18th December, is 1,221. As this part of the Act applies only to certain trades, it is inevitable that there should be difficult questions of demarcation. I fear that the difficulty would not 1699W be altogether surmounted by making an Order such as my hon. Friend suggests, since the substitution of a new borderline between insured and uninsured work might only give rise to a fresh crop of difficult cases.