§ Sir CLEMENT HILLasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, under (4) of the instructions issued with the national health insurance contribution card (men), Class A, an employer is subject to a penalty who, being in the habit of employing, say, twenty men at wages of 30s. a week, gives them one month's notice with a promise to re-employ them at the end of such notice on wages at the rate of 29s. 9d. a week, subject to deduction 991W only of the 4d. a week payable by the contributor, the conditions being accepted by the persons employed?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby on 15th July. Paragraph (8) of the Third Schedule provides that the employer shall not be entitled to deduct from the wages of or otherwise to recover from the contributor the employer's contribution. In new contracts employers have no more right or power to reduce wages than they had before the Insurance Act was passed. I am glad to say that any attempts which have been made to elude the spirit of the Act in this manner are a very small and, I lope, diminishing number.