§ Sir G. COLLINSasked the Minister of Health the amounts of the unclaimed balances in the National Health Insurance stamps' sales account at the end of the years 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1924, or for such of those years in which the information is available; the several purposes for which the said balances or parts thereof were used and expended in each of the said years and the respective amounts so expended; and whether it is proposed to allocate any part of the said balances in relief of the present statutory contributions paid by employers and employés, respectively, under the National Health Insurance Acts?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThe total balance in the Stamps Sales Account in the National Health Insurance Fund Accounts for the first three of the years mentioned were as follows:
£ 1921 … … … 4,475,750 1922 … … … 5,591,639 1923 … … … 5,431,474 It is estimated that about £4,000,000 of the balance at 31st December, 1923, represented unclaimed contributions available for disposal.
Under Section 3 of the National Health Insurance Act, 1922, and Section 3 of the National Health Insurance (Cost of Medical Benefit) Act, 1924, part of the sums unclaimed are to be credited to approved societies, under schemes made by the National Health Insurance Joint Committee with the approval of the Treasury, to be applied in preventing members in arrears from being suspended from benefit. Particulars of the exact amounts to be so credited are not at present available.
The National Health Insurance (Cost of Medical Benefit) Act, 1924, also provides that for the purpose of providing part of the additional cost of medical benefit for the years 1924, 1925 and 1926, certain sums are to be paid in those three years out of 1735W moneys in the Central Fund representing sums carried to that Fund in respect of unclaimed contributions. The financial provision thus made involved the application of the whole of the estimated balance of unclaimed contributions at the 31st December, 1923, after allowing for the amounts estimated to be required for the arrears grants above mentioned. There is, therefore, no balance available to be allocated as suggested in the last part of the question.