§ Sir H. Morris-Jonesasked the Minister of National Insurance whether, at the present time, any personnel within the established Civil Service are receiving training as sickness visitors or other work now being carried out by agents of approved societies.
§ Sir W. JowittNo, Sir.
§ Sir W. Smithersasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give an estimate of the deficit arising from entrants over age 16 in the National Insurance scheme which will fall upon the taxpayer.
§ Sir J. AndersonThis question is not susceptible of a simple answer. The cost to the taxpayer of admitting all persons 827W to the benefits of the scheme at the rate of contribution appropriate to entrants at age 16 is in part offset by the application of current contributions in full to meet the cost of current benefits instead of applying them in part to build up reserves against the benefits ultimately to be paid to those contributors. This in its turn leads to charges on the taxpayer in future years, e.g., when the present contributors come to retire. The relative amounts of the total cost at any time and of the offset from contribution income vary with a number of factors, the most important of which is the extent to which the number of beneficiaries falls short of the number which will emerge in due course from the present working population. As the scheme matures over the years, the cost to the taxpayer will steadily increase as is shown in some detail in Table IV on page 49 and in Table VI on page 53 in the White Paper on Social Insurance, Part I, Cmd. 6550. I do not think it is practicable to dissect these figures in any substantially greater detail.