§ 42. Miss Herbisonasked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will make provision for widows and dependants compulsory on any pension scheme a condition of allowing such a scheme to remain contracted out from the graduated part of the National Insurance Scheme.
§ Mr. WoodNo. It was clear during the discussions on the National Insurance Bill, 1959, that any attempt to have included these benefits in the equivalency test for contracting out would have made the test extremely complicated, and very few schemes would have been able to satisfy it. That is still the situation.