§ Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if, in view of the regulation adopted by the European Council allowing self-employed workers moving to other member States to receive benefits such as 395W sickness, maternity, invalidity, old-age and death benefit and also unemployment benefit in certain conditions, he will grant unemployment benefit to British self-employed; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mrs. ChalkerMy right hon. Friend has no proposals for amending the contribution conditions for unemployment benefit under the national insurance scheme to enable class 2 contributions paid by the self-employed to be taken into account. Successive Governments have felt unable to extend unemployment benefit cover to the self-employed, as a group, because of the difficulty in deciding whether people who, to some extent at least, can control their own working patterns are really unemployed.
The European regulation to which my hon. Friend refers will not, of course, make national insurance unemployment benefit available to further categories of people; its only effect as regards the payment of unemployment benefit in this country will be to enable a self-employed person who is entitled to unemployment benefit under the provisions of another member State to continue to receive that country's unemployment benefit for a period of up to three months if he comes here in order to seek work.