National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1953
| Year | 1953 |
National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act , 1953
(1 & 2 Eliz. 2) CHAPTER 43
An Act to make further provision with respect to the system of insurance established by the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, and to extend the class of persons to whom certain benefits may be paid under section eighty-two of that Act and the benefits under that Act which may be so paid.
[31st July 1953]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Amendments as to insurable employments \(ships and aircraft).
(1) In relation to any prescribed employment in connection with a ship or vessel, being employment which would be included in paragraph 2 of the insurable employments Schedule if the ship or vessel were within sub-paragraph (2) of the paragraph, that paragraph shall apply (in addition to the ships or vessels within sub-paragraph (2) of it) to any prescribed ships or vessels, whether British or not:
Provided that the paragraph shall not by virtue of this subsection apply to a ship or vessel in relation to any employment unless the person by whom the remuneration in respect of that employment is paid, or, in the case of employment as master or member of the crew of the ship or vessel, either that person or the owner of the ship or vessel (or managing owner if there is more than one owner), has a place of business in Great Britain.
(2) In relation to any prescribed employment in connection with an aircraft, being employment which would be included in paragraph 5 of the insurable employments Schedule if the aircraft of the paragraph, that paragraph shall apply (in addition to the aircraft within sub-paragraph (2) of it) to any prescribed aircraft, whether registered in the United Kingdom or not:
Provided that the paragraph shall not by virtue of this subsection apply to an aircraft in relation to any employment unless the person by whom the remuneration in respect of that employment is paid, or, in the case of employment as pilot, commander, navigator or member of the crew of the aircraft, either that person or the owner of the aircraft (or managing owner if there is more than one owner), has a place of business in Great Britain.
(3) Any employment under a contract—
(a ) to act as master or member of the crew of such of the ships or vessels of a particular owner or owners as may be determined in accordance with the contract; or
(b ) to act as pilot, commander, navigator or member of the crew of such of the aircraft of a particular owner or owners as may be so determined;
shall be deemed to be included in sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 2 or sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 5, of the insurable employments Schedule, or in paragraph 2 or 3 of the excepted employments Schedule, where the employment would be so included in the case of each ship or vessel, or each aircraft, if the contract related to it alone.
(4) After paragraph 2 of the insurable employments Schedule there shall be inserted—
S-2A 2A
(1) In the case of a qualified British radio officer, employment under a contract to act as radio officer on board such ships or vessels as may be determined in accordance with the contract, where the contract is a contract of service, the remuneration in respect of the employment is paid by a person having a place of business in Great Britain and any other prescribed conditions are satisfied, not being employment while the person employed is serving as radio officer on board a ship or vessel.
(2) In this paragraph the expression 'qualified British radio officer' means a person who possesses qualifications enabling him to be radio officer on board a British ship registered in the United Kingdom of a class required under section three of the Merchant Shipping (Safety Convention) Act, 1949, to carry a radio officer, and the expression 'radio officer' includes radio operator’;
and in paragraph (a ) of subsection (1) of section seventy-seven of the principal Act (by virtue of which regulations may modify the principal Act in its application to mariners, that is to say, to persons who are insured persons by virtue of paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of the insurable employments Schedule) for the words ‘paragraphs 2, 3 and 4’ there shall be substituted the words ‘paragraphs 2, 2A, 3 and 4’.
(5) For the purposes of this section—
(a ) the expression ‘owner’ has in relation to a ship or vessel the same meaning as in paragraph 2 of the insurable employments Schedule, and in relation to an aircraft the same meaning as in paragraph 5 of the insurable employments Schedule; and
(b ) the expressions ‘the insurable employments Schedule’ and ‘the excepted employments Schedule’ mean respectively Part I and Part II of the First Schedule to the principal Act.
2 Power to modify basis of contributions in special cases.
(1) In relation to persons in any prescribed employment being insurable employment, regulations may provide that the contributions to be paid under paragraph (a ) of section two of the principal Act by the employer and the insured person shall be determined by reference to work actually done by the insured person or by a group of persons of whom he is one, or to remuneration paid to him or to such a group, instead of by reference to the weeks in which the insured person is employed.
(2) Any such regulations may contain such incidental or supplementary provisions (including provisions modifying any provision of the principal Act relating to contributions) as appear to the Minister to be expedient for the purposes of the regulations.
(3) No regulations made under this section shall have effect in relation to any employment which is for the time being an employed contributor's employment within the meaning of the National Insurance Act, 1946.
3 Amendments dealing primarily with benefit.
(1) For subsection (1) of section twelve of the principal Act (which defines the circumstances in which an insured person is entitled to disablement benefit) there shall be substituted the following subsections:—
(1) Subject to the next following subsection, an insured person shall be entitled to disablement benefit if he suffers as the result of the relevant accident from loss of physical or mental faculty such that the extent of the resulting disablement assessed in accordance with the following provisions of this section amounts to not less than one per cent.; and for the purpose of those provisions there shall be deemed not to be any relevant loss of faculty when the extent of the resulting disablement, if so assessed, would not amount to one per cent.
(1A) Disablement benefit shall not be available to an insured person until after the third day of the period of one hundred and fifty-six days (Sundays being disregarded) beginning with the day of the relevant accident nor until after the last day (if any) of that period on which he is incapable of work as the result of the relevant accident:
Provided that, where he makes a claim for disablement benefit in respect of the accident before the end of that period and does not withdraw it before it is finally determined, then if on any day of that period not earlier than the making of the claim he is not incapable of work as aforesaid, the fact that he is or may be so incapable on a subsequent day of the period shall be disregarded for the purposes of this subsection’;
and in subsection (4) of section eleven of the principal Act (which defines ‘the injury benefit period’) the proviso shall be omitted and at the end of the subsection there shall be added the words ‘or the part of that period for which, under subsection (1A) of section twelve of this Act, disablement benefit in respect of the accident is not available to the insured person’.
(2) Regulations may provide for treating a person for the purposes of the principal Act as incapable of work by reason of some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement, or as incapable of work as the result of an accident or injury, when he would not be so treated apart from the regulations, and may also make provision—
(a ) as to the days which, in the case of a person who at any time is or is to be treated as incapable of work as the result of an accident or injury, are or are not to be treated for the purpose of benefit as days of incapacity for work; and
(b ) as to the day which, in the case of night workers and other special cases, is to be treated for the purpose of benefit as the day of the accident.
(3) For section sixteen of the principal Act (which provides for increasing the disablement pension of a beneficiary who, after becoming entitled to the pension, enters a hospital or similar institution to receive approved hospital treatment) there shall be substituted the following section:—
16 ‘Increase of disablement benefit during approved hospital treatment.
16. Where a person is awarded disablement benefit, but the extent of his disablement is assessed for the period taken into account by the assessment at less than a hundred per cent., it shall be treated as assessed at a hundred per cent. for any part of that period during which he receives approved hospital treatment (whether before or after the making of the assessment or the award of benefit):
Provided that, where the extent of the disablement is so assessed at less than twenty per cent., this section shall not affect the operation of the provisions relating to disablement gratuities, but, in the case of a disablement pension payable by virtue of this section to a person awarded a disablement gratuity wholly...
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