National Health Service Contributions Act 1957
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1957 c. 34 |
| Year | 1957 |
National Health Service Contributions Act, 1957
(5 & 6 Eliz. 2) CHAPTER 34
An Act to make provision for requiring persons who pay, or are liable to pay, contributions under the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1956, to pay contributions towards the cost of the national health service, and, in consequence thereof, to reduce the rates of contributions under those Acts, and to discontinue the making of payments out of the National Insurance Fund in respect of the national health service under section thirty-seven of the National Insurance Act, 1946; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We , Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom in Parliament assembled, towards providing such sums as may be required for the national health service in England and Wales, and in Scotland, have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto Your Majesty the contributions hereinafter mentioned; and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted, and 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 Contributions to national health service.
(1) As from the appointed day, every person who, either as an insured person or as an employer, pays, or is liable to pay, contributions under the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1956 (in this Act referred to as ‘the National Insurance Acts’), shall be liable, in accordance with the following provisions of this section, to pay contributions which shall be known, and are hereafter referred to in this Act, as national health service contributions.
(2) Every person who, in respect of any contribution week beginning on or after the appointed day, pays, or is liable to pay, a contribution under the National Insurance Acts as a person of a description specified in the first column of the First Schedule to this Act, otherwise than in paragraph 4 of that Schedule, shall, in respect of that week, be liable to pay a national health service contribution at the rate specified in relation to that description in the second column of that Schedule.
(3) Subject to the provisions of this Act, every person who, in respect of any contribution week beginning on or after the appointed day, is liable to pay an employer's contribution under the National Insurance Acts in respect of any person shall, in respect of that week, be liable to pay in respect of that person a national health service contribution at the rate specified in the second column of paragraph 4 of the First Schedule to this Act.
(4) National health service contributions shall be paid to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, but, as between that Minister and the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State, shall, subject to the following provisions of this Act, be taken to be so paid for the benefit of the Minister of Health, towards the cost of the national health service in England and Wales, and of the Secretary of State, towards the cost of the national health service in Scotland, in such shares as the Treasury may determine.
(5) All sums received by virtue of this Act by the Minister of Health shall be treated as sums received by him under the National Health Service Act, 1946 , otherwise than as sums required to be transferred to the Hospital Endowments Fund; and all sums received by virtue of this Act by the Secretary of State shall be treated as sums received by him under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947 .
2 Consequential reduction of national insurance contributions.
(1) The application of national health service contributions in accordance with subsections (4) and (5) of the preceding section shall be in substitution for the making, out of the National Insurance Fund, of payments in respect of the cost of the national health service under section thirty-seven of the Act of 1946; and the payment of national health service contributions shall be in substitution for the payment of so much of the contributions under the National Insurance Acts as (apart from this Act) would have been required for enabling the payments under the said section thirty-seven to be made.
(2) In accordance with the preceding subsection—
(a ) no payments shall be made under section thirty-seven of the Act of 1946 in respect of any period ending on or after the appointed day, and (except in relation to the making of any payment in respect of a period ending before that day) that section, and the Fourth Schedule to the Act of 1946, shall cease to have effect on that day; and
(b ) the weekly rates of contributions payable under the National Insurance Acts shall be reduced in accordance with the next following subsection.
(3) As from the appointed day, the weekly rates of contributions payable under the National Insurance Acts—
(a ) by persons of the descriptions specified in the first column of the Second Schedule to this Act, otherwise than in paragraph 4 of that Schedule, and
(b ) by employers in respect of employed persons,
shall be reduced by the amounts specified in relation to those descriptions respectively, and in relation to employers, in the second column of that Schedule; and accordingly, as from the appointed day, the provisions contained in the Third Schedule to this Act shall be substituted for the provisions contained in Parts I to IV of the First Schedule to the Act of 1946 (which specify the weekly rates of contributions payable by insured persons and employers).
(4) References in this section to the weekly rates of contributions payable under the National Insurance Acts are references to those rates apart from any modifications thereof by virtue of any regulations made under those Acts.
3 Supplementary provisions.
(1) Subject to the following provisions of this section, all the provisions of the National Insurance Acts, except subsection (1) of section thirty-five of the Act of 1946 (which provides that contributions shall be paid into the National Insurance Fund), shall have effect (for the purposes of those Acts as well as for the purposes of this Act)—
(a ) in relation to a person who is liable as an insured person to pay a national health service contribution for a contribution week, as if that contribution, and the contribution paid or payable by him for that week under the National Insurance Acts, together constituted one combined contribution payable by him under those Acts for that week, and
(b ) in relation to a person who is liable as an employer to pay a national health service contribution in respect of a person for a contribution week, as if that contribution, and the contribution payable by him for that week under the National Insurance Acts in respect of that person, together constituted one combined contribution payable by him under those Acts in respect of that person for that week,
and (in either case) as if the whole of the combined contribution in question were payable into the National Insurance Fund.
(2) Except in so far as may be otherwise provided by any Order in Council or regulations made under the National Insurance Acts after the passing of this Act, the preceding subsection shall apply in relation to Orders in Council and regulations made under those Acts, whether before or after the passing of this Act, as it applies in relation to the provisions of those Acts other than subsection (1) of the said section thirty-five.
(3) Nothing in the preceding provisions of this section shall be construed—
(a ) as excepting any person who pays, or is liable to pay, contributions under the National Insurance Acts, or as conferring any power to except any such person, from liability to pay national health service contributions; or
(b ) as conferring any power to modify the rates of national health service contributions in relation to any class of persons.
(4) References in any enactment, other than the National Insurance Acts and the enactments relating to income tax, to contributions under those Acts, or to sums due to or payable into the National Insurance Fund, shall be construed as including references to national health service contributions.
(5) Notwithstanding anything in the preceding provisions of this section, where a person has paid in error—
(a ) contributions under the National Insurance Acts, and
(b ) national health service contributions,
and he or any other person has received any benefit under those Acts which, under any provision of those Acts or of regulations made thereunder, may be deducted from any repayment of the contributions paid in error under those Acts, nothing in those Acts or regulations shall be construed as authorising that benefit to be deducted from any repayment of the national health service contributions paid in error.
(6) This Act binds the Crown, and accordingly section fifty-six...
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