National Insurance Act 1951

JurisdictionUK Non-devolved
Citation1951 c. 34


National Insurance Act , 1951

(14 & 15 Geo. 6) CHAPTER 34

An Act to provide for reducing the payments out of moneys provided by Parliament into the National Insurance Fund; for increasing the rate of widowed mothers' allowances under the National Insurance Act, 1946, and of retirement pensions under the said Act; for increasing benefits under the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1949, in respect of children; for increasing the amounts by which retirement pensions under the National Insurance Act, 1946, may be increased by the payment of contributions after pensionable age, for reducing the extent to which deductions from widows' benefits and retirement pensions under the said Act are to be made in respect of earnings, for relaxing the conditions for an increase of sickness benefit or a retirement pension under the said Act in respect of a wife engaged in gainful occupation, and for modifying the provisions of the said Act under which persons are treated as having retired; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.

[22nd June 1951]

Be it enacted by the King'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:—

S-1 Alteration of Exchequer contributions to National Insurance Fund.

1 Alteration of Exchequer contributions to National Insurance Fund.

(1) As from the first day of October, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, for subsection (3) of section two of the National Insurance Act, 1946 (hereafter in this Act referred to as ‘the principal Act’), which provides for the payment of sums out of moneys provided by Parliament, there shall be substituted the following subsection—

(3) Subject to the provisions of this Act, there shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament, in such manner and at such times as the Treasury may determine, for each contribution as an employed, self-employed or non-employed person paid by a person of any description set out in the first column of Part V of the said First Schedule, and for each employer's contribution paid in respect of a person of any such description, the sum (hereafter in this Act referred to as 'the Exchequer supplement') respectively set out in the said Part V in relation to a contribution of that class and a person of that description.

For the purpose of this subsection, the number of contributions of any class paid in any period shall be estimated in such manner as the Treasury may determine.’

(2) For Part V of the First Schedule to the principal Act (which sets out the amounts of the Exchequer supplement) there shall be substituted, as from the said first day of October, the following Part:—

V Exchequer Supplement

Part V

Exchequer Supplement

Description of person by or in respect of whom contribution is paid

Amount of Supplement

For contribution as employed person

For employer's contribution

For contribution as self-employed person

For contribution as non-employed person

s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Men over the age of 18 8 8 8 8
Women over the age of 18 6 6 6 6
Boys under the age of 18 4 4 4 4
Girls under the age of 18 3 3 3 3

(3) The requirement under the said subsection (3) of section two as originally enacted to pay out of moneys provided by Parliament, in addition to the Exchequer supplements, the sum of forty-eight million pounds for the year ending with the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-two, shall take effect as a requirement to pay the sum of twenty-four million pounds for the period of six months ending with the thirtieth day of September, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, and that requirement shall continue in force notwithstanding subsection (1) of this section.

S-2 Widows' benefit.

2 Widows' benefit.

(1) Paragraph 6 of Part I of the Second Schedule to the principal Act (which specifies a weekly rate of thirty-three shillings and sixpence for a widowed mother's allowance) shall be amended, as from the appointed day, by substituting for the entry of thirty-three shillings and sixpence in the second column thereof an entry of forty shillings.

(2) As from the appointed day, the weekly rate of a widowed mother's allowance shall, for any period during which she has a family which includes two or more children each of whom was at the husband's death a child of his family or is a son or daughter of theirs, be increased by the sum of two shillings and sixpence in respect of each of those children other than the elder or eldest.

In this subsection the expression ‘the husband’, in relation to a woman who has been married more than once, refers only to her last husband.

(3) For subsection (3) of section seventeen of the principal Act (which requires the weekly rate of a widowed mother's allowance or a widow's pension to be reduced by the amount of any earnings of the widow in excess of thirty shillings a week) there shall, as respects any week commencing on or after the appointed day for which the widow is entitled to a widowed mother's allowance or a widow's pension, be substituted the following subsection:—

(3) Where the earnings of the widow have exceeded—

(a ) sixty shillings for the week preceding any week for which she is entitled to a widowed mother's allowance, or

(b ) forty shillings for the week preceding any week for which she is entitled to a widow's pension,

the weekly rate of the allowance or pension shall for the week for which she is so entitled be reduced by one shilling for each complete shilling of the excess:

Provided that the total amount of the reduction under this subsection of the weekly rate of a widowed mother's allowance for any week shall not exceed thirty shillings or, in a case where the allowance (apart from any increase in respect of any child or children other than the elder or eldest) is payable at a weekly rate of less than forty shillings, such smaller sum as may be prescribed.’

S-3 Increase of benefit for children.

3 Increase of benefit for children.

(1) Part I of the Second Schedule to the principal Act (which specifies in the third column thereof, in relation to certain benefits, the amount of seven shillings and sixpence as the amount by which the weekly rate of benefit is, in a case where the beneficiary's family includes a child or children, to be increased in respect of that child or the elder or eldest of those children) shall be amended, as from the appointed day, by substituting for the entries of seven shillings and sixpence in the third column thereof entries of ten shillings.

(2) Subsection (1) of section twenty-three of the principal Act (which provides for increasing the weekly rate of certain benefits by the amount specified as aforesaid in the third column of Part I of the Second Schedule to that Act) shall be amended, as from the appointed day, by adding at the end thereof the words ‘and, for any such period for which the family includes two or more of those children, be increased in respect of each of those children other than the elder or eldest by the amount set out in the fourth column of Part I of the said Schedule’.

(3) As from the appointed day, Part I of the said Schedule shall be amended by inserting between the third and fourth columns thereof an additional column which shall be headed ‘Increase for each additional child (where payable)’, and the amount of two shillings and sixpence shall be entered in that column so as to relate to all the rates of benefit to which the entries in the third column relate and also to the rate of a widowed mother's allowance.

The heading of the third column of the said Part I shall be amended by substituting for the word ‘child’ the words ‘only child or elder or eldest child’.

For any reference in any enactment (other than the said section twenty-three of the principal Act as amended by this section), or in any regulations or other instrument made under any enactment before the passing of this Act, to the fourth column of the said Part I there shall be substituted a reference to the fifth column thereof.

(4) Subsection (1) of section seventeen of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946 (which provides for increasing the weekly rate of the injury benefit or, in certain cases, disablement pension, where the beneficiary's family includes a child or children, by seven shillings and sixpence in respect of that child or the elder or eldest of those children) shall be amended, as from the appointed day, by substituting for the words ‘seven shillings and sixpence’ the words ‘ten shillings’, and by adding at the end of that subsection the words ‘and, for any such period during which the family includes two or more of those children, by two shillings and sixpence in respect of each of those children other than the elder or eldest’.

(5) Subsection (1) of section twenty-one of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946 (which provides...

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