STATUTES
| Date | 01 October 1946 |
| Published date | 01 October 1946 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1946.tb01015.x |
STATUTES
TEE
FAMILY
ALLOWANCES
ACT,
1945
THIS Act of twenty-nine sections
is
now
in
force, and any
comment on
it,
however brief, must begin, where the
debate
on
the
third
reading ended, with
a
tribute to the
thirty odd years of work done for the cause
of
family
allowances by the late Miss Eleanor Rathbone,
M.P.
(see in
particular
The Disinherited Family
by
E.
F.
Rathbone,
1927).
It
carries into effect the recommendations contained
in
paragraphs
50-59
of the White Paper on Social Insurance
(Cmd.
19441,
6551)
which embody, with considerable modifica-
tions, the suggestions made in paragraphs
410-425
of
the
Beveridge Report (Cmd.
1942,
6404).
The principal provision
is
for payment, out of the pro-
ceeds
of
general taxation and not
of
insurance contributions,
of allowances at the
flat
rate of
5s.
a week for every chid,
other than the eldest, who is under the upper limit of the
school-leaving age
or,
as long
as
he
is
receiving full-time
instruction
in
a school
or
is an apprentice, up to July
81
following his sixteenth birthday (sections
1
and
2).
There
is
no
mesns test, and the statute must be regarded
ss
s
milestone in the history of
socisl
reform. Nevertheless,
it
can
only appear
in
its true perspective when the socisl insurance
legislation strictly
so
called comes completely into force, when
the school-leaving
sge
has been rsised
to
sixteen and when
the provisions of the Education Act,
1944,
are
beiig
fully
ded out.
In
the meantime there are some snomslies, due mainly
to
the piecemesl nature
of
Engllish social insursnce legis-
lation to date, created by the provisions
of
sections
12-15;
which apply the principle of
‘
no
duplication
of
allowances
’
(Cmd.
1944,
6551,
0
58).
Section
12
prohibits any
payment under the Act in respect of
a
child for whom
an orphan’s pension is being paid under the Widows’,
Orphans’ and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act,
1936,
with
the somewhat unfortunate words that he ‘shall not be
treated as included
in
any family’; section
18
provides
that, after the Act
has
come into force, supplementary
allowances
under
ttc
Workmen’s Compensation
Act,
an
increase in the weekly rate of benefits under the Unemploy-
ment Insurance Acts,
or
an additional allowance under the
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