Unemployment Insurance Act 1927
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1927 c. 30 |
| Year | 1927 |
Unemployment Insurance Act, 1927
(17 & 18 Geo. 5.) 30.
An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1926.
[22nd December 1927]
B E 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:—
1 Rights of insured persons to benefit.
1. An insured contributor who is unemployed shall, if he proves that the statutory conditions are fulfilled in his case and if he is not disqualified under the Unemployment Insurance Acts for the receipt of benefit, be entitled, subject to the provisions of those Acts, to receive benefit.
2 Rates of contribution in case of young men and young women.
(1) The following provisions shall have effect with respect to the contributions payable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts in respect of employed persons who have attained the age of eighteen years but have not attained the age of twenty-one years (in this Act referred to as ‘young men and young women’):—
(a ) As from and after the second day of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, until the expiration of the extended period the contributions payable as aforesaid by young men and young women and their employers shall be at the respective rates set out in the First Schedule to this Act:
(b ) As from and after the second day of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, until the expiration of the extended period, the rates of contribution on which the amount of the contribution payable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts out of moneys provided by Parliament is to be calculated, shall, so far as relates to young men and young women, be the rates set out in the Second Schedule to this Act instead of the rates applicable to men and women under the Second Schedule to the Economy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1926 .
(2) In this section, the expression ‘extended period’ has the same meaning as in section four of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1925 .
(3) Nothing in this section shall be taken to prejudice the operation of section fifteen or section sixteen of the principal Act.
3 Periodical investigation into condition of unemployment fund.
3. The Minister shall once at least in every five years, and if he thinks proper so to do may at shorter intervals, cause an investigation to be made, in such manner as the Treasury may approve, into the financial condition of the unemployment fund, and the Minister shall cause to be laid before Parliament a report of any investigation made under this section.
4 Rates of unemployment benefit.
(1) As from the commencement of this Act, benefit shall, subject to the provisions of this section, be at the weekly rates set out in the Third Schedule to this Act:
Provided that—
(a ) young men and young women who are in receipt of an increase of benefit in respect of dependants; and
(b ) during the period between the commencement of this Act and the fifth day of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, young men and young women (whether in receipt of such an increase or not)
shall be entitled to benefit at the same rate as persons who have attained the age of twenty-one years.
(2) The enactments which provide that the weekly rate of benefit shall be increased in respect of certain dependants shall apply to the weekly rate of benefit authorised by this section subject to the following modifications:—
(a ) subsection (1) of section one of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922 , shall be amended as follows—
(i) for the words ‘a widower or an unmarried man has residing with him any female person for the purpose of having the care of his dependent children and is maintaining that person, or has and has had living with him as his wife any female person’ there shall be substituted the words ‘either a man or a woman (but not being a person entitled to an increase under this section otherwise than in respect of his or her dependent children) has residing with him or her and is wholly or mainly maintaining a female person who has the care of the dependent children of the person entitled to benefit’;
(ii) for the words ‘five shillings’ there shall be substituted the words ‘seven shillings’;
(b ) in subsection (2) of the said section one for the words ‘decided by the Minister’ there shall be substituted the words ‘determined in the same manner as a claim for benefit’;
(c ) in the definition of ‘a dependent child’ in subsection (1) of section sixteen of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922, for the words ‘at the cost of’ there shall be substituted the word ‘by’;
(d ) subsection (2) of section two of the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1924 , shall be amended as follows—
(i) for the words ‘an unmarried person’ there shall be substituted the words ‘a person’;
(ii) after the words ‘widowed mother’ there shall be inserted the words ‘widowed stepmother, mother who has never been married or mother whose husband is permanently disabled and unable to work’;
5 Amendment as to statutory conditions for receipt of benefit.
(1) Section seven of the principal Act shall be amended as follows:—
(a ) the following shall be substituted for the first of the statutory conditions for the receipt of benefit by insured contributors—
‘(i) that not less than thirty contributions have been paid in respect of him as an insured contributor in respect of the two years immediately preceding the date on which application for benefit is made’:
(b ) in provisos (b ) and (c ) of subsection (1) after the words ‘an offer of employment’ there shall be inserted the words ‘in his usual occupation’ and for the words ‘usual employment’ in the said proviso (b ) there shall be substituted the words ‘usual occupation’:
(c ) in paragraph (a ) of subsection (2) for the words ‘has ordinarily been followed’ there shall be substituted the words ‘could ordinarily have been followed.’
(2) The following provisions shall have effect in relation to the said statutory conditions:—
(i) in calculating the said thirty contributions no account shall be taken of any contributions paid in respect of any person in respect of any period during which he was not bona fide employed;
(ii) after the lapse of such an interval from the date on which an insured contributor becomes unemployed as, in the circumstances of the case, is reasonable, employment shall not be deemed to be unsuitable by reason only that it is employment of a kind other than employment in the usual occupation of the insured contributor, if it is employment at a rate of wage not lower, and on conditions not less favourable, than those generally observed by agreement between associations of employers and of employees or, failing any such agreement, than those generally recognised by good employers.
(3) The question whether the first statutory condition continues to be fulfilled in the case of any insured contributor shall be reviewed at the beginning of each of the second, third and fourth benefit quarters, and if either at the beginning of any benefit quarter or at any time during the second, the third or the fourth benefit quarter it is determined that the first statutory condition is fulfilled in the case of any insured contributor, that condition shall be deemed to continue to be fulfilled in the case of that contributor until the beginning of the next following benefit quarter or until the end of the benefit year, whichever is the earlier.
(4) If an insured contributor proves in the prescribed manner that he was during any periods, falling within the period of two years mentioned in the first statutory condition, incapacitated for work by reason of some specific disease or by bodily or mental disablement, the said condition shall have effect as if for the said period of two years there were substituted a period of two years increased by the said periods of incapacity, but so as not to exceed in any case four years.
(5) If an insured contributor who is, or who has at any time during the two years immediately preceding the date of an application for benefit been, in receipt of a pension paid out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of a disability contracted by him during the late war proves that the non-fulfilment in his case of the first statutory condition is due to that disability, he shall, if he proves that not less than ten contributions were paid in respect of him as an insured contributor during the said period of two years, be treated for all the purposes of the Unemployment Insurance Acts as if he had proved that that condition was fulfilled in his case.
6 Amendment as to disqualifications for receipt of benefit.
6. Subsection (1) of section four of the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1924, shall have effect as if there were substituted for the words ‘members of which’ the words ‘of which immediately before the commencement of the stoppage there were members employed at the premises at which the stoppage is taking place any of whom,’ and as if all the words after ‘in the dispute’ were omitted.
7 Amendment as to meaning of continuous period of unemployment.
7. In section five of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1923(which defines a continuous period of unemployment), as amended in the Second Schedule to the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1924, for the words ‘six weeks’ there shall be substituted the words ‘ten weeks.’
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