14 & 15 GEORGE 5, CHAPTER 29. 2. SHORT TITLE AND CONSTRUCTION.-This Act may be cited as the Local Authorities (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1924, and shall be construed as one with the Local Authorities (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1923, and that Act and this Act may be cited together as the Local Authorities (Emergency Provisions) Acts, 1923 and 1924. SCHEDULE (s. 1). PROVISIONS OF 13 & 14 GEO. 5, c. 6, CONTINUED. Section of Act. Section one Section two Subject Matter. Continuance until the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, subject to certain modifications, of section one of the Local Authorities (Financial Provisions) Act, 1921 (11 & 12 Geo. 5, c. 67), which provides for the temporary extension of charges on the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund. Substitution for "the first day of April, nineteen hundred and (a) the proviso to subsection (3) of section three thereof CHAPTER XXX. An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1924. [Preamble.] 66 [1st August 1924.] 1. RIGHTS OF INSURED PERSONS TO UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.—(1) Until the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, an insured contributor who is unemployed shall, if and so long as the statutory conditions are fulfilled in his case and he is not disqualified under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920 (10 & 11 Geo. 5, c. 30) (in this Act referred to as the principal Act"), for the receipt of unemployment benefit (in this Act referred to as " benefit "), be entitled, subject to the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1924, and to the provisions contained in Part I. of the First Schedule to this Act (which reenacts with modifications the provisions of the Second Schedule to the principal Act), to receive such benefit in accordance with the provisions hereinafter contained in this section. (2) An applicant for benefit in whose case the requirements of subsection (1) of this section are fulfilled shall, unless the number of the contributions paid in respect of him since the beginning of the insurance year next before the beginning UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (No. 2) ACT, 1924 of the benefit year in which the application for benefit is made is less than twenty, be entitled to receive benefit in the proportion of one week's benefit for every six contributions paid in respect of him and for periods not exceeding in the aggregate twenty-six weeks in a benefit year. (3) If an applicant for benefit in whose case the requirements of subsection (1) of this section are fulfilled is not entitled thereto under the provisions of the last preceding subsection, by reason either that the number of contributions paid in respect of him within the period therein mentioned is less than twenty, or that sufficient contributions are not standing to his credit or that he has already received benefit for periods amounting in the aggregate to twenty-six weeks in the benefit year in which the application is made, he shall nevertheless be entitled to receive benefit if in addition to satisfying the requirements aforesaid he also proves(a) that he is normally employed in such employment as would make him an employed person within the meaning of the principal Act (in this Act referred to as "insurable employment "), and will normally seek to obtain his livelihood by means of insurable employment; (b) that in normal times insurable employment suited to his capacities would be likely to be available for him; (c) that he has, during the two years immediately preceding the date of the application for benefit, been employed in an insurable employment to such an extent as was reasonable, having regard to all the circumstances of the case and in particular to the opportunities for obtaining insurable employment during that period; (d) that he is making every reasonable effort to obtain employment suited to his capacities and is willing to accept such employment. For the purposes of paragraph (c) of this subsection: (i) in the case of a seaman, marine, soldier or airman in respect of whom a shall be treated as employment in insurable employment. In the foregoing provision the expression" person formerly engaged in war service," has the same meaning as in the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922 (12 Geo. 5, c. 7). (4) Notwithstanding that the employment of an insured contributor has terminated, he shall not be deemed to be unemployed within the meaning of this section during a period in respect of which he continues to receive wages or receives any payment by way of compensation for the loss of, and substantially equivalent to, the remuneration which he would have received if the employment had not terminated. 66 (5) For the purposes of this Act, the expression benefit year means in relation to any insured contributor the period of twelve months commencing on the date on which that contributor first makes an application for benefit next after this Act comes into operation, and every subsequent period of twelve months commencing on the date on which that contributor first makes an application for benefit next after the termination of his last preceding benefit year: Provided that, if in the case of any insured contributor this Act comes into operation at a time when he is continuously unemployed, the benefit year current at the commencement of this Act shall, unless the Minister otherwise directs, continue in relation to him until the date on which the period of continuous unemployment ceases, but not in any case beyond the fifteenth day of October, nineteen hundred and twenty-four. (6) In the case of a person who has satisfied the requirements for the receipt of benefit in the first benefit year, as defined in section three of the Unemployment 14 & 15 GEORGE 5, CHAPTER 30. Insurance Act, 1923 (13 Geo. 5, c. 2), the Minister may, during such period as may be necessary for the examination of his qualifications for the receipt of benefit under this Act, but not exceeding six weeks next after the passing of this Act, authorise payment of benefit to him under subsection (3) of this section, as if he were a person who complied with the requirements of that subsection. 2. RATES OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.-(1) As from the second Thursday next after the commencement of this Act benefit shall be at the weekly rates set out in Part II. of the First Schedule to this Act. (2) Section one of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1922 (which provides that the weekly rate of benefit authorised by the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 and 1921 (11 & 12 Geo. 5, c. 1), shall be increased in respect of certain dependants), shall apply to the weekly rate of benefit authorised by this section as it applies to the weekly rate of benefit authorised by the said Acts, subject to the following modifications, namely, that the increase (a) shall be allowed in the case of an unmarried person (not being a person entitled to an increase under the said section otherwise than in respect of his dependent children) who has living with him and is wholly or mainly maintaining his widowed mother; (b) shall be allowed in the case of a widow or an unmarried woman who has residing with her any female person for the purpose of having the care of her dependent children and is maintaining that person; and (c) in respect of a child shall be two shillings instead of one shilling. 3. AMENDMENT AS TO STATUTORY CONDITIONS.—(1) Section seven of the principal Act (which prescribes the statutory conditions for the receipt of benefit) shall be amended as follows :— (a) The following paragraphs shall be substituted respectively for paragraphs (i), (iii) and (iv) of subsection (1): 66 (i) that he proves that not less than thirty contributions have been paid in respect of him under this Act since the beginning of the first of the two insurance years next before the beginning of the benefit year in which the application for benefit is made; 66 66 (iii) that he is capable of and available for work; (iv) that he is genuinely seeking work, but unable to obtain suitable employment; (b) After the words " than those" in paragraph (b) of the proviso to subsection. (1) there shall be inserted the words "which he might reasonably have expected to obtain having regard to those." (2) During the period between the commencement of this Act and the first day of October, nineteen hundred and twenty-five, a person shall be entitled to receive benefit if the Minister thinks fit so to direct in his case, notwithstanding that the first statutory condition may not have been fulfilled in his case. 4. AMENDMENTS AS TO DISQUALIFICATIONS FOR RECEIPT OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT. (1) Subsection (1) of section eight of the principal Act (which imposes. a disqualification for the receipt of benefit during a stoppage of work) shall not apply in any case in which the insured contributor proves that he is not participating in or financing or directly interested in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage of work, and that he does not belong to a grade or class of workers members of which are participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute, or that the stoppage is due to an employer acting in a manner so as to contravene the terms or provisions of any agreement existing between a group of employers where the stoppage takes place, or of a national agreement to either of which the employers and employees are contracting parties. (2) Subsection (3) of section eight of the principal Act (which disqualifies an insured contributor for the receipt of benefit while he is an inmate of any workhouse or other institution supported wholly or partly out of public funds) shall not apply in the case of an insured contributor who is an inmate of an institution used as a place of residence for workers if he proves that he was an inmate of the institution UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (No. 2) ACT, 1924. immediately before he became unemployed and that during the time when he was employed he paid the whole or a substantial part of the cost of his maintenance as such inmate. 5. Amount of STATE CONTRIBUTION.—(1) The contribution to be made for the purposes of section five of the principal Act out of moneys provided by Parliament shall be at a rate equal to one-half of the aggregate amount of the contributions paid in respect of the employed person by himself and his employer, or, in the case of an exempt person, paid by his employer, and subsections (3) and (7) of the said section five shall have effect accordingly. (2) This section shall have effect as from the date to be prescribed by the Minister under subsection (2) of section four of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1923, as the date on which new rates of contribution are to come into force. 6. AMENDMENT of s. 12 (3) of PRINCIPAL ACT.-There shall be included among the expenses of which account may be taken for the purposes of the proviso to subsection (3) of section twelve of the principal Act (which provides that such sum as the Treasury may direct, not exceeding one-eighth of the receipts of the unemployment fund, shall be applied as an appropriation in aid of the moneys provided by Parliament for the purpose of the salaries, remuneration and expenses therein mentioned) (a) such sum as in the opinion of the Treasury approximately represents the amount in each year of the accruing liability in respect of the benefits to which any officers, inspectors or servants employed for the purposes of the principal Act will on their retirement become entitled under the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1919; and (b) any capital expenditure incurred for the purpose of providing premises for the purposes of the principal Act: Provided that, if in any case where the amount of any such capital expenditure has been charged to the unemployment fund the premises in respect of which the expenditure was incurred are sold or are used for purposes other than those of the said Act, there shall be deducted from the amount thereafter chargeable to the unemployment fund under the said proviso such sum as may be determined by the Treasury, with the consent of the Minister, to represent the then value of the premises; and (c) in the case of any premises occupied for the purposes of the principal Act in respect of which no rent is payable, such an amount as is estimated by the Treasury, with the consent of the Minister, to represent the rental value of the premises, after allowing for any capital expenditure incurred as aforesaid, which has been charged to the unemployment fund. 7. AMENDMENTS TO S. 17 OF PRINCIPAL ACT.—(1) Section seventeen of the principal Act (which provides for arrangements being made with associations which make payments to their members while unemployed for the payment to such associations of sums out of the unemployment fund equivalent to the amount which those members would have received by way of unemployment benefit), as amended by any subsequent enactment, shall have effect as if in subsection (1) thereof there were substituted for the words which those persons would have received the words "which those persons would have been entitled to receive.” " (2) Where in consequence of a decision of an insurance officer or umpire or a recommendation of a court of referees a society or other association has paid to one of its members any sum by way of provision for unemployment, then, if the decision or recommendation is subsequently revised, so much of that sum as represented the amount of benefit which but for the arrangement would have been payable to that person may, unless that person shows that the sum was received by him in good faith and without knowledge that he was not entitled thereto, be recovered, without prejudice to any other remedy, by means of deductions from any benefit or from any payment from the society or other association to which that person thereafter becomes entitled. Any question whether a person is liable under the provisions of this subsection 14 & 15 GEORGE 5, CHAPTER 30 to have a reduction made from any benefit or payment due to him shall be determined in the same manner as a claim for benefit. 8. ABOLITION OF POWER TO MAKE SPECIAL SCHEMES.-(1) The power of the Minister under section eighteen of the principal Act to make special orders approving or making special schemes shall be suspended until the expiration of one year from the termination of the deficiency period referred to in the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1921 (11 & 12 Geo. 5, c. 15): Provided that the foregoing provision shall not affect the power of the Minister to approve a scheme if a draft thereof appearing to him to be complete was submitted to him before the third day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, and application was before that date made to him to approve the scheme in accordance with the provisions of section eighteen of the principal Act. (2) For the purpose of securing in the case of a special scheme (whether approved before or after the commencement of this Act) that like rates of benefit shall be payable to the persons to whom the scheme applies as are payable under this Act, and that the benefits under the scheme shall otherwise be not less favourable than those provided by the general provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1924 (but for no other purpose), the Minister may, after consultation with the body charged with the administration of the scheme, notwithstanding anything in the said section eighteen, by order vary or amend the provisions of the scheme, and any such order may provide for consequential amendments as to the rates of contribution and otherwise. (3) Subsection (7) of section eighteen of the principal Act (which provides for the payment of a certain sum in every year out of moneys provided by Parliament to the body charged with the administration of a special scheme) shall cease to bave effect. (4) The power of the Minister under subsection (9) of section eighteen of the principal Act to vary or amend the provisions of a scheme made under that section may, except in the case of provisions relating to rates of contribution, rates or duration of benefit, or the constitution of the body charged with the administration of the scheme, be exercised by order instead of by special order. Any order, not being a special order, made under the said subsection (9), as amended by this subsection, for varying or amending the provisions of a scheme shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament in the same manner as regulations made under the principal Act, and subsection (3) of section thirty-five of the principal Act shall apply accordingly. 9. AMENDMENT AS TO REFUNDS OF CONTRIBUTIONS.—(1) If on an application made under this section the Minister is satisfied that any person who is or has been an insured contributor had before the date on which this section comes into operation (a) paid contributions in respect of not less than fifty weeks in accordance with the general provisions of the principal Act; and (b) reached the age of fifty years; that person or his personal representative shall be entitled to be paid out of the unemployment fund a sum representing the present worth as on that date of the amount of the excess value of the contributions paid by him as increased (in the case of an insured contributor who has not attained the age of sixty years) by compound interest at the rate of two-and-a-half per cent. per annum on the amount of that excess value from the date aforesaid until the date on which he would attain the age of sixty years. (2) An application for a payment under this section must be made in the prescribed manner and within twelve months after the date on which this section comes into operation. (3) For the purposes of this section (a) the amount of the excess value of the contributions paid by an insured contributor shall be taken to be the amount by which the total amount of the contributions actually paid by him exceeds the |