Social insurance and allied services : memorandum on the Beveridge Report
1943-02-10 1943 1940s 24 pages 9. (28) That principle of bringing in the Employer and the Taxpayer to subsidise the beneficiary's premium was accepted in the existing schemes, but it was not accepted on the basis of guaranteeing a maintenance standard to the beneficiary as the "Be...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
10 February 1943
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/D140E13D-EB17-4428-9B5A-7CE647A7B47F http://hdl.handle.net/10796/B00FC47C-06D9-467E-A534-ACFBA3F4BE05 |
| Summary: | 1943-02-10
1943
1940s
24 pages
9. (28) That principle of bringing in the Employer and the Taxpayer to subsidise the beneficiary's premium was accepted in the existing schemes, but it was not accepted on the basis of guaranteeing a maintenance standard to the beneficiary as the "Beveridge" plan proposes. It was accepted on the basis that, in such a subsidised system providing insurance Benefits as a legal right and therefore irrespective of need, there must be some margin between full maintenance and the scale of Benefit if regard was to be had to the amount to be found by the Employer and the Taxpayer and if the beneficiary was to be left with a sense of responsibility for making some provision for himself against the normal vicissitudes of life. With the heavy unemployment which followed the last war, that principle tended to become obscured in Unemployment Insurance, but the fact is that this country has not hitherto accepted in its social insurance services the conception of providing Benefits on a maintenance level irrespective of need, which the "Beveridge" plan proposes to establish throughout the Social Services. (29) When it is borne in mind that that new conception is to be applied not only to the present beneficiaries but extended to all members of the community, including those already possessing substantial incomes and resources, it is clear that it must inevitably lead to the distribution of money to many beneficiaries who do not need it. (30) The order of priority of the "Beveridge" proposals, so far as they relate to that new conception, must therefore in our view be tested, not from the standpoint of the necessity of removing Want - an objective about which there can be no room for controversy - but from the standpoint of how far it is possible and equitable to ask Employers and the Taxpayer to subsidise the scheme so that Benefits may be paid on a subsistence level as a legal right irrespective of whether the recipient is in Want or not. (31) The following Table - Table "C" - shows the extent to which, under the "Beveridge" plan, benefits would be paid as a legal right (i.e. "without proof of Want") and how far they will only be paid "on proof of Want":- TABLE "C"/
200/B/3/2/C216/5/50 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |