National Insurance Act 1913

14 Maternity benefit

(1) Maternity benefit shall in every case be the mother's benefit, but, where the benefit is payable in respect of the husband's insurance, the wife's receipt, or his receipt, if authorised by her, on her behalf, shall be a sufficient discharge to the society or committee, and, where the benefit is paid to the husband, he shall pay it to the wife, and in subsection (1) of section eighteen of the principal Act for the words " treated as " a benefit for her husband, and shall be administered in cash or " otherwise by the approved society of which he is a member " there shall be substituted the words " administered in the " interests of the mother and child in cash or otherwise by the " approved society of which the husband is a member."

(2) At the end of subsection (1) of section eighteen of the principal Act the following words shall be inserted :—

“Where a woman who is an employed contributor is the wife, or, if the child is a posthumous child, the widow, of an insured person, then—

(a) if her husband is, or was at the date of his death, a member of an approved society, and by reason of an insufficient number of contributions having been paid by or in respect of him, or on account of arrears, no maternity benefit is payable in respect of his insurance, she shall, oh her confinement, be entitled to receive in respect of her own insurance such sum as she would have been entitled to receive if he had not been an insured person; and

(b) If her husband is, or was at the date of his death, a deposit contributor, and by reason of an insufficient number of contributions having been paid by or in respect of him or of the insufficiency of the sum standing to his credit in the Deposit Contributors Fund, no maternity benefit or a sum less than the full maternity benefit is payable in respect of his insurance, she shall, on her confinement, be entitled to receive, in respect of her own insurance, such sum as, with the sum (if any) payable in respect of her husband's insurance, is equal to the sum she would have been entitled to receive if he had not been an insured person.”

(3) Where a woman confined of a child is herself an insured person and is a married woman or, if the child is a posthumous child, a widow, she shall, in lieu of any sickness or disablement benefit to which she may be entitled under subsection (6) of section eight of the principal Act, be entitled to receive a maternity benefit from the society of which she is a member or the insurance committee, as the case may be, in addition to any maternity benefit to which she may be otherwise entitled in respect of her husband's or her own insurance, and every approved society and insurance committee shall make rules to the satisfaction of the Insurance Commissioners requiring any woman in respect of whom any such sum is payable in respect of her own insurance to abstain from remunerative work during a period of four weeks after her confinement.

(4) So much of subsection (1) of section eighteen of the principal Act as provides that if a duly-qualified medical practitioner is summoned in pursuance of the rules made under the [2 Edw. 7. c. 17.] Midwives Act, 1902, the prescribed fee shall, subject to regulations made by the Insurance Commissioners, be recoverable as part of the maternity benefit, shall cease to have effect.