Second Reservation
This reserves competence to require persons (including companies and authorities) to establish and administer schemes for social security purposes, to make payments to or in respect of those schemes and to keep records and supply information in connection with them. The reservation is intended to cover activities to do with National Insurance, such as the requirement on individuals to pay and employers to collect National Insurance contributions; and to cover those types of social security provision which operate through requirements on employers or others to make payments in accordance with a regulatory framework (such as statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay) rather than by direct central or local government delivery. The funding of social security schemes and the requirement for others such as local authorities to provide them (e.g. housing and council tax benefit) is also reserved.
Social security legislation also imposes requirements on employers to make payments of a minimum amount of sick pay or maternity pay in prescribed circumstances. This reservation also covers such arrangements.
