Act of Parliament | |
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Long title | An Act to provide for Insurance against Loss of Health and for the Prevention and Cure of Sickness and for Insurance against Unemployment, and for purposes incidental thereto. |
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Citation | 1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 55 |
Territorial extent | England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 16 December 1911 |
Commencement | 1 July 1912 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The National Insurance Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 55) created National Insurance, originally a system of health insurance for industrial workers in Great Britain based on contributions from employers, the government, and the workers themselves. It was one of the foundations of the modern welfare state. It also provided unemployment insurance for designated cyclical industries. It formed part of the wider social welfare reforms of the Liberal Governments of 1906–1915, led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith. David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the prime moving force behind its design,[fact or opinion?] negotiations with doctors and other interest groups, and final passage, assisted by Home Secretary Winston Churchill.[1]