Explanatory note

These Regulations modify and amplify the general provisions of Part I of the Social Security Act 1973 and the regulations made thereunder, in their application to persons who are or have been mariners or share fishermen. The principal modifications and amplifications are a provision that in certain cases days of leave on pay immediately after the end of a voyage are not to be treated as days of unemployment (regulation 2); the removal, in certain circumstances, of the statutory disqualification for the receipt of benefit for periods of absence from Great Britain (regulation 4); a provision for deeming a mariner or share fisherman to be available for employment or incapable of work by reason of disease or disablement in certain circumstances when he is absent from Great Britain (regulation 6); a provision for the modification, in certain circumstances, of the contribution conditions for receiving benefit in respect of mariners employed on foreign-going ships ( regulation 7); special provisions relating to conditions for the receipt of unemployment benefit by share fishermen ( regulation 8); and provision for the extension, in certain circumstances, in the case of a mariner or share fisherman employed as such outside the United Kingdom, of the time within which certain acts have to be performed for the purpose of the provisions of Part I of the Act and of regulations relating to benefit (regulation 9). The remaining provisions are of an incidental or consequential character.

These Regulations, being made before the day appointed for the coming into force of section 2 of the Social Security Act 1973, by virtue of section 48(2) of and paragraph 16 of Schedule 12 to that Act are not required to be referred to the National Insurance Advisory Committee and they have not been so referred.