154 
MAJORITY REPORT. 
a 
347. This consideration is in our opinion sufficient in itself to 
render impracticable for the present the suggested modification of 
the existing provision for maternity in the direction of providing 
for the maintenance of the mother and child ; and, taken in con- 
junction with what we have said above as to the provision of 
medical services during pregnancy and confinement forces us to 
the conclusion that for the present the existing arrangements for 
Maternity Benefit should in their general outline remain 
unchanged. 
SECTION B.—DENTAL BENEFIT 
348. Dental benefit is, as we have pointed out in Chapter V, 
one of the most popular, if not the most popular, of the additional 
benefits, and as such it is available in some form or another to 
large numbers of insured persons. The membership of all the 
Societies and Branches in England which provide this additional 
benefit reaches a total of about 10,700,000. The desirability of 
making it a normal benefit under the Act, available under uniform 
conditions to the whole insured population, has been urged upon 
us from many quarters, and much evidence, a summary of which 
has already been given in Chapter V, has been submitted to us 
by responsible professional and lay witnesses. The advantages 
to general health and the consequent beneficial reactions upon 
the benefit funds have been specially pressed upon our 
notice. Nevertheless we do not propose to recommend that any 
substantial change in the present arrangements should be made 
in the near future. It is therefore desirable that we should 
examine this problem at some length to justify the conclusion 
we have arrived at in the face of so much evidence, 
349. It is mainly the question of cost which has caused us 
difficulty in this matter and to that we will now turn. The 
evidence received from such Societies as have given Dental 
Benefit and from the professional bodies suggests that the cost 
of this benefit on a complete basis would be—in the initial period 
and before the accumulation of dental defects has been overtaken 
—in the neighbourhood of 5s. or 6s. per annum per insured 
person. (See, e.g., Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, Q. 3553-3558 ; 
Gordon, Q. Ti27; Joint Committee of Approved Societies, 
Q. 8725; National Insurance Beneficent Society, Q. 8828; 
British Dental Association, Q. 9246-9247; British Society of 
Dental Surgeons, Q. 9487, 9519-9521, 9566-9578; United 
Women's Insurance Society, App. XXIV, 38-39, 51; Q. 10,284, 
10,287-10,291 ; Brock, Q. 23,939; Leishman, Q. 24,381-24,386.) 
In fact the Scottish Board of Health put the cost as high 
as 7s. 6d. per insured person per annum. In view of the heavy 
annual cost thus foreshadowed we have thought it well to invite 
the Ministry of Health to give us more precise indications not