Since the idea of a wage-related national pension scheme was first launched in tangible form by the publication in 1957 of the Labour Party's ‘National Superannuation’ plan there has been a state of uneasy coexistence between national and occupational pension schemes in the United Kingdom. Social security systems providing not merely basic flat-rate benefits, but also benefits related to earnings, had been in existence for some years in other European countries, but it was not until the National Insurance Act, 1959 took effect in April 1961 that a national graduated pension scheme became a reality in the United Kingdom. Established at a modest level and designed primarily as a means of raising revenue to meet the rising outgo on flat-rate benefits, this graduated scheme has never seemed likely to endure in its original form. Nevertheless the National Insurance Act, 1966 has grafted on to it a scheme to provide short-term graduated sickness, unemployment and widows' benefits.