SUPERINTENDENTS OF DOCKYARD POLICE.—AMENDMENT. (Hansard, 23 February 1863)

§ SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

rose to call attention to the case of the three superintendents of dockyard police at Pembroke, Gosport, and Chatham. The case he desired to place before the House was this:—When, in 1860, it was considered desirable to alter the arrangement with regard to the police at the dockyards of Pembroke, Portsmouth, and Chatham, by placing them under the management of the metropolitan police, the three superintendents of police who had filled the offices with credit and attention for twenty-six years, and who had entered the navy, one of them in the year 1803 and the other two in 1805, were superannuated upon the full pay of their respective offices, receiving, in addition to their half-pay, which amounted to £127 15s., pen- 655 sions of £174 per annum granted by the Lords of the Treasury. These pensions they enjoyed from October, 1860, until June, 1861, when their allowances were suddenly reduced by £108 per annum, causing them of course great and serious inconvenience. One gentleman, being a single man, had engaged to allow to his sister and her family the sum of £72 per annum; but after this reduction he would have great difficulty in meeting that engagement. So convinced were the Admiralty of the injustice which had been done to these officers that they had repeatedly applied to the Treasury upon the subject, and it was only as a Department quarrel that the matter now came before the House. He believed that the Secretary of the Treasury would, in defence of the course which had been adopted, point to a rule in the Superannuation Act; but he should call upon the House to say by a division whether, in a case like this, the provisions of that Act ought to be strictly adhered to, or whether they should not ask Her Majesty to restore to these gentlemen the full amount of their pensions as originally granted, with all the arrears which were now due to them. The hon. and gallant Gentleman concluded by moving— That this House will To-morrow resolve itself into a Committee to consider of an humble Address to be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the three Superintendents of Dockyard Police who were superannuated on the abolition of their offices be restored to the scale of pension which was originally awarded to them.

MR. PEEL

said, that he deeply regretted the inconvenience and disappointment which these officers might have experienced from the mode in which their claims to pensions had been dealt with; but he thought he should be able to satisfy the House that the course taken by the Treasury was the unavoidable course under the circumstances, and strictly in accordance with what was contemplated by the Act of Parliament relating to compensations. The hon. and gallant Member had 656 correctly stated that the appointments held by these officers and others were abolished when the dockyard duty was transferred to the metropolitan police. The claims of persons entitled to superannuation were submitted to the Treasury on printed forms intended to elicit information on various subjects, and, among others, whether the applicants are in receipt of half-pay or compensation allowances of any kind. As it appeared from the printed particulars of the case of these officers, that they were not receiving anything in the shape of half-pay at the time, the grant from the Treasury was fixed according to the ordinary scale of 1–60th of their civil salary for every year they had served. These officers had served twenty-six years, and ten years additional were granted as compensation for abolishing their offices, making their total pensions equal to 36–60ths of their civil salary. Their salary being £250, with a house of the estimated value of £40, they became entitled, according to this scale, to a pension of £174, which was accordingly granted in December, 1860. About five months afterwards, Captain Grey, Superintendent of Telegraphs to the Admiralty, who was pensioned in 1848, wrote to request that his case might be reconsidered, on the express ground that the officers in question had received pensions for their civil service, irrespective of the half-pay to which they were entitled. That statement took the Treasury entirely by surprise, but they lost no time in inquiring of the Admiralty whether it was true, as stated, that these officers were in receipt of half-pay; and it turned out that such was the case, some misunderstanding with regard to the printed forms having taken place, and the officers not having been in receipt of half-pay at the time they sent in their replies to the Treasury. Under these circumstances the case fell under the provisions of the Superannuation Act, which distinctly and peremptorily provided that no officer receiving half-pay should obtain a pension in respect of his civil services larger than would amount with his half-pay to two-thirds of his civil salary. The Treasury, therefore, were obliged to retain in their hands the amount in excess of this scale which had been improperly granted, and in adopting this course they had no discretion whatever, as the wording of the Act was imperative. If these officers were allowed to receive their half-pay in addition to the pension granted by the 657 Treasury, the result would be that they would now be in receipt of a larger income than they had been during their twenty-six years of active duty.