HC Deb 13 July 1905 vol 149 cc559-60
MR. HAVILAND BURKE

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is prepared to introduce legislation whereby an English policeman, who under the present law gets no more than his pay and medical expenses while incapacitated from duty by violence, will be placed on a level with the Irish policeman, who in a similar case has a claim on the local rates for compensation.

MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS

A police officer who is injured in the execution of his duty receives, it seems to me, liberal treatment. He has full pay and free medical attendance till he is able to return to duty; or, if he has to retire, he is awarded a pension on a high scale. The charge on local rates for the non-effective pay of the police is already a heavy one; and I do not think that I should be justified in proposing, or that Parliament would be willing to accept, legislation which would have the result of increasing it.

MR. HAVILAND BURKE

My Question is not what the Englishman gets, but will he be placed on a level with the Irish policeman by being allowed to claim compensation from the ratepayers? The right hon. Gentleman has not answered that.

MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS

I thought I had done so, at any rate by inference. I think the scale allowed in this country is a liberal one.

MR. HAVILAND BURKE

It is not a question whether it is liberal or illiberal. Is it not the fact that the Irish policeman, when incapacitated by violence, gets not merely full pay and free medical attendance, but, in addition, a handsome sum by way of compensation which is levied on the rates? Will the right hon. Gentleman put the English policeman on the same footing?

*MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member has got a perfectly straightforward Answer to his Question, viz., that the right hon. Gentleman does not propose to introduce any such legislation.

MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N)

IS the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Irish policemen get thousands of pounds compensation at the expense of the ratepayers?

MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS

That is under a particular statute.

MR. FLAVIN

And in a particular country.

MR. JOHN REDMOND (Water ford)

Equal laws for all!