POLICE (SUPERANNUATION) BILL. (Hansard, 26 March 1906)

§ MR. COCHRANE (Ayrshire, N.)
said that this Bill was similar to one which he had the honour to introduce in 1904. That Bill made considerable progress through the House, was passed successfully through the Grand Committee and its Report Stage, but unfortunately met with opposition from the hon. Member for Mid Lanark, and was thrown out on its Third Reading. He hoped the hon. Gentleman opposite would on this occasion be more successful. The provisions of the Police Act of 1890 were, on the whole, liberal so far as the policeman was concerned. That Act provided that a policeman who became incapacitated and who had not served fifteen years got a gratuity on a 935 medical certificate. After fifteen years service, on a medical certificate as to infirmity of mind or body he got a pension. After twenty-five years service he was entitled to retire on a pension, and after twenty-six years service his pension was to be two-thirds of his pay. It was obvious to everyday that a policeman who had joined the force at twenty years of age might retire at the age of forty-six in the prime of his life, when he was seasoned to his duties and full of that experience without which the policeman's lot was not a happy one. The object of this Bill was to give a man some incentive to remain in the service a few years longer and thereby to improve the sevice and his own position. But the difficulty was that the policeman, having earned a pension, felt that for some trifling fault he might be discharged from the service and lose that pension, for which he had served for twenty-six years. He thought that if the pension was earmarked to the policeman so that if he served a few more years it would still be secure to him and that he would not lose it except he committed the very gravest offences that difficulty might be got over. Again he had to complain of the action of the hon. Member for Mid Lanark in this matter. The Scotch police had a much harder life than the English police, and they were not entitled to a pension of two-thirds of their pay until they had completed thirty-four years service and had reached the age of fifty-five. The Scottish police were as able as the police of this county; the climate in which they had to serve was not less inclement than that of England, and he certainly hoped that whatever little advantage might accrue to the police of this county through the passage of this Bill would also be extended to the Scottish service. This Bill, he thought, would have a very great effect in raising the very heavy burden that fell upon the rates. In 1902, when the Act had only been in force sixteen years, the total expenditure for police pensions in England and Wales amounted to £434,737, which showed an annual excess of expenditure over income of £93,627. If to that was added London expenditure the total annual dificit came to £170,000. That showed a very serious state of affairs. The result of this Bill would be a smaller drain on the pension fund. No one wished to reduce the pensions of policemen; 936 no one grudged them what they got, and he was sure that many men would be willing to serve if their pensions were made safe. This Bill was a permissive Bill, and went in the direction of giving that security of tenure which the police had not now got. One safeguard, and a very proper one, was provided in the Bill, and that was that a policeman before he was engaged in this way must be physically fit and must pass a medical inspection to show that he was fit. The Bill met geenrally with the approval of the police authorities and would, if passed, he believed, add to the efficiency of the force by keeping men of experience in it. The clause dealing with "discontinuous service" was fair and right, and the clause dealing with "approved service" extremely good. He was glad to be able to give the Bill his blessing.

§ MR. SAMUEL ROBERTS
said he had been asked by the chief constable of Sheffield to draw attention to a little grievance which was felt with regard to a few words in Section 4, Sub-section 4, of the Police Act of 1890. It was there provided that in cases where a police officer had been in more than one force, service of less than three years in any one force was not to count towards approved service. It could easily be imagined that police officers often remained in the force less than three years, and if they then they changed into another force the whole of this service was lost. It was felt that a policeman ought to be allowed to count his continuous service, even if in one force he had been less than three years. He hoped the Secretary of State for the Home Department would consider the matter.

§ MR. CLAUDE HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)
said this was a Bill more or less, similar to one which was introduced by the late Secretary of State for the Home Department, and, whilst one approached this measure with sympathy, there were parts which did not invite support. In the first place, there could be no doubt that certain provisions would stop promotion in the police force throughout the country, and would be therefore unpopular among the younger members of the force. Another objection was that no provision was made in the Bill to make special payments count for pension. That question had for long been a grievance among the 937 police, and the grievance was the more acute because when some of their superior officers received special allowances, they were allowed to count for pension. He earnestly hoped that those who represented the Home Office would give some undertaking that in Committee the provisions of the Bill would be extended to meet the objection he had raised. In the last two or three years there had been occasion to note the increasing number of duties performed by the police, involving better education, higher skill, and greater risk, and surely the time had come when competence in foreign languages should count for increased pay and increased pension. Take London for instance. Only the other day the Secretary of State for the Home Department, informed the House that 100 or 200 of the Metropolitan police had to acquire facility in the Yiddish language in order to discharge their duties in the London streets.

§ MR. SPEAKER
said that question was not relevant to the Bill.

§ MR. CLAUDE HAY
said he was endeavouring to show how increased allowances ought to count towards pensions, which was not the case in the lower ranks of the police force. It was a grievance which was keenly felt by the general body of the police force, and at this season, when the Government was giving sympathetic ear to the claims of the different branches of the public service, he hoped the police would not be an exception to the rule. As a Scotchman he wished to enforce the appeal in respect of the police force in Scotland. It did seem very hard that if a man took employment in the police force north of the Tweed he should have to serve thirty-four years in a more rigorous climate, as compared with twenty-six years in the sunny south of England, before being entitled to a pension He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would appreciate the valuable services of these men by unifying the various rules and making the whole of the conditions of the service more popular.