HC Deb 14 November 1918 vol 110 cc3083-4

(1) Where a man to whom this Section applies, that is to say:

  1. (a) a constable (including a re-engaged pensioner) who was serving in a police force on the first day of September, nineteen hundred and eighteen;
  2. (b)a member of a police force who, having been called out as a reservist, or having entered or re-entered, enlisted or re-enlisted in any of His Majesty's Naval, Military, or Air Forces for the purposes of the present War, was on the said first day of September serving in any such force;
  3. (c) a constable who having joined the police force after the said first day of September has completed five years' approved service,
dies, or has on or after the said first day of September, died, whilst serving in a police force or in any of His Majesty's Naval, Military, or Air Forces for the purposes of the present War, or whilst in receipt of a pension from a police authority, or in consequence of any disease or injury on account of which he retired from the police force, the police authority may, if they think fit, grant out of the pension fund to his widow (being a woman whom he married before he retired from the police force) a pension of twenty-six pounds a year, or if the constable had attained the rank of inspector thirty-two pounds a year, or if the constable had attained a rank higher than that of an inspector, forty pounds a year.

Mr. A. WILLIAMS

I beg to move, after the word "year" ["forty pounds a year"], to insert the words and in the event of there being no widow, or of the widow dying before any child or children of the marriage have reached the age of sixteen years, the pension, or such proportionate part thereof as the police authority may decide, shall be paid in respect of such child or children until they reach that age. This is the Amendment we discussed just now. I do very earnestly desire to press it upon the Solicitor-General. I will not go over the arguments again, but I feel so strongly about it that I feel bound formally to move the Amendment which stood in Committee in the name of the hon. Member for Woolwich. I hope the Solicitor-General will see his way to accept them, and if he cannot do that, that he will at any rate promise that the point shall be very carefully considered before the Bill goes to another place, with a view to its being met.

Amendment not seconded.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.