HC Deb 02 December 1937 vol 329 cc2406-8

Order for Second Reading read.

11.34 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lieut.-Colonel Colville)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

In spite of its high-sounding title, this is a very modest Measure, and I think that it will be welcomed by the House. The Bill relates to various staffs who are not Civil servants in the ordinary sense, but have been pensioned on Civil Service terms under the Acts set out in the Schedule to the Bill. The staffs referred to are enumerated on the front of the Bill in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. They are the staffs of the Metropolitan Police Offices and of the Metropolitan Police courts, the staff paid out of the General Lighthouse Fund, Development Commission staff, Forestry Commission staff, staffs of the Electricity Commission, the Railway Rates Tribunal, and the Caledonian and Crinan Canals, and the Assessor of Public Undertakings (Scotland) and his staff. It has always been intended that these staffs should come under the full Civil Service superannuation code; but in some respects it has been found that the Acts which apply to them require to be brought up to date and the main object of the Bill is to permit these officers when they retire to provide a pension either at once or on their death for their wives or dependants by surrendering part of their own pension. That is a right which is enjoyed by the Civil Service under the allocation scheme which is authorised by Section 2 of the Superannuation Act, 1935. But the Acts which are applicable to these staffs do not authorise the grant of a pension to any one other than the officer himself.

Clause 1 extends the relevant Statutes to cover this point. There are two other types of benefit which may be granted to Civil servants, but which are not fully covered under the Acts we seek to amend, namely, death gratuities, and grants to officers who are injured on duty, or in case of fatal injury, to their dependants other than payments under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. These benefits are covered also by Clause I. Retrospective effect has been given to the Clause in view of certain action which has been taken in the case of some of these staffs, to whom payments have been made in the belief that the Acts fully covered them. We are advised that the Acts do not fully cover these cases, and we are making the Clause retrospective. Clause 2 deals with the question of the distribution of small sums due on the death of an officer without insisting upon the production of probate. That also is a power which exists in the Civil Service. The Bill fills a gap. It was always intended that these staffs should be treated precisely as Civil servants in the matter of superannuation rights, and the Bill is to give effect to that intention.

11.38 p.m.

Mr. Kelly

Do I understand that the Bill will apply to the light keepers and men on all the staffs, no matter what position they occupy in the Trinity House service?

Lieut.-Colonel Colville

It applies to all who are covered and paid from the General Lighthouse Fund. I have to move a Financial Resolution because technically this Bill imposes a new charge, but, as the Financial Memorandum explains, the amount involved is very small.

Mr. Kelly

I should like to know how far the General Lighthouse Fund is used for the services to which I have referred, and whether there are lights which are partly financed from the Fund on the North-West and North-East Coasts? I hope at a later stage of the Bill we shall have an explanation as to whether these are included. I take it that these officers will be able to make arrangements with the Elder Brethren of Trinity House to allocate part of their pensions to their widows?