POLICE, SCOTLAND (PENSIONS) (Hansard, 12 April 1962)

§ Mr. John Robertson (Paisley)
In raising the question of police pensions in Scotland, I make no attempt to pose as an expert on pensions, and, in particular, on police pensions. I shall restrict what I have to say to the Scottish position and deal exclusively with a very narrow point, namely, the position of the older men concerned. To make my point clear, however, I must say something about the general question of police pensions. I hope to paint in a little of the background.
In Scotland, there are approximately 4,000 retired police officers who are drawing pensions under the provisions of the various Pensions (Increase) Acts. As far as I have been able to discover, the dates of retirement cover the period from 1927 to date. The pensions paid vary considerably, depending on a number and variety of factors.
This circumstance of the variation in the amount of pensions paid rather clouds the issue as it is very difficult to determine, by looking at the statistics, the reasons for some of the very low pensions. From information given to me, it seems that the range of pensions is from about 25 s. a week to nearly £9 a week. Dealing with men with thirty years' service, the range of pensions seems to be from just under £5 a week to approximately £9 a week.
We have to realise that the upper and lower limits of these pensions will increase with the passing of time, but I am concerned about those men who retired a considerable time ago, and particularly those who retired before 1945. Pensions for these men who served as constables are at a maximum of £5 per week, with a large number of pensioners receiving much less. We have to remember that these men are precluded from the benefits of the old-age pension for which those who retired after 1948 qualify.
One man whom I know served in the police force for many years and retired in the 1930s. He receives a pension of £4 8s. 3d. a week. He also receives 1637 £1 14s. a week from the National Assistance Board. Out of this he has to pay rent and rates of 17s. a week. Light and fuel average about 30s. a week throughout the year, leaving him £3 15s. 3d. on which to live. What we must all remember is that this is after a lengthy period of service in the force and after paying contributions equivalent of 5 per cent. of his salary all the time that he is in the force.
The fact that the numbers of ex-policemen who are similarly circumstanced and the numbers who retired before 1945 are not large, does nothing to weaken my case; in fact, it strengthens it. I am aware of the wide implications that are involved. What is said of police pensioners may be said of all pensioners. But there are special circumstances in relation to retired policemen that ought to be examined.
I have a whole sheaf of statistics bearing on the question of the relative value of pensions before 1940 and today, and also the pension levels throughout the years. I am not sure whether a recital of all these figures will help us very much, but I do not think that the hon. Member and I will be in dispute about the fact that older police pensioners are finding it very difficult to make ends meet. I ask the Government to examine the possibility of initiating a discussion of the problem in the Police Council.
There are many ways in which they can help by administrative action. I am given to understand that funds are available which could be diverted for this purpose. I also understand that the Government have some responsibility in relation to the allocation of these funds. I am given to understand that the question of increases for older pensioners has already been discussed between the official side of the Police Federation and the Police Council. It seems possible that something might be done in this way, if only as a temporary measure.
The police are sometimes a much-maligned section of the community—at least until their services are needed. I suggest that the circumstances in which the older police pensioner now finds himself do nothing to help the recruitment of the right kind of man to the police force. It may be that the final answer to the problem is the incorporation of some automatic adjustments in 1638 the pension scheme, but, in the meantime, pending legislation, I hope that the Government will do something to help the older police pensioners.
I suggest that they should have discussions with the representatives of the policemen through the Police Council, and I hope that this will be done.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. R. Brooman-White)
I will deal, first, with the specific suggestion which the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) has made before turning to a more general discussion of the problem. I am sorry that I cannot be definite on this matter; indeed, a good deal of my speech will be devoted to explaining why, in this debate, I cannot be as specific as the hon. Member would like in regard to the other points that he has made.
I do not think that the hon. Member will expect me to comment upon the National Police Fund. He probably realises that the fund is a trustee fund, and is not the responsibility of the Government. The trustees of the fund are responsible for deciding what it may or may not be proper to do with the moneys in the fund. The trustees are bound by the same legal conditions as are the trustees of any other trust fund, and it would not be right for me to go into the possibilities which might lie open to them.
In the broader context, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the wider implications in which this problem is set, and he does, as he made clear in his speech, appreciate that pensions for retired Scottish policemen, although they are paid under Regulations made by my right hon. Friend the Secreary of State, are, nevertheless, under the same pensions scheme as for the police service throughout Great Britain. I do not think that he, or the House, would expect me to suggest that the Scottish position should be dealt with in isolation. I do not want to labour that point.
The main consideration is that retired policemen, whether Scottish or English, have always been dealt with under legislation embracing retired public servants generally. That is the matter in a nutshell. I know that we do not normally in this House leave matters in nutshells, and I should like to enlarge on it a 1639 little, both out of courtesy to the hon. Gentleman and also because the last thing that I would wish to do is to give any false impression that my right hon. Friend is disinterested or perfunctory about a claim such as this, and, in particular, a claim, as the hon. Gentleman said, that embraces a group of people to whom the country is as indebted for past service, as it is to police officers.
It is true that to some extent police officers have special claims arising from the nature of their duties. This is already recognised in the relatively generous terms of the police pensions scheme in relation to the terms of other schemes. Ordinary pensions are paid at half pay rate after twenty-five years' service, while thirty years' service earns a two-thirds rate, and there are other special provisions. It comes to this, that when any hon. Member asks the House to consider police pensions he is inviting it to concentrate on a group, admittedly a very deserving group, and a group among whom there are far too many people having far from an easy time; but, nevertheless, a group in a very much larger class of public service pensioners. A group moreover which from the outset has had something of a lead in its pensions scheme over those who retired at about the same time from other branches of public service.
I should be out of order, as well as trespassing upon the sphere of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if I tried to deal tonight with the arguments for or against legislation to increase public service pensions generally. In the past, where appropriate, such pensions have been increased by pensions increase legislation for which Treasury Ministers have been responsible. The hon. Member will have noted, and I hope that those on Whose behalf he speaks will appreciate, that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is on the Government Front Bench beside me.
My hon. Friend is not replying to this debate because he could not, within its necessarily limited scope and under the rules of order, deal with general questions affecting all public services, or answer any specific points raised about future legislation. But my hon. Friend has been listening to the case advanced 1640 by the hon. Member and it will be carefully considered with all other information which has a bearing on the problem.
It might be helpful if I discuss how police pensions stand in relation to the factors which successive Governments have taken into account in the past in connection with pensions increase legislation. These are, I am sure, factors which will remain valid for current thinking on any form of action which may be taken. Police pensions are based on length of service and salary before retirement. It is a fundamental principle with them, and with all public service pensions, that, once awarded, they cannot be altered except by Statute.
Where they are contributory, as in the case of police pensions, the contributions are assessed on this basis. In the financing of the scheme the contributions are not calculated to make allowance for any possible future increase. It follows inevitably that the cost of any such increases falls entirely on the general taxpayers and ratepayers.
This is particularly true of police pensions. I emphasise that, because it brings out clearly that being assessed in this way, on the basis of salary and length of service, public service pensions are not directly related to subsistence or need. They are related to service and to the levels of pay that applied during that service. This, of course, does not mean that the Government can stand aside and see the value of these pensions eroded by substantial rises in the cost of living without doing anything about it. For this reason successive Government have passed successive Pensions (Increase) Acts, about which I will say something more in a minute.
In these circumstances, there are other things that the Government have to consider. One is that retired public servants are not the only people who live on small fixed incomes. Any improvement in public service pensions places an additional tax or rate burden on members of the general public who will, at the same time, be feeling the selfsame effects of any rise in the cost of living which may be the justification for the pensions increase.
These general considerations are the context in which the pension legislation has been passed. Successive Governments have given some assistance to 1641 mitigate the hardship caused by the rise in the cost of living by means of five Acts passed since the latter part of the last war—in 1944, 1947, 1952, 1956 and 1959. Comparable increases have been awarded to pensioners of the Armed Forces by means of Prerogative Instruments. The combined effect of these Acts has been to give the largest percentage increase to the oldest and smallest pensions. For example, a pension of £100 awarded in 1939 has been increased by nearly 100 per cent. A pension of £200 has been increased by over 70 per cent. and a pension of £300 by over 50 per cent.
Action has been geared to the needs of the pensioner who has been in the scheme the longest and who for that reason has the smallest pension. Each of these measures was introduced only when there had been a substantial rise in the cost of living since the previous measure. But their object has been to relieve hardship, not to restore the purchasing power of the original pension, still less to give yesterday's pensioner a pension at today's level.
There is one hard but inescapable fact. It is that economic progress means, among other things, that later generations of wage and salary earners in general will find themselves better off in real terms than earlier generations both during their working life and after they have retired. To those affected, this may sometimes seem unfair. But when one considers all that is done for old and retired people it may be claimed that substantial efforts are being made to balance the interests of those who are currently earning with those who are not and, indeed, with the increased proportion of the population which is living on pensions or retirement arrangements of some kind. As the hon. Member said, we explore every possibility.
I turn to consider one question of machinery. It is that police pensions are paid under Regulations made by the Secretary of State for Scotland. It is worth explaining why this machinery cannot be used for the special action in relation to this problem which the hon. Member suggested. If it were right to single out police pensioners for special treatment—and the general tenor of my argument has been that it would not be right—it would be a fair question to 1642 ask why Regulations should not be made to do so. This is a slightly technical digression. The position is that police pensions Regulations are made under the Police Pension Act, 1948. That Act lays down the categories of people to whom the Regulations apply. They include serving or future policemen and their dependants, with whom tonight's debate is not directly concerned, and also pensions, or increased pensions, to the widows and children of policemen who the after the date on which the Regulations come into force, but they are confined to those classes. My right hon. Friend has no power to increase pensions of retired policemen themselves.
The Act was passed when hon. Members opposite were in office. There is no party point in this. It seemed perfectly reasonable then and seems perfectly reasonable now that it would be inconsistent with the general principles of public service pensions to have powers by Regulation to do in part of a pensions field what would require legislation to do for the whole field. Widows and children are in a rather special case. For a number of reasons Regulations have had to be made from time to time as consequentials of the Pensions (Increase) Acts or changes in the National Insurance benefits, but these special cases which are the justification for the Regulations do not affect the main point I am making, which is, that even if we thought it right to single out retired policemen for selective increases there would be no power under the 1948 Act to do so by Regulation.
Another problem which I know has been causing concern is that a number of police pensioners have no entitlement to retirement benefit under the National Insurance scheme and that they should be given special treatment. The hon. Member will agree that that is not a problem confined to the police, or indeed even to members of the public services. There are other classes of persons who, because they were then exempt from paying contributions did not qualify for National Insurance pension. For this reason we feel that it would be wrong to single out the police for specially favourable treatment.
Clearly the most effective way of helping everyone living on a fixed income, including pensioners either from the 1643 public services or elsewhere, is to preserve reasonable stability of prices. That, of course, remains one of the Government's primary objectives. I can assure the hon. Member that we are very much aware of the real and human problem he has raised. We are sympathetic towards it and we keep a constant watch on it, but, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in reply to a Question in the House on 15th March, the Government do not consider that the time has come for a further increase in public service pensions at present at the expense of the taxpayer and the ratepayer in general.

§ Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North)
I understand all the problems which have been outlined by the Under-Secretary. I realise that it would be impossible for the Government to deal with police pensioners, even the oldest of them, in isolation from other public service pensioners, some of whom are very old and some of whom are suffering considerable hardship. I am very glad indeed that the Financial Secretary has stayed at this time of night to listen to the debate. I hope that this is a hopeful sign that he is coming to the conclusion that it is time to do something to ease the hardship, not only of police pensioners—my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) was rightly concerned particularly with the older ones—but of all pensioners who worked in any of the public services.
The Under-Secretary said that it is not only pensioners who are suffering from the increased cost of living. He said that other ratepayers and taxpayers are suffering from the increased cost of living. Apart from those on a small fixed income, from whichever source the small fixed income may come, other members of the community have the opportunity of having a rise in their salaries or wages to meet the increased cost of living. The majority of people would be more than willing to pay the little extra—in view of the vast Government expenditure, I can indeed call it the little extra—which would be necessary 1644 to relieve these old police pensioners of hardship.
I am concerned particularly with the old ones—the old policemen, the old teachers, etc. I come across them very often. Many of them suffer great hardship. All these people, in whichever category they may be, contributed towards a pension in the hope that when they retired they would be safeguarded in their old age from hardship and penury. In these circumstances, there is a great obligation on all of us who are interested in these matters to keep them constantly before the attention of the Government, as my hon. Friend has brought this matter to the attention of the Government tonight, in the hope that help will come.
I understand that the last increase was in 1959. The Under-Secretary said that the objective of the Government is to keep stable prices. That may be their objective, but in the last two years they have not been very successful in achieving their objective. The cost of living has risen since the previous increase. The previous increase was granted because the Government realised that there was indeed real hardship among old pensioners—not only among old police pensioners, but among all who received pensions because they had been employed in the public service.
I will make this last plea to the Financial Secretary. Again I must say how pleased we are that he has remained at this hour to listen to the debate. I hope that he and the Government are now giving serious consideration to taking steps to relieve the real hardship which is being suffered by these people, who thought that they had safeguarded their future from hardship. I hope that we shall not have to wait until 1963 before the Government do so. I hope that they will do so very soon. I can assure them that not only Scottish Members but all hon. Members on this side of the House will push that legislation through as quickly as possible.