PENSIONS (INCREASE) (Hansard, 12 December 1963)

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Alan Green)
I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Pensions (Increase) Acts (Extension) (No. 1) Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 26th November. I wish to detain the House for only a few moments to explain the reason for this and the following Order. The Orders are two parts of the same operation, and with permission, for the convenience of the House, perhaps I might explain their meaning jointly.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston)
If that is agreeable to the House, so be it.

§ Mr. Green
The Orders are required to correct drafting deficiencies in an Order made in 1944 extending the Pensions (Increase) Act of that year to various classes of pensions paid by local authorities. These pensions had been omitted from the Act because of the wide variety of pensions that are paid by local authorities.
The 1944 Order excluded pensions payable to the widows and dependants of two categories of pensions covered by that Order. As far as I have been able to discover, this was entirely inadvertent. The Order also omitted provision for pensions payable to the Clerk of the Peace for the County of London, his Deputy, and their dependants.
Subsequent Pensions (Increase) Acts have provided for their provisions to be applied to pensions covered by the 1944 Order, and these Orders extend the same series of Acts to these categories of pensions. Since different powers prescribing different procedures are concerned, two Orders are necessary. The No. 1 Order applies the 1944, 1952 and 1956 Acts, and the No. 2 Order the 1959 and 1962 Acts. Few pensions are involved, and the cost for individual local authorities will be trivial. Local authority associations have been consulted and they agree to the extensions made by these Orders.
Perhaps it would be helpful—I hope that it always is—to give a simple illustration of the type of person affected 698 by these Orders. They might well cover a case of a civil servant employed by the central Government and subsequently employed by a local authority. I am advised that without these Orders the continuity of his pension rights might be in doubt.

§ Mr. Douglas Houghton (Sowerby)
Both Orders are acceptable to hon. Members en this side of the House. Both seem to do somebody some good and that is quite welcome even from this Government.