§ 7.10 p.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Dick Taverne)I beg to move,
That the Police Pensions Regulations, 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.These new consolidated Regulations bring together in one instrument the provisions of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1962, and the eight subsequent sets of amending Regulations. I therefore hope that they will be welcomed by the House on that account. When I last introduced amending Regulations to the House, I said that construing eight sets of amending Regulations together with the principal ones of 1962 presented a formidable problem. For the time being, at any rate, there will be only one document and the treasure hunt will now be over.Like the former Regulations, these apply in England, Wales and Scotland, and in revoking the earlier Regulations and re-stating them this consolidation provides a comprehensive code in relation to the past as well as to the future. I emphasise that the Regulations in no way affect the entitlement of existing pensioners, whose rights are fully safeguarded.
Two changes are introduced by these Regulations to which I should draw attention, for they are largely administrative. The first relates to the financial arrangements for a police authority to discharge its liability in respect of accrued pension entitlement of an officer who is transferred to another force. The present arrangements are that the authority pays an apportioned contribution towards the eventual pension payable by the police authority of the force in which the officer later serves.
These Regulations provide instead that the liability should be discharged at the time of transfer by an immediate lump sum known as a transfer value. This is a common method of discharging pension liabilities in the case of transfer between public employment and is familiar to the local authorities who will be operating it. The main provisions 332 which give effect to this change are contained in Regulations 62 and 64 and Schedule 7. So the contribution system, if I may call it such, is replaced by the transfer value system.
The other change concerns the aggregation of service for pension purposes in the case of officers who have served in the police or the Civil Service or in civil employment which is, in effect, pensionable on Civil Service terms by means of the Metropolitan Police Staff (Superannuation) Acts. The computation of wages for such aggregated service is contained in Section 10 of the Police Pensions Act, 1921, preserved by the Police Pensions Act, 1948, pending the introduction of the new transfer arrangements on the lines of those applying generally in the public service.
Persons leaving or entering police service will be covered by the new transfer arrangements contained in Regulations 38 and 65 and Schedules 4 and 7 of these Regulations. But in relation to persons leaving or entering other employment involved in the transfer, it is necessary for these provisions to be complemented by further transfer rules to be made by the Treasury and the Home Secretary under the Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1948, which is the general authority concerned with transfer provisions for the public service. If these Regulations are approved, the relevant transfer rules will come into operation on the same day. They are subject to the negative Resolution procedure.
I am sorry if these are rather technical and complicated but the effect of the change is again that the transfer value system and not the contribution system now also applies to persons moving between the police and the Civil Service, or civilian employment covered by the Metropolitan Police Staff (Superannuation) Acts. The new arrangements will cover transfers which are completed on or after the date when the provisions come into operation. The provisions of Section 10 of the old Police Pensions Act, 1921, will still govern the entitlement of aggregate service in the case of officers who have completed their transfers before that date. There are a few other changes, either of a minor nature or to clarify Regulations where the present wording is not entirely clear.