SECOND READING, (Hansard, 22 June 1893)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, the object of this Bill is to make 1631 certain amendments in the Prisons Act in reference to the pensions of retiring prison officials. The main purpose I can describe to your Lordships in a moment. Under the Prisons Act any existing officer of a prison who retained his office after the passing of that Act was entitled to his pension upon the basis on which he was then entitled to it. I can gave an instance—the case, indeed, which first called attention to the defect in the Act. Admiral Fairfax had been for a number of years Governor of Prisons. On the passing of the Prisons Act he was promoted to be Inspector of Prisons, and he has served in that capacity for many years—ever since the passing of that Act. But, because he has not been an officer of a prison, having been promoted to be Inspector of Prisons, he is not entitled to the same pension as he would have been had he retired immediately on the passing of the Act when he ceased to be Prison Governor. He is in a worse position, after all these years of service, because he has been promoted. It is obvious that was not the intention of the Statute, and this Bill is to remedy the oversight. There are one or two minor Amendments to which your Lordships' attention need not specially be called which will really only put the matter in the position it was intended to be.

§ VISCOUNT CROSS
As the author of the existing Act, I may say that I most heartily approve of the Bill now introduced. It was never intended that such a thing as this should happen, and it is quite clear an anomaly of that kind should be done away with. But there is one matter which I think requires the consent of the Government. One of the main objects of the Act was to make the whole prison service one under it. Formerly, of course, a Governor might have been employed in one county for a number of years, and then, if he was appointed in another county, that was counted as absolutely a fresh service, and he had no claim for the first period in the other county. So that one of the main purposes of the Act was to make it one continued service—that it should make no difference where the official served, but that he should count for his pension the number of years he 1632 had served under the Government. I believe that by some construction of the Act by the Treasury this has happened: that a man has been employed as an assistant prison officer, not as Governor but as Assistant Governor, in a large gaol where two officers were necessary. But when he was promoted to the rank of actual Governor he could not count his time as Assistant Governor, because he had entered into a new service. That is a matter into which it is, I think, necessary some inquiry should be made, because I am sure that was never intended. I am quite sure the noble Lord opposite in drawing the Act never contemplated such a result. It seems to me very hard that, because a man gets promotion in his service from Assistant Governor to Governor of a prison, he should lose the advantage of his former period of service, in counting pension.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Certainly the point shall receive my attention.