RECALL OF ARMY AND AIR FORCE PENSIONERS BILL (Hansard, 2 December 1948)

THE MINISTER OF CIVIL AVIATION (LORD PAKENHAM)
My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is not a major piece of legislation, but I hope the House will feel that it will assist us in our defence preparations. For nearly a century, since the Naval Volunteer Act of 1853, Service pensioners of the Navy have been liable to recall in an emergency. At present, however, Army and Air Force Service pensioners are not subject to the same liability. Attention was called to this difference in the White Paper issued in December, 1945, on the Post War Code of Pay, Allowances and Service Pensions and Gratuities for Members of the Forces below Officer Rank (Command Paper 6715), paragraph 40 of which reads as follows: There is a difference between the Services at present in regard to the liability of Service pensioners to be recalled for service in time of emergency. It is proposed that as part of the new scheme liability to recall for service in emergency should apply to pensioners of all three Services. 768 The object of the Bill now before the House is to give effect to that proposal. The general effect of the Bill is, indeed, to attach the recall liability to the new rates of Service pension, accompanied by an age limit of sixty.
I should point out that pensioners whose Service pensions were originally granted before September 3, 1939, are exempted from the liability, even though their pensions may be re-assessed to the new rates. Pensioners or future pensioners who are now serving, with reserved rights to the old rates of pension, are protected by an arrangement enabling them to choose whether they will draw the old rate without the recall liability, or the new rate to which that liability is attached. Thus, the pensioner whose first award of Service pension was made since September 3, 1939, will have to exercise his choice after this Bill becomes law, and he will be given time to do so. On the other hand, the man discharged on pension later on, with a reserved right to draw the old rate, will have to exercise his option on discharge to pension. Eventually, of course, there will be no option.
The Bill then goes on to provide for the occasion on which pensioners may be recalled. The circumstances in which their services will be required in connection with an emergency will be the same, generally speaking, as those requiring the recall of Army and Air Force Reservists, and the provisions for recall, your Lordships will observe on looking at the Bill, are defined by relation to power to recall Reservists under the Reserve Forces Act. But the provisions are defined in terms which preclude the calling out of Army and Air Force pensioners in aid of the civil power, as distinct from an emergency due to war or the threat of war, when they can be called out. The pensioner called out will be deemed to be enlisted (to use the technical expression) for the period of the emergency which has occasioned his recall. I would add that on Committee stage I shall be moving an Amendment to give the pensioner the right to enlist, if he so chooses, in the ordinary way. He may prefer that method of returning to the Service. The provision to which I have referred previously, that the pensioner will be deemed to be enlisted, is necessary because a pensioner is discharged to pension, and 769 is not on a continuous engagement like a Reservist, who can, as noble Lords are aware, be recalled to the Service.
Provision is then made in the Bill for the machinery of recall, which closely follows that already in use for Reservists, and, following earlier discussions a safeguard is afforded against too precipitate action to arrest a pensioner who fails to rejoin in response to the first notice of recall sent to him, in case his failure should be due to accidental ignorance on his part that he had been in fact recalled. A pensioner on recall will continue to draw his Service pension, as well as his pay and other emoluments as a soldier or airman. This position is assured to the naval pensioner by the Naval Volunteer Act of 1853, and there is a clause in the Bill before the House (that is, Clause 4) which assures the same treatment of the recalled Army and Air Force pensioner.
The number of existing Army and Air Force pensioners who come within the scope of the Bill is between 16,000 and 17,000. That is the maximum number. From this figure, however, will have to be deducted the number of those who prefer to draw the old rate of pension. In the case of the Army, arrangements will be made for individual pensioners to be listed for recall to suitable appointments in an emergency, and they will be informed as soon as possible where they will be expected to rejoin—informed, I devoutly hope, well in advance of the time when an actual recall notice has to be sent out. Pensioners will not be listed for recall who, for medical, occupational or other reasons, ought to be left where they are, and those residing overseas will not be recalled for service in this country. Those not under individual warning at the beginning of an emergency may have to be called up later at short notice, but in no case less than three days' notice. In the case of the Royal Air Force, which has a much smaller number of pensioners than the Army and will probably need the services of the majority of them at a very early stage in the emergency, the pensioner will be liable to recall unless he is told to the contrary.
My Lords, I have summarised the Bill rather rapidly. That does not mean that I do not feel that it is of real value to the country. I hope that noble Lords in all parts of the House will accept it as 770 being of real service at the present time. Moved, That the Bill he now read 2^a.—(Lord Pakenham.)

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord opposite for the clear way in which he has explained the provisions of this useful Bill. It is a measure which we are very far indeed from disapproving. In fact, if at a later stage of the Bill an alternative title were required, one might well call it the "Fit for Pension, Fit for Service" Bill. And that idea, perhaps, is not a bad thing. So, in general, we welcome this Bill and we shall not delay its passage for long. In fact, one might perhaps congratulate His Majesty's Government on having introduced the Bill. It represents one of those instances, which we on these Benches sometimes think are rare enough, in which the Minister of Defence is really using the power with which he was endowed by the Ministry of Defence Act, for co-ordinating the administration of the three Services. So we can congratulate the Government on that score.
Of course, if it had been a case of the Navy being brought into line with the Army and Air Force, instead of the Army and Air force being brought into line with the Navy, we should have congratulated the Government much more warmly than we do. However, I think this Bill represents a very definite administrative step towards preparation of the Forces for war. We on these Benches have spoken frequently about that and we have urged the necessity for it upon the Government. It is a reasonable and logical step, and in the main we like it, though in certain respects I am not sure whether the machinery is quite the best that could have been conceived for the purpose which it is designed to achieve.
I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said that pensioners would not be called up in aid of the civil power. By that, one may assume, he means that they will not be called out in the event of civil commotion in this country—that is, for duties in aid of the civil power as we know it. But there were signs in the debate on civil defence in another place when this question of duties in aid of the civil power was being discussed that the legal aspect was getting a bit cross-threaded with the position of the Forces in regard to civil defence. We must take 771 care that we do not get the legal position wrong. I am sure everyone would wish that pensioners should be available when the Forces are required for civil defence, but they would not wish them to be available in the event of action in connection with a trade dispute, or something of that nature. I think we must be very careful about that.
It struck me as odd in some ways, that when this Bill was being drawn up it was not thought wise to treat these long-service pensioners on the same lines as officers. Your Lordships know that in the case of a Regular officer of the Army or the Air Force, when he retires he is obliged to join the Reserve of Officers as a condition of receiving retired pay. He automatically goes on the Reserve and can automatically be called up if the Service Department wish. That strikes me as being a very much sounder and more flexible way of dealing with people in receipt of Service pensions than the method embodied in the Bill. The latter seems to me a clumsier way. I think it would have been simpler to deal with the Service pensioners in the same way as the officers, and that this would have been better calculated to further the efficient administration of a proper reserve of N.C.O.s and other ranks. In this respect, I think that an opportunity has been missed.
Another matter which is not in the Bill but which was mentioned in the debate in another place, is the idea of calling people up in one rank lower than the rank they held. Technically, since they are deemed to be enlisted as privates, that can be done. The Service Ministries spend a lot of money on psychologists in these days, but I cannot believe that on this occasion they have received good value from their psychologists. I cannot believe that anyone called up in a rank below that which he previously held is going to be anything more than what is usually known as a "King's hard bargain." On the Committee stage I shall put down an Amendment relating to this point. I think the treatment of these men is a great psychological mistake, especially as 90 per cent. of the pensioners whom it is desired to call up are warrant officers, staff sergeants and sergeants. As I say, I shall deal with that later. We shall also revert to this question of the service of notices which, although fully dealt with in another place, 772 was not left as some of us on these Benches feel we should like to see it. We must, I think, keep away from the possibility of starting a man's new service by putting him in danger of wrongful arrest. However, that too, is a matter with which we shall deal when the Committee stage is reached.
The whole scheme, I think, will work pretty well, because from the Army point of view what will happen is that the actual individuals will be chosen by record offices, which have a pretty good knowledge of the people they want to call up: they will select the right people for the jobs which they will have to fill. In practice, quite a few will be known to those who choose them, so there is every likelihood that they will be the right people to be called up and people who can be got at when necessary. If that is so, then I do not think there is much reason for worry. But I think we may have to do away with the idea of calling up these N.C.O.s to serve with their own regiments. What long-service pensioners will be wanted for is not to do duty with their own regiments but to do duty in connection with matters which will become urgent at a time of mobilisation, such as embarkation duties, transit camps, extension of the Pioneer Corps and so on. For that reason, I am sorry to see that, so far as I can make out, no plans have been made for training these people in peace time. It may be said that they are old soldiers, and that they know their jobs. Old soldiers like to have that said about them, but as an old soldier myself I must confess that it is usually quite untrue.
Let us suppose, for example, that someone found a sovereign remedy for dealing with the atom bomb, or that there was to be a radical change in the system of documentation of troops; it would be necessary, in order that a transit camp or regimental establishment should function properly from the word "Go," that the senior N.C.O.s should be trained in it. It may be difficult to call up pensioners for the purpose of training them before an emergency, but I would like to see it done. I am prepared to be told that it is impossible, but I think it is vitally necessary that there should be at least some provision to make it possible to bring these people up to undertake voluntarily a short course of training. Of course, they should 773 receive pay and allowances during the training period.

LORD PAKENHAM
I apologise for interrupting the noble Viscount, but is he suggesting that arrangements for this training should be made even when there is no emergency? Does he urge that it should take place in the ordinary course?

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
I am sorry that I did not make myself clear. I am suggesting that it should be possible to have arrangements made for training, even if there is no emergency. I suggest that these pensioners could be brought up on a voluntary basis to undergo a course of training which would make them more useful for the jobs which they have been earmarked to carry out in an emergency. A supposition I put was that someone invented a new means of dealing with the atom bomb. Again, quite possibly someone might discover a new anti-gas device. Obviously, people should be made acquainted with the operation of such things before an emergency actually began. I am urging that it is absolutely necessary that some arrangements for training should be made, if it is intended that these people shall be of full value when they are called up and put in charge of other troops.
I confess that I am not clear in my own mind whether or not that is possible under the Reserve Forces Act, 1882, which is quoted in the Bill. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, can give me any information on that point now. If not, as the hour is late, I suggest that that is a matter which might well be dealt with on the Committee stage. I would certainly be prepared to put down an Amendment to raise the point. I will delay your Lordships no longer, except to say once again that we thank the noble Lord, and support the Motion for the Second Reading of the Bill.

LORD PAKENHAM
I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Viscount, for the reception which he has given to the Bill. I gather that he disputes the statement that old soldiers know their jobs, but he himself seems 774 to me to be a living embodiment of the truth of that dictum. There is another saying to the effect that "old soldiers never die." I hope that that will prove true of the noble Viscount. I need say no more now, I think, except to repeat my thanks to Lord Bridgeman for what he has said.