HL Deb 09 December 1952 vol 179 cc822-36

2.52 p.m.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD LLOYD)

My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Police Pensions Regulations, 1952, a copy of which was presented on November 18, be approved. If I may, I will outline very briefly the principal changes which this scheme proposes in the police pensions scheme. The primary purpose of the draft regulations is to provide increased pensions and allowances for the dependants of certain deceased police officers similar to the increases authorised by the Family Allowances and National Insurance Act, 1952, and the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1952. In accordance with the requirements of the Police Pensions Act, 1948, my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary has consulted the Police Council, and that body has expressed itself as being in agreement with the draft regulations. The regulations are to be made under the powers conferred by Sections 1 and 3 of the Police Pensions Act, 1948, and in so far as they have retrospective effect it is by virtue of subsection (4) (a) of Section 2 of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1952. The increases will, therefore, be payable from the same date—that is, October 1, 1952—as the increases authorised in the latter Act, That, briefly, is the purpose of these regulations.

The regulations themselves are somewhat complicated, and I do not at this stage propose to weary your Lordships by explaining the general provisions in every detail, though I need hardly say that I am perfectly prepared to try, to the best of my ability, to answer any points that may be raised on the regulations. Before I sit down, I feel perhaps that I ought to deal with certain criticisms which have been made about these regulations in the Report of the Special Orders Committee of your Lordships' House. That Committee made two criticisms of these regulations and two recommendations. Their first criticism was that these new regulations contain no express indication that, when referring to the 1949 regulations, they refer to those regulations as subsequently amended. The second criticism was that where a new regulation amends a passage to be found in an amending regulation there is no footnote referring to the amending regulations in which the passage is to be found. The two recommendations they made were, first, that the Police Pensions Regulations should be consolidated and, secondly, that whenever a new regulation amends some passage which does not exist in the original regulations but does exist in amending regulations, a footnote should state precisely where the passage can be found.

I should like to deal with those two recommendations as briefly as I can. First of all, the question of consolidation. I think everybody will agree that it is very desirable that regulations of this sort should be consolidated from time to time. Inevitably, if you have regulations amending regulations amending regulations, it does become very complicated for anybody—and, most of all the general public—to follow them, so that consolidation would clearly be a great advantage. But there is one very serious difficulty as regards consolidation, so I am advised, so far as these police pensions are concerned. The regulation-making power under Section 3 of the Police Pensions Act, 1948, although it enables existing widows' pensions and children's allowances to be increased, does not otherwise allow the making of new regulations affecting existing pensions. My advice is. therefore, that we have no vires to effect a consolidation of this kind. It would not be possible to consolidate the regulations in so far as they apply to existing pensions.

EARL JOWITT

I did not quite hear the noble Lord. What section is it he says which enables him to improve but not to consolidate?

LORD LLOYD

I was speaking of Section 3 of the Police Pensions Act, 1948. That is the original Act. The noble and learned Earl will appreciate that this is a very serious drawback to consolidation, since the result is that in general any consolidation can deal only with pensions to be granted in the future, and that the existing regulations have to be saved so far as existing pensions are concerned. It follows, therefore, that if the 1949 regulations were now consolidated the consolidation would affect only pensions to be granted in the future; and the 1949 regulations, as already amended, would have to be saved for pensions granted between 1949 and the date of the consolidating regulations. In those circumstances, I am not at all sure that the net result of trying to consolidate would not be to complicate matters almost worse than they are. That is a matter of opinion but, having studied them all this morning, I am rather inclined to agree with the noble and learned Earl that they are complicated, but I am not sure that if we had a consolidating Act the situation might not almost be worse. I can tell your Lordships this: that in principle we feel it would be desirable that the necessary powers should be taken at an appropriate opportunity to enable consolidating regulations to be made affecting pensions which have already been granted. The Government have that point in mind at the present time. So much for the question of consolidation.

The second recommendation of the Standing Orders Committee was that where a new regulation amends some passage that does not exist in the original regulations but only in the amending regulations, the footnote should state precisely where the passage can be found. Here I must confess that I have some sympathy with the Special Orders Committee. Of course, there is an objection to that course, which is that in very complicated regulations such as these the footnotes would have to be very voluminous indeed. Indeed, you might find then that the footnotes were almost as lengthy as the regulations themselves. That is a difficulty. I do not, however, believe it to be an insuperable difficulty, and I would agree that our object should be to try to make these regulations as readily comprehensible as possible. The more complicated they are, the more important that is. The question of expanding the footnotes to make it possible to follow the effect of regulations more easily is a matter which Her Majesty's Government have in mind. I know there is nothing we can do about these particular regulations, and I hope your Lordships will not feel it necessary to question them to-day. If that were done it would involve considerable hardship to the widows of the officers concerned. But in drafting future regulations we will bear in mind this particular recommendation of the Special Orders Committee and see whether we can produce footnotes which will make it easier for people to follow the regulations. I think that is all that 1 need say at the present stage. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Police Pensions Regulations, 1952, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be a pproved.—(Lord Lloyd.)

3.2 p.m.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA)

My Lords, perhaps it might be for the convenience of the House if I were to say a word as to the rather unusual Report which the Special Orders Committee made in this case. What gave rise to it was that Part I of these regulations is headed: Amendment of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1949"— then there is a little (c). Regulation 1 says: In paragraph 3 of Regulation 10 of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1949, for the word 'January' there shall be substituted the word 'October'. If you look at Regulation 10 of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1949, you will find, however, that there is no paragraph 3. If you are trained in these matters you will look at the little (c), which you will find refers to the Regulations of 1950 and 1951. You read through the whole of the 1950 Regulations and then find that there is no paragraph 3. Then you read up to the1951 Regulations, which are fairly long, and you find that in paragraph 13 there is a note adding the paragraph 3 to Regulation 10 of the Regulations of 1949. That entails a great deal of labour. This House, in its mercy, provides the Chairman of Committees with counsel; and the present counsel, Sir John Stainton, is himself a distinguished Parliamentary draftsman. The present Chairman of Committees owes a debt of gratitude to him which he gladly acknowledges and which he will never be able to repay. Without Sir John's help I should not have had the time or ability to find out where this paragraph is to be found in the 1951 Regulations. I think it is important that Government Departments should save the time of Parliament as much as possible, and I do not think it would have been difficult to say simply that what was referred to was the 1951 Regulations, paragraph 13. If a note had been added to that effect, it would have saved hours of work. So much for that matter. There are other cases in these regulations where the same sort of thing occurs.

We made three recommendations in our Report. We said, first of all, "that regulations should be made as clear as possible." Everyone will agree with that. The trouble is that when we put legislation in language which is clear to all, the clever members of the community proceed to drive coaches-and-fours through the legislation. The legislation has to be so worded as to catch them (or to stop them, as the case may be), and it is necessary to have a most involved set of regulations which the ordinary man simply cannot understand. I do not see how that difficulty can ever be overcome. One of the great difficulties facing Parliament is for it to give proper attention to delegated legislation. This regulation a very simple one compared with some. Many are five times the size of this and much more complicated; and counsel has to take, perhaps, three days going through them. It is going to be difficult at any time to find a body of men who have the time to do this, especially when a mass of delegated legislation comes in a great hurry at the end of a Session and we are told that great inconvenience, at least, will be caused if it is not passed at once.

I confess that I do not know what the remedy is. I understand that the matter is going to be looked into, but it is a great problem. The legislation has to be passed, though how it is going to be looked into when it is so complicated and time is so short I do not know; but I hope we may be able to find a solution. The noble Lord has told us that if possible the matter will be looked into. I must say that if it is not we shall go on until we get into a sort of cocoon state and never be able to get back to the original order and find out what it is all about. I understand that in this case the real effect of the legislation is that certain widows and children will get the benefit of increased pensions three months earlier than they otherwise would. I think that might have been made considerably clearer in the note for the Special Orders Committee.

LORD LLOYD

If I may interrupt the noble Earl, I should like to make one point clear. As regards consolidation, what I said was that it is not possible—that is my advice—at present. Legislation would be required amending the original Act to make it possible. But we are considering whether it would be possible to do something about it.

THE EARL OF DROGHEDA

I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I understand the great difficulty. That is all I have to say and I thought it might be convenient if I said it now.

3.8 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, I am sure the whole House will be indebted to the noble Earl who has just spoken, and to his Committee, for having drawn the attention of the House to the difficulties that have arisen on these regulations. I wish to say at once that I think that nobody on this or any other side of the House would wish to delay in the least the grant of the benefits which these regulations confer, or are said to confer, on the police pensioners. I say "said" because nobody reading these regulations would for a moment gather that that was their purpose, and we must accept the explanation of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, that that is the object.

I should, however, like to reinforce what Lord Drogheda has said. It is essential that these regulations—and we are now manufacturing regulations at the rate of over 2,000 a year—should be as clear as possible. A short time ago we had a debate on emergency regulations, which was extended to the general question of delegated legislation. One of the points which were made—I made it myself—was that it was essential that these regulations should be clear. It is not always possible, I admit, that they can be so clear that anyone could gather at once at a first reading what they meant. On the other hand, it may be inevitable that in certain cases there must be delegated legislation by reference. But it seems to me to be carrying the thing to the point of lunacy, to purport to be amending a regulation which simply is not there. In this case it is only by the process of employing highly skilled and experienced counsel that one can discover the particular regulation which it is sought to amend. Moreover, the difficulty here does not apply merely to the one instance of Regulation 10, paragraph 3, which is being amended. As is stated in the Report of the Special Orders Committee: The same process has to be followed on many other paragraphs; paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 and 17 all amend non-existent passages in the 1949 regulations without any indication where they are to be found. We really must do better than that. I would hope that a better way, even than a series of footnotes, might be found.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, that if we had to have some fifteen separate footnotes to help us to find our way to the, so to speak, non-existent regulations that are being amended, it might be just as confusing as the present regulations. I would respectfully suggest that we must do a lot of hard thinking to see whether it is not possible to find a better way, either than the present method or than by the provision of a long series of footnotes. It may mean in practice that these regulations will have to be somewhat longer, but I do not think that would matter. In the long run, one would save time by having them a little clearer rather than by having to find one's way round and trace these, so to speak, non-existent regulations which are being amended.

I do not know who are the people who will have to study these regulations. If it is the police, I am sorry for them, for they certainly will not discover what their rights are. In the debate to which I referred, I gave as an example a regulation which abolished the control over chocolate prices. I then said that I thought that most people would make an intelligent guess as to what it meant, but they certainly would not get the meaning from the wording of the regulation. The noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack replied—and I have no quarrel with the reply—that that regulation was not intended for ordinary people but for experts in chocolate, who would understood what it meant, and that so far as the ordinary member of the public was concerned—well, it did not matter very much if it was in technical language. All he was interested in was that there was no longer any control over chocolate prices.

I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord would say the same thing about these regulations. I suppose he might. He might say that the police would not care how these regulations were framed so long as they received their pensions. But, of course, differences do arise, and what the authorities may regard as the rights of a policeman may not be those which the policeman himself regards as his rights. And so it may be necessary for the police to try to interpret these regulations for themselves. Then they would have to go to counsel of the highest skill and experience before they could get an answer to any query. Therefore I put it forward as a very serious question, perhaps more serious than the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, made it out to be in his opening statement. As regards the recommendations that have been made by the Special Orders Committee, I am not in a position to challenge the advice that the noble Lord has received on the question of powers. It may be that Section 3 of the Police Pensions Act, 1948, would have to be amended in order to permit of consolidation, or it may have to be done in some other way; but is there the slightest difficult in doing that, if it is necessary? It would simply require a Bill which could be initiated in this House, possibly a one-clause Bill, and I cannot imagine that there would be any opposition to such a measure. It would achieve a good deal in the way of simplicity. I suggest to the noble Lord that he might consider the introduction of a Bill, in spite of the already overburdened legislative programme from which we are suffering at the present time.

As to the other matters, I suggest that an attempt might be made to find a better way than by a series of footnotes, although of the two evils of referring to a regulation and purporting to amend a provision in it which does not exist, and a footnote explaining where it can be found, I would prefer the latter. That certainly makes it more intelligible. But is there riot another way of achieving the same result? The policy might be adopted of publishing the regulations as they will be as the result of amendment. I do not know whether that is possible but, of course, there are precedents for it. There are a good many precedents, where existing Acts or existing regulations have been amended, for publishing the new regulations in their amended form. Would that be possible? At any rate, I am quite certain that the present position is intolerable. We are going from bad to worse and, with the enormous number of regulations which are constantly being published and which show no sign of diminution, the amount of Parliamentary control which it is possible to exercise over them is becoming less and less.

3.18 p.m.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, as the noble Earl the Lord Chairman of Committees has said, it is very unusual for the Special Orders Committee to pass any strictures on the regulations which they have been examining on our behalf, and, when they do so, as in this instance, and when the strictures are obviously deserved, I think that the House should support the recommendations of its own Committee. Otherwise, the whole of our procedure will fall to the ground, and any inquiries made by the Committee will be looked upon as almost of no value or account.

In this case, the recommendation is that these regulations ought to he consolidated, to which the noble Lord, the Under-Secretary at the Home Office, has replied: "The trouble arises from the fact that the Act of 1948 provides for amendment but does not provide for consolidation. So what can we do?" He says: "The Government are considering whether anything can be done about it." But, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who has just spoken has said and as I was about to say before he spoke, what the Government can do is perfectly obvious. They have only to introduce a one-clause Bill to amend the Act of 1948 and to insert the word "consolidation" in the relevant clauses. It would be passed through Parliament without requiring ten minutes of Parliamentary time, and the whole difficulty would instantly disappear. I think the House should press the Government to take this perfectly simple, obvious and easy course without any further delay at all, and dispose of the whole question. I trust that I have the agreement of your Lordships in that. Then, with regard to the general control of Parliament over delegated legislation, some of us have advocated that the time is ripe, and long overripe, for a Select Committee of your Lordships' House to be appointed to go into all these matters afresh and to devise a fresh course of procedure which would in future obviate the difficulties with which we are confronted in this instance.

3.20 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS)

My Lords, may I answer the noble Viscount who has just spoken? I think your Lordships will remember that when this matter was last before the House I said that the noble Marquess the Leader of the House was in the course of asking some of your Lordships to join in forming a Select Committee for this particular purpose. As your Lordships know, the noble Marquess is immersed in the business of the Commonwealth Conference; but I did have an opportunity of speaking to him, and he said that I had not gone an inch too far in what I had said, and that he does propose, as soon as time permits, to approach your Lordships for that purpose. I wish to put that beyond all doubt.

3.21 p.m.

EARL JOWITT

My Lords, I think this is a rather serious matter, and I frankly say that in my own mind I am doubtful as to what the House ought to do. I am sure the House ought to act as a House here—there is no Party question in this matter at all. I believe that this theory which has been enunciated, that we can amend these regulations but cannot consolidate them, is completely untrue; there is absolutely no foundation for it. I will indicate in a moment where I think the confusion arises and what the nature of the consolidation would have to be. But do let us get this quite plain, so that everybody in this House can understand what we are doing. We are asked to pass the Draft Police Pensions Regulations, 1952, Clause 1 of which is as follows: In paragraph (3) of Regulation 10of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1949, for the word 'January' there shall he substituted the word 'October.' So you look at paragraph (3) of Regulation 10 of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1949, and you find that there is no such clause. That clause was written into the Regulations of 1949 by the Regulations of 1951. Notionally, by the operation of the Regulations of 1951, we find this clause inserted into the Regulations of 1949, but if you turn up the Regulations of 1949 it is not to be found.

Paragraph 2 of these regulations reads as follows: For paragraphs (4), (5) and (6) of Regulation 11 of the said Regulations there shall be substituted the following paragraph, and the paragraph is set out. You turn—I will not say hopefully, but at least you turn—to paragraph 11 of the said regulations and you find that there is no such thing as paragraph (5) or paragraph (6). Again, they were written in either by the Regulations of 1951 or at some later date. Clause 3 reads as follows: In paragraph (2) of Regulation 12 of the said Regulations, for the word 'January' there shall be substituted the word 'October.' You look—and by now not at all hopefully—at Regulation 12, and you find that there is nothing about either January or October. This is the sort of thing to which we are asked to apply our minds, and to pass. I feel quite certain that unless this House, as a House, is going to take fairly drastic action on these things we shall never get them put right. The only reason why I hesitate in regard to dividing against these regulations is that by doing so it may be that a pensioner will be prejudiced. If that were to be the result, I should not divide; but, short of that, I should divide against these regulations because I think that is the best lesson that this House could teach those who are responsible for these things, to show them that we will not stand for things being done in this way.

Now let me come to the theory that you can amend but not consolidate. My Lords, that is a most astounding theory. It means to say that under our legislation which depends upon vires, you are entitled to do by indirect means that which you cannot do by direct means. I believe that to be absolutely untrue. If it is valid to do something by indirect means, equally it must be valid to do it by direct means. I think the confusion arises simply in this way. Section 3 of the Police Pensions Act, 1948, which is the section to which the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, referred as being the one which prevented consolidation, specifies how regulations may be made, but it contains this proviso: Provided that nothing in any such regulations shall— (a) affect any pension granted on the retirement of any person if the retirement occurred before…. a certain date. I take that as an example. I think one can consolidate. All you have to do in your consolidated regulations is to set out, at the beginning, words to the effect that "nothing in these regulations shall affect any pension granted on the retirement of any person if the retirement occurred before the appropriate date." By so doing, you do not attempt to deal with that with which you cannot deal. But, subject to that, so long as the ambit of your regulations is in order, there is no earthly reason why in consolidated regulations, you should not pick up all these things, whether they derive from 1949, 1951, 1952 or from anywhere else. If the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would apply his mind to this matter, I am perfectly certain he would reject the proposition that you can do something validly in 1952 by writing something into the Regulations of 1949 which have already been amended by those of 1951, but that you cannot do it by setting out a new clause stating what you are doing.

I ask the noble Lord this simple question. Taking the first of these regulations, one finds this amendment: in paragraph (3) of Regulation 10 of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1949, for the word 'January' there shall be substituted the word 'October'. What is there to prevent your saying: "Regulation 10 of the Police Pensions Regulations shall read as follows," and then to set it out? Obviously, you can do that; and that is a little bit of consolidation. If you can do that in the first case, you can do it in the second, and you can do it all the way through, so long as you do not stray from the ambit which Parliament has allowed. In my humble submission, all this talk about a new Bill being necessary or anything of that sort is a complete misapprehension. It is not necessary so long as you do not stray outside the ambit laid down That you are not doing. If you keep within that ambit you can do it directly and not in this very obscure way. If the noble Lord is going to reply I should like to ask him whether there is still a chance of that being done.

When I was Attorney-General I used to make myself a nuisance to the Parliamentary, draftsmen because I would not allow any sentence in a Bill to be of more than four lines without a full stop. This created great consternation. Of course I had to give way a little but, broadly speaking, I did a tremendous amount of good. I want to ask the noble Lord this question: if this House refuses to pass these regulations to-day, and if he sends them back to his Parliamentary draftsmen and tells them to get the regulations into proper form, and re-produces them as early as he can, is there any danger that any policeman or policewoman will suffer to his prejudice by reason of not being able to get his pension? If he tells me that there is such a danger, then I will not press for a Division. But if there is still time to put them into proper form, I suggest to your Lordships that this House, acting as the whole House and relying on the support of our Special Orders Committee, ought to see that it is done, and we ought not to pass these regulations until we have had an opportunity of getting them into proper form. I should like to press that, unless the noble Lord can give me the assurance for which I have asked. No one in this House wants to prejudice a policeman or policewoman, but we do want to exert our authority to see that these regulations are put before us in digestible form. It is not only a question of the police or the chocolate manufacturer or anybody of that sort understanding what it is about; this House must understand what these regulations are about before it passes them, and it cannot possibly understand them if they are couched in this clumsy and slipshod manner.

3.30 p.m.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, your Lordships have, as is perfectly right and proper, expressed yourselves in no uncertain terms on the drafting of these regulations. I make no complaint whatsoever about that. I should like, first of all, to deal with a matter raised by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt. He asked whether any widow of any policeman would suffer if these regulations were not passed to-day. I must tell the noble and learned Earl that if these regulations are not passed to-day, it is the case that many widows will have to wait far longer for their increased pensions, and I do not think there is any doubt that that would cause certain hardships in a number of cases. I am bound to tell the noble and learned Earl that, since he has asked me the question. I would, therefore, very much deprecate your Lordships' dividing against these regulations this afternoon, despite what has been said.

EARL JOWITT

The noble Lord has made that statement, and no doubt he has made it on advice. That being so, I should not think of dividing against these regulations to-day. So far as I am concerned, the noble Lord can have his regulations. In my remarks I have not been speaking for a Party—indeed, I believe that I am speaking for all of your Lordships; and that, had the positions been reversed, the noble Marquess the Leader of the House would have said what I have been saying. But, having passed the regulations, I think we ought to take up the matter. Perhaps it would be convenient to put the Report we have received from the Special Orders Committee on the Order Paper for consideration, so that we can safeguard the position in the future and see that this unsatisfactory state of affairs does not occur again.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY)

My Lords, it is perhaps inappropriate that I should join in this debate, as I have entered the House within the last two or three minutes. But the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, made at the end of his speech, a remark to the effect, as I understood it, that he does not propose to divide the House this afternoon, but that he thinks this is a matter which ought to be very seriously looked into. Without going into the substance of the case—not having heard any of the speeches, clearly I am incapable of doing so—I would assure the noble Earl that we will look into all the points that have been raised, and shall be glad to do so.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, the suggestion is, as I understand it, that we should divide our discussion into two parts: one with reference to permission for the regulations to proceed—a matter on which we are all agreed—and the second on the question whether or not some action should be taken on the Report of our Special Orders Committee. Perhaps we could postpone consideration of the latter aspect until another day. If it were to be put on the Order Paper at a later date, the Government might then be in a position to say what they can do to remedy the situation disclosed by the Special Orders Committee and prevent a similar situation arising in the future.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I am not going to attempt to take on the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, on a question of law: he has been at it all his life, and I am no lawyer. I can, however, tell the noble and learned Earl this. On the question of consolidation, what I said represented the legal advice that I had received. His opinion will naturally carry great weight, and I will certainly refer everything that has been said by him and by other noble Lords to my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary. As I told the noble and learned Earl when I started to speak, we will look at this matter and, in view of the very strong expressions of opinion in your Lordships' House, we will do our best to see what can be done to improve the situation.

On Question, Motion agreed to.