§ 3.28 p.m.
§ LORD HAWKE rose to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Pensions (Increase) Act (Extension) Order, 1956, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on the 4th of December. The noble Lord said: My Lords, we are here dealing with civil pensioners of the public services. We have had Pensions Increase Acts in 1944, 1947, 1952 and 1956, and each time we have taken powers to extend by Orders in Council the categories of people enumerated in the Act. The reason for this has been that although the Acts have been intended to include everybody, yet there has always been the possibility of omissions for one reason or another. For that reason there have been Orders previously in 1944 and 1948.
§ This particular Order is needed to make quite certain that a few people receive the pensions increase everybody has always intended they should get. They are people very much on the fringe of local authority service, and in some cases there is doubt whether, at present. they are properly covered, while in other cases they should have been covered by the Pensions Increase Acts but are not. In other words, although in local authority employment they may not be held to satisfy the criterion of being solely in local authority employment, which is laid down as a qualifying criterion for increases under these various Acts. There is no new principle involved, and I hope that your Lordships will approve of what is essentially a tidying-up operation involving very few people. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Pensions (Increase) Act (Extension) Order, 1956, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on the 4th of December, and reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday.—(Lord Hawke.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.