POLICE PENSIONS (No. 2) REGULATIONS, 1958 (Hansard, 27 March 1958)

§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD STRATHCLYDE)
My Lords, I rise to move that the Draft Police Pensions (No. 2) Regulations. 1958, be approved. They have been prepared to give effect to the unanimous recommendations of the Police Council for Great Britain in favour of allowing police pensions to be commuted for a lump sum and extending the existing arrangements for the allocation of police pensions to dependants. As your Lordships are probably aware, at present the retiring award for a police officer consists of a pension only. The Regulations provide that officers who have completed thirty or more years' service will in future have the option of surrendering up to one-sixth of their pension in return for a lump sum. Officers who are required to retire on the ground of age or ill-health before they have been able to complete thirty years service will also have this option.
It is already possible for a police officer to surrender part of his pension to provide a pension after his death for his widow or some other person dependent on him. He can, however, make such art allocation only at the actual time of his retirement. The draft Regulations provide that in future an officer will be able to give notice of his intention to allocate once he has qualified for pension, namely, at any time after he has completed twenty-five years' service. This will enable him to provide cover for his dependant during his final years of service as well as after his retirement. The introduction of these new arrangements will improve the facilities which the police pensions scheme offers to the members of our police forces and their dependants, and I commend the draft Regulations to your Lordships.

§ LORD SILKIN
My Lords, I do not rise for the purpose of opposing these Regulations. The House will be most grateful to the noble Lord for having taken the trouble to explain them. I realise that they are probably all right, and that the Special Orders Committee have certified that they contain no special matter of principle and can be approved. But the fact remains that there is a responsibility upon every Member of this House to satisfy himself that the Regulations are perfectly in order, and it is quite impossible to discharge that responsibility if we receive these Regulations only a few minutes before they are to be presented to the House. I myself got them only as I came to the House this afternoon.
If noble Lords will take the trouble to read Regulation I, they will see that it says: In paragraph (3) of Regulation 6 of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1955(b), as amended by Regulation 4 of the Police Pensions Regulations, 1956(c), (which relates to entitlement to, and the calculation of, a policeman's supplemental pension) after the words and is reduced in accordance with' there shall be inserted the words 'the provisions of Regulation 6A, of Regulation 70 or of'. If noble Lords are expected to understand what that means in the space of a few minutes, they must be much quicker-minded than I profess to be. I am not making any particular complaint about these Regulations, because I think they are all right, and I am prepared to accept from the noble Lord that that is so. But I would ask him to ensure that we receive longer notice of these matters, so that those of us who want to discharge our responsibility are enabled to look up all these Regulations which it is proposed to amend, and to discharge our duty properly. If there were time I would ask the noble Lord to allow us a few days in which to look at these Regulations. I am not asking him to do that to-day, but I would ask him to ensure that in future we have at least a few days in which to look at Regulations which we are asked to approve. I see that these Regulations were discussed in the Special Orders Committee on March 19, eight days ago, so there was ample time, if our attention had been drawn to the matter, for us to have a look at them.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
My Lords, I am not going to intervene on the merits 496 of these particular Regulations. I rise only because I think that Lord Silkin, quite rightly vigilant, as an Opposition should be in all things, has advised the House that they have a duty, which I think really, if I may respectfully say so, they have not. As I understand it, the whole object of having a Special Orders Committee is that all Orders shall go to that Committee.

§ VISCOUNT STANSGATE
No.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
It does not relieve us of our right to look at these Orders, but one of the duties of the Special Orders Committee, if I am right, is to report to the House whether any important question of principle is raised in a proposed Order or Regulation, and so put us on our guard if there is anything important that the House should discuss. It is a convenient way of doing our business, and if the Special Orders Committee do their job—as I am perfectly sure they do—thoroughly and conscientiously, we get in their Report a notice saying whether or not there is something in which we ought particularly to interest ourselves. As Lord Silkin has raised this question almost as a matter of principle. I thought it was perhaps right that that should be said.

§ LORD SILKIN
My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Earl, but he will appreciate that these Regulations are laid before Parliament, not before the Special Orders Committee. And while we are very grateful to the Special Orders Committee, who approve these Orders and advise us and draw our attention to any difficult points, that does not absolve the House from its responsibility of looking at these Orders; and I would wish myself, on behalf of my noble friends, to have the opportunity of looking at them in case there is any point which we wish to present to the House.

§ LORD STRATHCLYDE
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, for having drawn our attention to the consideration which the Special Orders Committee give to these Orders. But I also find myself in agreement with the noble Lord opposite, in that undoubtedly the House has a responsibility in all matters which it approves, and therefore I can appreciate that it would be advisable that your Lordships should have Orders such 497 as this as early as possible. I shall certainly look into that matter. In the present case the House can take comfort from the fact that these Regulations are made on the unanimous recommendation of the Police Council for Great Britain.

§ VISCOUNT STANSGATE
My Lords, I should not have said a word had it not been for the intervention of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. It is very questionable whether your Lordships' House 'should have a parity of powers with another place in respect of Statutory Rules and Orders. Many hold, and I agree, that these Orders could be dealt with by another place, as some of them are. But they do come here, and it is a fact that the power of this House is constantly growing, the more we use Statutory Orders as a method of legislation. But when the noble Earl now tells us that even this House has not the power—

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
No, my Lords, I did not say that. Really, the noble Viscount never listens to what is said; and if he does, he either deliberately or unwittingly fails to understand it. What I said was that both Houses had responsibility for these Orders—that is why they are brought before your Lordships' House. But I said that I did not think that it was incumbent on every single Member of your Lordships' House, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, suggested, to read through every one of the Regulations. In order to save us from doing that and, at the same time, safeguard the position of Parliament, we have a standing Select Committee which goes through all Orders and reports to the House upon them, whether they are in accordance with precedent and so on, and particularly has the duty of drawing our attention to any matter of importance which it would be right for us to discuss. That is quite different from what the noble Viscount said.

§ VISCOUNT STANSGATE
My Lords, the noble Earl is very quick in the uptake: I had mentioned the subject and predicate, but I had not come to the object of my sentence. What I said was that the noble Earl said this House had not the power; and I was going on to add that he suggested that its powers were modified or qualified in some way by the fact that the Standing Orders Com- 498 mittee recommend these Orders. It is very useful to have a Standing Orders Committee, but it is preposterous if your Lordships' House is going to claim the right to remit to the Standing Orders Committee a parity of legislative power in respect of statutory instruments which in my opinion we should not have at all.