POLICE PENSIONS BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 20 April 1961)

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (EARL BATHURST)
My Lords, when commending to your Lordships the draft Police Pensions (Amendment) Regulations of 1961, a few weeks ago, I referred to the criticism by your Lordships' Special Orders Committee of the complexity of the Police Pensions Regulations. I said that Her Majesty's Government were advised that consolidation of the existing Regulations which would make them more intelligible, was not possible without legislation, and that my right honourable friend and the Secretary of State for Scotland were considering the possibility of introducing legislation.
The suggestion had already been made in another place that a short Bill giving power to consolidate the Regulations should be introduced, and it was 684 generally welcomed there. My right honourable friend and the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland have decided to take advantage of the good will that was shown towards the proposal for legislation and to introduce a short Bill on these lines. Your Lordships will see that the Bill is quite brief and that it is limited to giving power to consolidate Police Pension Regulations.
Clause 1 (1) gives power to consolidate the Police Pension Regulations subject to the requirement that the consolidating regulations must reproduce the effect of the earlier regulations, except for any change that might have been made by regulations under the Police Pensions Act, 1948. The effect of this—and I want to make it quite clear, without any doubt—is that the safeguards for serving members of the police, and of pensioners, which were written into the 1948 Act are to be maintained without impairment. Although the Bill will give a power to consolidate the regulations, it will not empower us to make any alterations of substance that we cannot already make under the 1948 Act.
When, in the process of consolidation, the regulations are revoked, pensioners who were receiving awards under the old regulations will in no circumstances find that their pensions are reduced. As at present, there will be no power, without consent, to alter the pensions conditions of serving members of the police on certain vital points which are safeguarded by the Act of 1948. There is therefore no need for any serving member of a police force, or for any pensioner (and I include widows and dependants in that term) to fear that their rights will in any way be affected.
Subsection (2) of Clause 1 safeguards the position of special constables and their widows, so that they, too, cannot be adversely affected when consolidation of the regulations takes place. A police pension may be paid when a special constable dies or is incapacitated as a result of being injured while on duty. In England and Wales these pensions are provided for by orders made under the Special Constables Act, 1914. In Scotland they are covered by the regulations made under the Police (Scotland) Act, 1956. This subsection will ensure that when the appropriate provisions of 685 consolidated Police Pensions Regulations are applied to special constables and their dependants there can be no worsening of awards already in payment under the old Regulations.
Subsection (3) of Clause 1 provides that if the consolidated regulations fail in some particular to produce the effect of the existing regulations they shall not be invalid but shall be corrected by amending regulations which are to take effect as from the date of coming into force of the consolidated regulations. A similar provision in the Police Pensions Act, 1948, already applies to regulations made under that Act and this Bill extends it not only to consolidating regulations but also to regulations, consolidating or otherwise, which apply the provisions of the police pension schemes to special constables and their dependants. It is clearly right that accidental errors, which are a possibility whenever we consolidate a scheme so complicated as the police pensions scheme (and I am sure that from this speech your Lordships will have understood with how very complicated a matter we are dealing) should be put right as soon as possible; and it is only fair to the pensioners concerned that the correction should have retroactive effect. I believe the term should be "retrospective effect". I think the other is somewhat of space-age terminology that has appeared in my script.
This Bill would enable us to make a complicated pension scheme somewhat less difficult to read and understand by giving a power to consolidate regulations subject to the preservation in full of the existing safeguards which are in force. As such I commend it to your Lordships and beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, this small measure is most welcome as it will consolidate the mass of pensions regulations made since 1948 which, as I am sure any of your Lordships who have studied them will agree, have become virtually unintelligible. Certainly they were quite unintelligible to the members of the Special Orders Committee, as they may have been to the civil servants who had to explain them. But the important thing was that it would have been utterly 686 impossible for any police officers, or their widows, unless they went to a lawyer highly trained in these matters and he spent hours on it, to find out their pension entitlement. It is therefore most welcome that these regulations are now to be consolidated.
I should like to ask the noble Earl just two questions. I am sure he will appreciate that although this consolidation measure preserves the rights of those entitled to pensions, it does not make their pension entitlement any easier to determine. Can the noble Earl say whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to publish a schedule, so that if the length of service and date of retirement is known, the correct rate of pension will be easily ascertainable?
My second question is in respect to an anomaly which I believe caused considerable concern to members of the Select Committee. I would ask the noble Earl whether steps will be taken to remove the anomaly whereby if a pensioner allocates part of his pension and the beneficiary pre-deceases him the allocation is not restored to the pensioner. It seems to be totally unfair that when someone entitled to a pension allocates part of it to a beneficiary who dies before that pensioner, the allocated portion of the pension does not go back to the pensioner. I ask, therefore, if steps will be taken to remove that anomaly which seems to be most unfair and unjustifiable.

EARL BATHURST
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his welcome to this very complicated but modest measure which I put before your Lordships. As I have said—and I emphasise it again—This Bill in no way affects the rights of pensioners. With regard to the determination, I think that what the noble Lord would like to see would be a straightforward and simplified code readily available in a handbook. I regret to say that that will not be so. But what I can say is that as a result of this consolidation—and, of course, this will take a little while—the regulations are going to be a very great deal simpler than they are now.
There are three sets of police regulations and I have seen the three master sets of these regulations in the Home 687 Office. Now there will be only one set. Obviously that particular set may be a little larger. But the effect will be that the experts yin the pension field in the police authorities and elsewhere will have a much easier task in explaining the regulations to police constables or their dependants who may be making inquiries about pensions. What we are really doing is simplifying the formulæ upon which these pensions are calculated. As I am sure your Lordships understand, there are many factors involved in calculating the pension of a particular police constable or his widow or dependant, such as the rate of pay, the terms and length of service, the sort of accident or injury which happened, and many others. All those factors have to be taken into consideration, and therefore I cannot say to the noble Lord that there will be a simple and easily understandable code. But what I can say is that the formulæ will be much easier to understand. However, it probably will still need someone who is something of an expert in the police pensions field to be able to explain them to the constables or dependants concerned.
With regard to the question of allocation, this is a principle of most Public Service pension schemes and it was agreed by a Joint Working Party in 1952 that it should be applied to the police. The idea is this. Supposing a police constable should die before his dependant, if he has previously allocated some of his pension then the dependant is able to draw an extra pension. But if the dependant should die before the police constable, then, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, says, the constable forgoes that portion of the pension which he has already allocated. There have so far been no representations from any branches of the Service against this. It was agreed in 1952, as I said, by the Working Party; and, of course, it is entirely up to the particular policeman concerned whether or not he decides to make that allocation.
I can add no more to what I have already said to the noble Lord. I can only thank your Lordships for bearing with me in presenting this very complicated Bill that I ask your Lordships to approve. Once more, I want to assure your Lordships that in no way 688 does it affect pensioners or their dependants so far as their pensions are concerned.