§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I be to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I hope it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if I take this Order and the following one together. This Order and the one that is the subject of the next Motion are two parts of the same operation and it may be for the convenience of the House if I explain their purport jointly. The Orders are required in effect to correct drafting deficiencies in an Order made in 1944 extending the Pensions (Increase) Act of that year to various classes of pensions paid by local authorities to persons other than its own employees, who were directly covered by the Act.
The 1944 Order did not cover pensions payable to the widows and dependants of two categories of the pensions covered by that Order. So far as we have been able to discover, this was entirely inadvertent. The Order also omitted provision for pensions payable to the Clerk of the Peace for the County of London, his deputy and their dependants.
Subsequent Pensions (Increase) Acts have provided for their provisions to be applied to pensions covered by the 1944 Order. The present Orders extend the same series of Acts to the categories of pensions I have mentioned. Few pensions are involved and the cost for individual local authorities will be trivial. The local authority associations have been consulted and agree to the extensions made by these Orders. The reason why two Orders are necessary is that different powers prescribing different procedures are concerned. Thus, No. 1 Order applies the 1944, 1952 and 1956 Acts, and No. 2 Order applies the 1959 and 1962 Acts. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Pensions (Increase) Acts (Extension) (No. 1) Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 26th November last.—(Lord Drumalbyn.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.