POLICE PENSIONS (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) REGULATIONS 1966 (Hansard, 19 July 1966)

TIIE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HAME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Police Pensions (Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1966, a draft of which was laid before the House of July 7, be approved. They amend the Police Pensions Regulations 1962. This is the eighth amending instrument to the 1962 Regulations but I hope that it will be the last, because the Consolidation of the Police Pensions Regulations is now at an advanced stage, and consolidating Regulations will be presented in the autumn. Meanwhile, it is necessary to present the draft Amendment Regulations because of the effect on the relationship between police pensions and National Insurance of certain provisions of the National Insurance Act 1966 which will come into operation on October 5.
Regulation 1 relates to the pensions of police officers who are retired following an injury on duty. At present the Pensions Regulations provide that for purposes of assessing one of the two elements of the pension, account shall be taken of any flat-rate National Insurance sickness or injury benefit which the pensioner is receiving in respect of his injury. The National Insurance Act 1966 provides that from October 8 of this year earnings-related supplements will be payable in addition to flat-rate sickness or injury benefits for an initial period of 26 weeks. Regulation 1 accordingly provides that where account is taken of flat-rate National Insurance sickness or injury benefit, account shall similarly be taken of the supplementary benefit received under the 1966 Act in respect of the injury.
Regulations 2, 3 and 4 relate to discretionary increases to certain police widows' pensions. The police were excluded from the contributory old-age pension scheme which existed before 1948, and some officers were therefore unable to establish any entitlement to a State pension for their widows. Since 1948, the Police Pensions Scheme has given police authorities discretion to make payments to such widows of the same amounts as 368 are available under the National Insurance scheme. For the first 13 weeks of widowhood these payments are equal to the higher rate of the National Insurance widow's benefit—that is, of £5 12s. 6d. per week, which is known as widow's allowance—and thereafter they are at the normal rate of benefit of £4 a week. As your Lordships are aware, the Act of 1966 provides that from October 5 widow's allowance shall be payable for the first 26 weeks, instead of for the first 13 weeks of widowhood. This extended benefit period also applies to women whose husbands die within the 13 weeks prior to October 5, and who will therefore still be in receipt of widow's allowance when the provisions of the Act come into operation.
The amendments in Regulations 2, 3 and 4 which I am asking your Lordships to approve extend similarly the period during which the payments to police widows, corresponding to widow's allowance, may be made. The Police Council for Great Britain has been consulted and is in agreement with the proposal that these amendments should be made, and I think you will agree that they are necessary. My Lords, I beg to move.

§ LORDSANDFORD
My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord for his usual clear and lucid introduction of these Regulations. If this is the eighth amendment that has been made since 1962, we ought to be grateful to the civil servants, who have obviously been working hard on them since then. The policeman's lot is not an easy one to-day, and anything we can do to make life happier and easier for him when constabulary duty has been done, we ought to try to do. It is, of course, true, as the noble Lord said, that the Police Federations were consulted and agreed to these amendments. But he will also know—we need not go into the details—that when they did so they put forward six, I think, rather important reservations and proposals which they would want to be considered in the Police Council consequential on these amendments. I think it 369 would be helpful if the noble Lord could give us his assurance that these reservations and proposals will be sympathetically considered by the Police Council before the consolidated Regulations reach their final form, and, in due course, are presented to Parliament.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for the kind things he has said about civil servants, and his comments will be passed on. With regard to the assurance for which he is asking, I must, of course, remind him that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has only a number of representatives on the Police Council, and that the Federation itself is represented. I can certainly assure him that any representations made will be most carefully considered. I should not, however, like the noble Lord to be under the impression that anything in the present Order will in any way erode present police pensions. He is probably aware that they are composed of two elements: one, a basic pension, which is not affected in any way by this Order, and, second, a supplementary benefit, which in practice is certainly unlikely to cause any further abatement of the pension, because the supplementary benefit lasts for only 26 weeks; and in practice a police officer who is injured would not ordinarily retire until well after six months.