§ 120. Mr. McAdamasked the Minister of Transport if he has considered the correspondence sent to him by the hon. Member for Salford, North, as to the attitude of the Southern Railway Company in respect to existing voluntary pension schemes; and what action he proposes to 127W take to preserve the continuity of payment from those funds until such time as they are taken over by his Department.
§ Mr. BarnesI have seen certain correspondence relating to two schemes applicable to employees of the Southern Railway Company. Any modification of one of them would be the result of action by the managers of the fund and not of the company. The second is a non-contributory scheme and the company intends, as I understand, to reduce the pensions allowed by them, in the case of officers reaching 65 after September, 1946, as increased pensions become available to the recipients under the National Insurance Act, 1946, but always so that the aggregate pension of any individual will not be less. I am making further inquiries into this matter.