Pensions (Increase) Act 1956
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1956 c. 39 |
| Year | 1956 |
Pensions (Increase) Act , 1956
(4 & 5 Eliz. 2) 39
An Act to provide for increases in certain pensions; and to amend the Pensions (Increase) Acts, 1920 and 1924, the Pensions (Increase) Acts, 1944 and 1947, the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1952, and the Second Schedule to the Pensions (India, Pakistan and Burma) Act, 1955.
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Increase of pensions specified in First Schedule.
(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, any pension specified in the First Schedule to this Act may be increased by the pension authority to the extent authorised by the Second Schedule to this Act:
Provided that a pension shall not be increased under this section—
(a ) in the case of a pension computed by reference to average emoluments (not being a pension computed under paragraph (b ) of subsection (2) of section thirty-six of the Superannuation Act, 1949), if the averaging period began later than twelve months less one day before the relevant date;
(b ) in any other case, if the pension began after the relevant date.
In this subsection the expression ‘the relevant date’ means—
(i) in the case of a pension computed by reference to final or average emoluments of fifteen hundred pounds or more, the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and forty-seven;
(ii) in any other case, the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-two.
(2) Subsections (2), (3), (4) and (6) of section one of the Act of 1944 (which define the circumstances in which a pension may be increased under that section) shall apply for the purposes of this section as if any reference in those subsections to the said section one included a reference to subsection (1) of this section; and, subject to the next following subsection, in the application of those subsections for the said purposes, the expression ‘dependant’, in relation to a pensioner, shall be construed as meaning a person who the pension authority are satisfied is wholly or mainly supported by the pensioner and who either has not attained the age of sixteen years or, having attained that age, is either receiving full-time instruction at an educational establishment or undergoing training for a trade, profession or vocation in such circumstances that he is required to devote the whole of his time to that training for a period of not less than two years.
(3) Where, immediately before the appointed day, an increase under the Acts of 1944 and 1947 or the Act of 1952 was payable in the case of a pension by reason only that some person was a dependant of the pensioner by virtue of subsection (5) of section and (4) of section one of the Act of 1944 to increases under subsection (1) of this section:
Provided that—
(a ) this subsection shall only apply to a person by virtue of paragraph (a ) of the said subsection (5) so long as that person would continue to be a dependant of the pensioner under the last foregoing subsection if the words from ‘in such’ onwards were omitted therefrom;
(b ) where this subsection applies to any person by virtue of paragraph (b ), (c ) or (d ) of the said subsection (5) and an increase under subsection (1) of this section is payable in the case of a pension by reason only that that person is deemed under this subsection to be a dependant of the pensioner, the annual rate of that increase shall be reduced in respect of any period by the amount, if any, by which the pension authority are satisfied that the annual rate of the total income in that period of that person from any other source exceeds one hundred and fifty-six pounds a year.
2 Extension of increases under Pensions \(Increase) Acts, 1920 and 1924.
(1) For the purposes of an increase under the Acts of 1920 and 1924 in any pension payable out of moneys provided by Parliament, or out of the Education (Scotland) Fund, or by police, local or other public authorities in Great Britain—
(a ) any restriction on the making of such an increase, or on the amount of the increase, imposed by those Acts by reference to the means of the pensioner shall cease to have effect;
(b ) the amount of the increase shall be that applicable if the pensioner were a married person, whether or not he is in fact a married person;
(c ) the upper limit of the amount of a pension which may be increased by thirty per cent. shall cease to have effect, so, however, that no pension shall be increased by virtue of this paragraph by an amount greater than sixty pounds a year.
(2) In relation to any instalment of a pension payable as aforesaid, the Schedule to the Act of 1920 shall have effect subject to the amendment specified in the Third Schedule to this Act, being an amendment consequential on the provisions of this section and of section one of the Act of 1924.
(3) This section shall be construed as one with the Acts of 1920 and 1924.
3 Extension of increases under Pensions \(Increase) Acts, 1944 and 1947.
(1) For the purposes of an increase under section one of the Act of 1944 in any pension—
(a ) any restriction on the making of such an increase, or on the amount of the increase, imposed by the Acts of 1944 and 1947 by reference to the income of the pensioner shall cease to have effect;
(b ) the amount of the increase shall be that applicable if the pensioner were married, whether or not he is in fact married;
(c ) subject to subsection (3) of this section, the upper limit of the amount of a pension which may be increased by sixty pounds a year shall cease to have effect.
(2) The Acts of 1944 and 1947 shall have effect as if the pensions specified in Part I of the Fourth Schedule to this Act were included among the pensions specified in Part I of the First Schedule to the Act of 1944 and as if the pensions specified in Part III of the said Fourth Schedule were included among the pensions specified in Part II of the said First Schedule.
(3) In relation to a pension which falls to be increased by virtue of paragraph (c ) of subsection (1) of this section and which as so increased exceeds, or would but for this subsection exceed, four hundred and fifty pounds, subsection (2) of section three of the Act of 1944 (which provides for the reduction or exclusion of an increase under that Act where the amount of a pension has been increased by reason of an addition by way of war bonus or similar allowance to the emoluments of any office or employment in respect of which, or on retirement from which, the pension is payable) shall have effect as if the references therein to such an addition included any excess of the said emoluments over what they were on the third day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, or, as the case may be, over what in the opinion of the pension authority they would have been on that day had the office or employment then existed:
Provided that no pension shall by virtue of this subsection be less than it would have been if the said paragraph (c ) and this subsection had not been passed.
4 Extension of increases under Pensions \(Increase) Act, 1952.
(1) For the purposes of an increase under the Act of 1952 in any pension—
(a ) any restriction on the making of such an increase, or on the amount of the increase, imposed by that Act by reference to the income of the pensioner shall cease to have effect;
(b ) the amount of the increase shall be that applicable if the pensioner were married, whether or not he is in fact married.
(2) The Act of 1952 shall have effect as if the pensions specified in Parts I and II of the Fourth Schedule to this Act were included among the pensions specified in Part I of the First Schedule to that Act and as if the-pensions specified in Part III of the said Fourth Schedule were included among the pensions specified in Part II of the said First Schedule.
5 Other amendments of Act of 1944 and Act of 1952.
(1) Subsection (5) of section one of the Act of 1944 (which defines the expression ‘dependant’ for the purposes of that section and the Second Schedule to that Act) shall cease to have effect, and for the purposes of the said section one and of section one of the Act of 1952 the expression ‘dependant’ shall have the meaning assigned by subsections (2) and (3) of section one of this Act, with the substitution in the said subsection (3) for any reference to an increase under subsection (1) of section one of this Act of a reference to an increase under section one of the Act of 1944 or, as the case may be, of the Act of 1952.
(2) The Act of 1944 and the Act of 1952 shall each have effect and be deemed always to have had effect—
(a ) as if after paragraph 1 of Part II of the First Schedule to each respectively of those Acts there were inserted the following new paragraph—
(1A)‘1A. A pension payable by any local authority under paragraph (b ) of subsection (3) of section fourteen of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925’; and
(b ) as if the reference in subsection (2) of section five of each respectively of those Acts to the said paragraph 1 included a reference to the said paragraph 1A:
Provided that no adjustment shall be made between any pension authorities by reason of this subsection in respect of any payment made before the passing of this Act.
(3) The Act of 1944 shall have effect, and be deemed always to have had effect, as if for paragraph 7 of the Second Schedule to that Act there were substituted the following paragraph—
‘7. Where a person in receipt of...
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