Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Commonwealth Telegraphs (Pension Rights of Former Cable and Wireless Ltd. Staff) Regulations 1971 and shall come into operation on the 2nd March 1971, but shall then have effect from the 30th September 1969, and shall be construed accordingly.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them:

“the Act” means the Post Office Act 1969;

“the Minister” means the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, and “the Ministry” shall be construed accordingly;

“the pension schemes” means the schemes set out in the Schedule hereto, being the schemes referred to in section 49(1)(a) of the Act;

“a person to whom these Regulations apply” means a person who:

“the Post Office” means the authority established under section 6 of the Post Office Act 1969.

(2) The Interpretation Act 1889, applies for the interpretation of these Regulations as it applies for the interpretation of an Act of Parliament.

Right to remain in Cable and Wireless Ltd. pension schemes

3.  Every person to whom these Regulations apply shall be entitled to remain a member of each of the pension schemes of which he was a member immediately before the appointed day, so long as:

(a)he remains employed by the Post Office or in the Ministry or the Department for National Savings, as the case may be, and

(b)the trustees or other persons administering the schemes receive the contributions (if any) which he is from time to time liable to make to the scheme, and such contributions as may be made in respect of him in accordance with Regulation 4.

Employers' contributions

4.  The trustees or other persons administering the pension schemes shall accept as employers' contributions in respect of a person to whom these Regulations apply, in lieu of the employers' contributions falling to be made in respect of him by the Postmaster General under the scheme or under Regulation 5 of the Commonwealth Telegraphs (Pension Rights of Cable and Wireless Ltd. Staff) Regulations 1950 (1), contributions made by the Post Office, the Minister or the Department for National Savings.

Pensionable service

5.—(1) The service of every person to whom these Regulations apply in such employment as is mentioned in Regulation 3 shall, so long as he remains a member of any of the pension schemes, be treated as pensionable service for the purposes of each of those schemes of which he remains a member and of any statutory provisions, trust deeds, rules, and other instruments relating thereto, but not for any other purpose.

(2) In relation to a person who by virtue of these Regulations remains a member of the Cable and Wireless Staff Dependants' Fund, any reference in any instrument relating thereto to that person's dying prior to or after his being retired from pensionable service in the Department of the Postmaster General (however described) shall be construed as including a reference to his dying prior to or after his being retired from pensionable service in the Post Office, the Ministry, or the Department for National Savings.

Regulations to be terms of pension schemes

6.  The pension schemes and the said statutory provisions and instruments shall have effect as if the provisions of these Regulations were terms thereof notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained therein.

THE SCHEDULE

• Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies' Pension Fund

• Cable and Wireless Widows Fund

• Pacific Cable Board Pension Fund

• Pacific Cable Board Provident Fund

• Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies' Superannuation Fund

• Post Office Transferees' Pension Fund

• Communications Superannuation Fund

• Indo-European Retirement Fund

• Marconi Companies' Staff Superannuation Fund

• Cable and Wireless Pension Fund

• Cable and Wireless Staff Dependants' Fund

EXPLANATORY NOTE

These Regulations enable former employees of Cable and Wireless Ltd., who transferred to the Postmaster General's Department on terms that they remained in a pension scheme of the Company, to continue in such a pension scheme on their transfer to the new Post Office, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, or the Department for National Savings, in consequence of the abolition of the Postmaster General's Department by the Post Office Act 1969.

The Regulations have retrospective effect under section 6(7) of the Commonwealth Telegraphs Act 1949 as applied by section 49(2) of the Post Office Act 1969.