These Regulations shall come into operation on the fourth day of November, 1954, and may be cited as the British Transport Commission (Amendment of Pension Schemes) Regulations, 1954.

In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say—

• “the Act” means the Transport Act, 1947;

• “accrued pension rights” has the meaning assigned to it by paragraph (3) of this Regulation ;

• “the Authority” means the Ulster Transport Authority established under the Transport Act (Northern Ireland), 1948;

• “the Commission” means the British Transport Commission;

• “the Corporation” means the British European Airways Corporation established by the Air Corporations Act, 1949;

• “the date of change” in relation to an officer or servant to whom these Regulations apply means the date on which the officer or servant ceases to be so employed for the purpose of becoming employed as an officer or servant by the Corporation or by any person carrying on a railway undertaking in a country outside of the United Kingdom, not being a foreign country;

• “foreign country” has the same meaning as in the British Nationality Act, 1948;

• “officer or servant” means a person—

  1. a

     employed as a member of the Commission or of an Executive or as an officer or servant by the Commission (whether or not the employment is by virtue of the Act to be treated as employment by an Executive), or

  2. b

     employed as an officer or servant by the Authority who became so employed immediately upon ceasing to be employed as specified in paragraph (a);

• “pensionable event” in relation to an officer or servant to whom these Regulations apply means—

  1. a

     retirement from the employment upon which he enters after the date of change, on or after attaining the age at which persons in that employment are normally required to retire; or

  2. b

     the happening of any contingency other than reaching the relevant age which would have carried entitlement to pension under the rules of his railway pension scheme or society pension scheme;

• “railway pension scheme” means any pension scheme established by or under the London Midland and Scottish Railway (Superannuation Fund) Act, 1924, the Southern Railway (Superannuation Fund) Act, 1927 the London and North Eastern Railway (Superannuation Fund) Act, 1939, the Great Western Railway (Superannuation Fund) Act, 1941, or the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund Act, 1873.

• “the relevant age” in relation to an officer or servant means the minimum age at which under the rules of his railway pension scheme he can exercise a right to receive a pension on retirement;

• “society pension scheme” means any pension scheme of the society known as the London and North Western Railway Provident Society for providing Pension for Widows and Orphans of the Salaried Staff or the Great Western Railway Salaried Staff Widows and Orphans Pensions Society, as the case may be.

In these Regulations, the expression “accrued pension rights” in relation to an officer or servant means any right to the payment on or after reaching the relevant age or on or after the happening of any other contingency carrying entitlement to pension under his scheme, of a pension payable to or in respect of him calculated at such fraction or fractions of his pensionable emoluments in respect of each year or part of a year of his pensionable service as would have been applicable under that scheme in the calculation of the pension, if he had at the date of change reached the relevant age or, as the case may be, had the other contingency then happened, and there had been no requirement of the scheme as to a minimum qualifying period of pensionable service: Provided that in the case of any officer or servant to whom these Regulations apply, for the purposes of ascertaining the amount of any such pension account shall be taken of any provision in the scheme for the payment of minimum pension.

Any reference in these Regulations to any enactment shall be construed as a reference to that enactment as amended, extended or applied by or under any other enactment.

The Interpretation Act, 1889, shall apply to the interpretation of these Regulations as it applies to the interpretation of an Act of Parliament.