MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, S.)I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps have been, or are to be, taken to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments in their Second Report to reduce the number of Clerks of the Upper or First Division of the Civil Service in the different Departments, and to enforce a deduction from salary with an equivalent contribution from the State to provide a Superannuation Fund, a special account being kept for each individual?
§ * THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,) St. George's, Hanover SquareI must refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave in the House on Tuesday as regards the first part of his question. But no time is being lost in carrying out the reduction of the Upper Division, which can only be effected as vacancies occur in the several Departments. With regard to making deductions from salaries towards a Superannuation Fund, Her Majesty's Government have no intention of applying any new scheme compulsorily to existing Civil Servants. The subject in the case of new entrants is of the greatest complexity. It involves not only the question of deductions from salary and of new scales of salary which may be necessary in view of these deductions, but also the difficult problem of building up a Fund. Inquiries which I have 117 been making into other Superannuation Funds show the extraordinary difficulties that have to be overcome before securing the solvency of such Funds, and several of them I have found to be insolvent.