§ MR. BYRON REED (Bradford, E.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, with regard to the fact that, in reply to a memorial forwarded in December last by the Ridley clerks of the Second Division, the Treasury urge that, in addition to the present amount of annual leave granted to these clerks, they are absent from their official duties on Christmas Day, Good Friday, the Queen's birthday, the four Bank Holidays, and half-days on alternate Saturdays, and 52 Sundays, will he state whether these are exceptional advantages enjoyed by this particular body only, or whether they are general to the whole Service?
§ * MR. HANBURYThe additional holidays referred to in the question are not exceptional advantages of the Second Division, but are enjoyed by many other classes of the Civil Service, if the state of public business permits.
§ * SIR ANDREW SCOBLE (Hackney, Central)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury—(1) whether a large proportion of the Ridley Clerks of the Second Division commenced their official career as boy clerks under the Playfair Regulation; (2) whether the Treasury offered special facilities to these boy clerks in the examination for the Second Division, and thereby recognised their claim to promotion to that grade; and (3) whether those Ridley Clerks, who entered as boy clerks with a view to obtaining these special facilities, and 1558 thereby entering the Second Division at an initial salary of £95 per annum, have been prejudiced by subsequent alterations in the regulations?
§ MR. HANBURYThe answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. As regards the second paragraph, the Treasury have offered special facilities to boy clerks in the examination for the Second Division by reserving a certain number of vacancies to be competed for by them, but they do not recognise any claim on their part to promotion to that grade. Ridley Clerks who passed from being boy clerks into the Second Division receive a lower initial salary than under the old Play fair scale, but, taking their service as a whole, their position is very greatly improved by the change.