§ SIR BEVAN EDWARDSI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if his attention has been called to the case of Colonel F. H. Rich, late Inspector of Railways under the Board of Trade, and to the reply of the Secretary to the Treasury to a question asked in this House on the 12th December 1894; and, if so, whether he is now prepared to give 1422 Colonel Rich the amount of the stoppages made from his retired pay and Civil Service pension?
§ MR. HANBURYMy attention has been called to this case, which has been considered by the present Government as well as by their predecessors. Between 1886 and 1891 the Civil salary of Colonel Rich was more than three times the amount of his Army retired pay. Under a well-recognised rule of the War Office, dating from 1822, a deduction had to be made from his total remuneration under these circumstances, and his retired pay was temporarily reduced accordingly. When Colonel Rich accepted a post in the Civil Service, he did so under this condition. During the years 1861 to 1873, he was seconded from the Army and still qualifying for Army retired pay, which he is now receiving. He claims that those years shall also count for Civil pension, or in other words that he should receive a double pension in respect of those 12 years. This is obviously unreasonable. He retired from the Civil employment in 1891, and received the usual Civil pension. But in 1894 a change was made in the system of calculating such a pension, and he not only received a higher pension from that date, but the effect of the change was made retrospective. The difference for the years 1891–4 has already been paid to him in accordance with the promise of my predecessor.