§ SIR ELLIOTT LEES (Birkenhead)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the Tweedmouth Commission recommended an increment of 1s. per week to postmen who became sorting clerks in lieu of uniform; what percentage of postmen who have been appointed as sorting clerks have received 1s. per week increment in lieu of clothes; and what qualification is necessary to obtain his increment?
§ MR. HANBURYThe Tweedmouth Committee recommended that ex-postmen now sorters should be granted an additional half increment as compensation for uniform. This recommendation only applied to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, but it was subsequently decided by the Postmaster General, in concurrence with the Treasury, to extend the arrangement to officers in a similar position in the provinces. This arrangement is being carried out as quickly as possible, but the actual percentage cannot be stated without inquiry. The conditions under which the half increment is granted are:—(1) That no officer is thereby to receive a rate of pay higher than he would have had if his whole 703 service had been on the class of sorting clerks and telegraphists. (2) That in no case is an officer to receive wages in excess of the maximum of his scale.