§ MR. GOULDING (Wiltshire, Devizes)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can now state the decision of the Treasury in reference to the pension of Henry Hargrave, late warder of Devizes Prison, and whether the whole of the pension awarded to him by the Treasury should have been apportioned between Imperial and local funds.
§ MR. HANBURYThe Treasury, in October, 1898, awarded to Hargrave a pension of £44 12s. 2d. on the scale allowed by the Superannuation Act, 1859. In the following month the Home Secretary forwarded to the Treasury a resolution by the late prison authority (the Court of Quarter Sessions of the County of Wilts) asking that the pension might be increased to two-thirds of Hargrave's retiring salary, and stating that they were ready to pay the difference between the pension as already awarded, and the amount of such two-thirds. To this the Treasury assented, and the increased rate asked for was awarded. The Local Government auditor of the county accounts has now reported that the quarter sessions has no power to fulfil their undertaking, and Hargrave can thus receive only the amount of the original award. The words of the Prisons Act, 1877, will not allow the Treasury to pay the excess for which the quarter sessions made themselves responsible. The case of Hargrave and other prison officers whose pensions are affected by this decision appears one of hardship, and I hope that a Bill may be passed early next session giving the local authorities power to pay the excess pension which they have always desired to do.