ADMIRAL FIELD (Sussex, Eastbourne)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, with reference to the non-retirement of clerks in the Probate and other divisions of the High Court at sixty-five years of age, in accord nice with the recommendation of the Ridley Commission for the rest of the Civil Service, he can inform the House if there is any statutory impediment assigned by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Master of the Rolls, for not enforcing such retirement under conditions 1511 which are applied to the whole of the Civil Service; and whether the Treasury will call the attention of these authorities to the present deadlock in the way of promotion of this class of public servants, with a view to the removal of this alleged grievance.
§ MR. HANBURYThese high legal authorities are, I am informed, in disagreement as to the power to make an order for retirement at a fixed age in the legal departments.