§ MR. FETHERSTONHAUGHTo ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is aware that the public have to render returns for income-tax purposes to the surveyors of taxes in whose offices they are dealt with by a clerical staff who are not civil servants; whether he will consider the expediency in the public interest of arranging that such confidential returns should not be dealt with by unestablished clerks or officials, and that duties of so much delicacy and importance should not be discharged by unestablished clerks, while such positions as those of postmen, messengers, and sorters are filled by established officials; will he have the matter considered by a Committee of the House; and will he say if the surveyors of taxes have themselves condemned the present system or made representations suggesting the desirability of a change.
§ (Answered by Mr. Asquith.) The employment of established clerks has been tried, but was abandoned as being unsatisfactory both as regards cost and efficiency. The Surveyors of Taxes have instructions to retain in their own hands all really confidential work. I do not think any useful purpose would be served by the suggested inquiry by a Parliamentary Committee; the main questions involved are questions of departmental administration which primarily concern the Board of Inland Revenue and the Treasury, and they have been carefully examined and considered by the Board and by the Treasury on more than one occasion in recent years.