HC Deb 13 November 1906 vol 164 c1277
MR. W. T. WILSON (Lancashire, Westhoughton)

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether there is any minute, regulation, or statutory enactment which renders a person in receipt of a pension as a retired Civil servant incapable of becoming a candidate for Parliament; and whether such a person, on being elected, would forfeit his pension.

(Answered by Mr. Ranciman.) The Answers to both parts of the Question are in the negative.

Class. Number of Holdings.
Exceeding 500 acres 76
Exceeding 100 acres and not exceeding 500 acres 654
Exceeding 50 acres and not exceeding 100 acres 272
Exceeding 10 acres and not exceeding 50 acres 783
Exceeding 1 acre and not exceeding 10 acres 1,168
2,952

These holdings are exclusive of all lettings under one acre (chiefly cottage gardens, about 1,000 in number) and of 1,758 acres let for allotments. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have not adopted any system for facilitating the further division of holdings, but they put no hindrance in the way of the creation of small holdings where large farms can suitably be divided, and the figures above given show that the proportion of small holdings on the Commissioners' estates is considerable, the number of holdings under fifty acres being 66 per cent, of the whole, and the number of those under 100 being 75 per cent, of the whole. In cases deemed by them suitable the Commissioners facilitate the purchase of their holdings by tenants