§ MR. C. J. O'DONNELL (Newington, Walworth)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what would be the extra cost of giving the metropolitan police twenty-one days' annual holiday leave instead of the ten days now allowed; and whether, if the grant of one day off duty in a week 1566 is at present impossible for financial reasons, he will consider the granting of a longer annual holiday this year.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) To increase the annual leave of the metropolitan police would throw a charge of more than £50,000 a year on the Metropolitan Police Fund besides increasing the charge for police employed at the cost of the Treasury. The income of the metropolitan police force is barely sufficient to meet the present expenditure, and it would be quite impossible to undertake an additional charge of £50,000 a year without exceeding the ninepenny rate limit.