§ MR. BRAMSDON (Portsmouth)To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the number of pensioners from the Seamen Pensioners Reserve who now receive the age pensions from Greenwich Hospital funds, their present average age, and the total amount paid to such pensioners during the year 1906; also similar information with reference to pensioners from the Royal Fleet Reserve, and, if none, then when the first payment out of the funds mentioned will be payable; whether all the pensioners in both the reserves mentioned are actually paid the agepensions from Greenwich funds on attaining fifty-five years, whilst the average age of others eligible outside such reserves was last year stated to be sixty-three years; and whether he will say under what circumstances or by what authority the pensioners from the Seamen Pensioners Reserve and of the Royal Fleet Reserve are entitled to and actually receive their pensions on attaining fifty-five, whilst the others stated do not.
§ (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The number of pensioners belonging to the Seamen Pensioners' Reserve now in receipt of age pensions from Greenwich Hospital funds is approximately 1,850, their average age being sixty-one, and the total amount paid in respect of these pensions being £16,630. Pensioners belonging to the Royal Fleet Reserve will not be paid Greenwich Hospital age pensions on reaching the age of fifty-five, but their applications, when received, will be considered side by side with other applications, and they will be awarded pensions at such ages as the funds available may permit. The age pension is paid to pensioners from the Seamen Pensioners Reserve under authority of Act 16 and 17 Vic., cap. 73, and Order in Council of the 29th November 1870, as modified by the King's Regulations, Article 1956a, section c, issued under authority of Order in Council.