MR. CATHCART WASONI beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if a seafaring person occupying a small holding, his wife and family cultivating the holding In his absence, will he debarred from the old-age pension scheme by reason of his absence at sea; and, if so, if he will state what length of absence constitutes disqualification.
§ MR. JOHN BURNSThe condition for the receipt of a pension imposed by the Old-Age Pensions Act, 1908, that a person must have had his residence in the United kingdom for at least twenty years up to the date of the receipt of a pension, is not infringed by temporary absences, if before the absences he was living in the United Kingdom, and throughout the absences he was serving 467 on board a vessel registered in the United Kingdom.