§ MR. E. H. LAMB (Rochester)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the minor stall officers serving in the Income-Tax Repayments Branch of the Inland Revenue Department, on a scale of £200 to £300 per annum, are receiving, as a result of promotion, less salary than if they had remained Second Division clerks under the new scale of pay established by the Order in Council of 21st December, 1907; and whether, in view of the fact that they must serve further periods, varying from ten to sixteen years, before they receive any benefit from their promotion, as compared with, the salary they would have received as Second Division clerks, he will take steps to arrange that these officers be given the salary they would have received if the scale for their posts had been £250 to £350.
(Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative as regards the majority of these officers at any rate. The object of the Order in Council was to allow members of the Second Division the option of a present benefit in place of a future benefit, and those who took advantage of that option must necessarily appear to be placed in a better relative position than others to whom the Order in Council does not apply, when their immediate emoluments only are compared. The reasons for allowing this option did not apply in the case of the officers in question, but the maximum of their scale has recently been increased from £300 to £350. I am not prepared to make any further concession in their case.