CLAUSE 5.—(Amendment of Section 145 of the Army Act with respect to deductions on account of process money.) (Hansard, 19 April 1911)

§ Mr. ACLAND

On this point, although the hon. Member (Mr. King) who has put down some Amendments on this Clause is absent, I have given him certain assurances which I think he would desire that I should make to the House, or else he might think that I had taken advan- 949 tage of his absence not to carry out what we are willing to do in connection with this matter. Clause 5 provides that whereas at present if a soldier is charged with being the father of an illegitimate child and a decree is made against him, a certain amount may be recovered from his daily pay for the support of the child. By the new Clause which we now propose, in addition to that sum which may be recovered out of his pay for the support of the child, there may also be recovered the amount of money which has had to be deposited as process money in order to bring the soldier to a place where he is charged. Without the Amendment proposed, the law is at present that the process money, which may be a considerable amount—say in the case of a soldier brought from the Curragh to Newcastle or Edinburgh—has to be deposited by the girl, or someone acting on her behalf, and cannot be recovered by her until after the soldier has left the Army. We thought that was rather hard lines, and therefore in the Amendment which is proposed we say that in Line 16 the Army Council may cause so and so to be paid. I can give quite a definite undertaking that in all cases where the order is given against the soldier we will not take advantage of the word "may" to get out of what we intend to adopt as an obligation—namely, to pay back the sum which has been advanced as journey money for the man. I may add that we will pay it promptly, and my hon. Friend had down an Amendment that we should pay it as soon as may be. We entirely accept that. The money will be paid back within a week or so, as soon as all the necessary documents can be got through. It will be repaid with all possible expedition.

With regard to another point which is hardly in order, but which would come up if the hon. Member were here to move the new Clause which stands in his name, we do undertake before next year to consider in reference to the amount which may be deducted for the support of an illegitimate child—which is limited to sixpence a day in the case of non-commissioned officers of the rank of sergeant or over, and 3d. in the case of a private or a non-commissioned officer under the rank of sergeant, where even a private or corporal is receiving money which may enable him in spite of having to repay the process money to pay rather more than the maximum of 3d. per day, whether by establishing a scale in the new Schedule to the Act, or in any other way we can, where the soldier 950 can really afford to pay a little more, make him pay a little more in future than at present. This matter has been taken up by a society for befriending girls who get into trouble. They have asked us to do something, and we have been able to meet them to this extent. I think that the few matters which I have touched on show that we are genuinely desirous of going a little further even than this new Clause indicates, and I give these few assurances so that those who are interested in the matter may know that this is not the whole extent of what we are prepared to do, but that we hope to be able to bring up further modifications next year when the matter comes up again for consideration.