§ 90. Major GASTRELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he will state what is the present rate of permanent pension for an Army sergeant who has been in the Service for the full maximum period of twenty-one years, but whose service, as a sergeant, amounts to eleven years 300 days; whether the pension he is entitled to in such circumstances is any larger than if he had held the rank of sergeant for nine years; what proportion of the sergeants leaving the Army receive the maximum pension to which soldiers of this class are entitled; and whether he will consider the desirability of rearranging the scale of pensions graduated to shorter intervals than three years?
§ Mr. TENNANTThe rates are: For quartermaster-sergeants, 2s. 6d. a day; for colour-sergeants, 2s. 3d. a day; for sergeants, 2s. a day. The answer to the second part of the question is "No"; and to the third part, that 60 per cent. receive the maximum rate of their class. The cost of making the rearrangement suggested in the last part of the question would be, I am afraid, prohibitive.