§ 45. Mr. SNOWDENasked the First Lord of the Treasury if the practice of compelling surveyors of Customs and Excise to retire at sixty-one years of age, though 1909 they have not completed forty years' service, is still being followed, and if some surveyors, who have been compulsorily retired at sixty-one, have been re-engaged for temporary duty owing to pressure of work; and whether, in view of the hardship of compulsory retirement before the full pension can be earned, the Treasury will carry out the suggestion of the Hob-house Committee on Amalgamation and permit surveyors to complete forty years' service?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Montagu)The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative; and to the second part in the negative. As regards the third part, I cannot find that the Hobhouse Committee made any such suggestion, and the Treasury see no reason to modify the existing rule, which has been in force since 1908.