§ 32. Mr. CROOKSasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether it is proposed to grant a War bonus to meet the increasing cost of living to those assistant clerks who, for seven years and upwards, have been marking time on their maximum of £150 without any increase whatever in their pay?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Acland)I cannot differentiate between persons who have for some time been at the maximum salary of their class without receiving promotion and any other class of Civil servants receiving the same or a less salary. The question of the pay of Government employés at low salaries must necessarily be considered by the Government as soon as a decision is given in the case of the Post Office servants, but I cannot at present say more than that.
§ Mr. SNOWDENIs not this a case where differentiation ought to be made, seeing that the report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service emphatically and very strongly reported that these clerks had a case for an immediate increase?
§ Mr. ACLANDQuite; and they have all been given increments of salary.
§ Mr. SNOWDENDid not the Royal Commission also recommend that these men who had reached the maximum of £150 should be advanced to £200?
§ Mr. ACLANDIt was possible, as a very special case, to isolate the case of giving one increment to all assistant clerks from all the others, and it was done; but that is the only recommendation which can be isolated. The recommendation which the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned is intimately bound up with the whole reorganisation of very different classes besides this one.
§ Mr. SNOWDENIs it not a fact that in the same sentence they recommended that those who have reached the maximum should proceed by stages to £200?
§ Mr. ACLANDThe hon. Member will find that question is intimately connected with several other questions which must wait over until the authorities concerned have a little more time to deal with them.