HC Deb 24 April 1917 vol 92 cc2194-6
3. Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT

asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a number of men of the 7th Highland Light Infantry (the Bridgeton Battalion), who are in medical category C2, have been employed for six months as a military working party at Morecambe; that many of these men who are skilled workmen have been employed on unskilled labour; that the former employers of some of these men have made application, in November last, for their release for munitions work in the trade in which they are skilled; and that some of these men have now been transferred to Class W (T), Territorial Force Reserve, and have had their pay and their wives' separation allowances stopped; and, seeing that these men have been left stranded in Morecambe, whether he can state why these men on being transferred to the Reserve were not supplied with railway passes to return to Glasgow, where work of national importance awaited them?

Mr. MACPHERSON

A military working party has been employed under the Ministry of Munitions at this place for some time. Some of these men have been enrolled as Army Reserve munition workers, and have been transferred to Class W. (T.). Applications by their former employers would be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Munitions. I am in communication with my right hon. Friend with a view to the matter being further inquired into, and as soon as I am in a position to do so I will let my hon. Friend know the result.

Mr. SCOTT

When a soldier is transferred to the Reserve ought he not to be provided with a railway pass home instead of being left stranded in the town where he happens to be?

Mr. MACPHERSON

I think that we do now supply men transferred to the Reserve not only with railway passes, but also with a week's pay and separation allowance.

Mr. SCOTT

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these men who have been transferred to the Reserve have been left stranded in a town in England, that they have received no pass home, that they have been there for some weeks without any money at all, and that their wives' separation allowances have been stopped?

Mr. MACPHERSON

I am sorry these facts should be so, if they are, but as I have told my hon. Friend I am making inquiries. Where a man is transferred for the purposes of munition work, applications, as I have already stated, should be made to the Ministry of Munitions.

Mr. SCOTT

Can the hon. Gentleman say if these men, many of whom are skilled workmen, have been employed in this military working parly on unskilled work although their former employers have applied for their release for munition work?