24. Mr. L.LYLEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will take into sympathetic consideration the case of Wallace C. Labarte, who, after serving nearly forty years in the Inland Revenue and in the Customs and Excise, was retired owing to ill-health on 29thJanuary, 1919, and who has now been awarded a pension the present value of which is about 13s.; whether this man is excluded from any benefit of the new pension bonus system; and whether, as the whole of his conduct was satisfactory and his health gave way largely under the strain of extra war work, his services can be more adequately recognised?
§ Mr. BALDWINLabarte, a warehouseman, was away sick from August, 1915, and was retired in January, 1916 (not 1919 as stated in the question) at the age of fifty-two on the ground of ill-health. He was awarded a pension of £68 7s. 7d. per annum together with an additional allowance of £209 13s. 10d. under the Superannuation Act, 1909, these being the maximum amounts to which his service entitled him. His ill-health began some years before the War, and was not due to it. A s he was never in receipt of war bonus he is not eligible to receive the increase of pension allowed to men who have received war bonus, under the conditions described in the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reply to a question put by the hon. Member for the Devonport Division on the 16th instant.