TREASURY AXD SUBORDINATE DEPARTMENTS. (Hansard, 2 March 1921)

§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY
I wish to inquire about the banking operations in which the Government have been engaged in Ireland in connection with their examination of banking accounts. I understand that experts have been sent over to Ireland to examine accounts, which the banks have been forced to disclose, and that they have attached the accounts of certain persons who are obnoxious to the Government. I take it that that is the explanation of this Supplementary Estimate. The original amount obtained for the Estimate was £1,600. This Supplementary Estimate practically doubles it, and I think it needs a good deal of explanation. I am not at all surprised at the amount of the Estimate. Here we have the case of the Government objecting to the political 1926 opinions of certain persons. There is no question of criminality whatever, because gunmen who are on the run in Ireland certainly have no banking accounts. These are ordinary citizens who are supposed to be objectionable to the Government politically. The Government has persecuted them by taking their banking accounts and forcing the bank managers to disclose those accounts, a very pretty example of liberty and freedom in this year of Grace, 1921. If my explanation is correct, I am afraid I shall have to move to reduce the Vote. But I will wait until I have heard what the right hon. Gentleman has to say. I hope he will be able to remove my fears on this point. At any rate, the item is one which requires full explanation, and I would like to know when we are going to get to the bottom on the extra Government expenditure in Ireland. It is cropping up on Vote after Vote and we find we are being mulcted in substantial sums on account of the state of affairs in that country. In regard to other Votes there has been a marked lack of candour and a great meagreness of information supplied by Ministers. I hope we shall have fuller explanations on this Estimate, and I think we might have had one of the numerous Members of the Irish Office here to give it to us.

§ Mr. MOSLEY
If the suggestions of my hon. and gallant Friend as to the reason for this Supplementary Estimate are well founded, I trust we shall have a full explanation of the expenditure. I would like to make a few remarks on Item K: "Increase in temporary staff in excess of number provided for in original Estimate and cost for substitution of male for female staff." This is an allowance for temporary clerical assistance. I quite appreciate the force of the argument put forward by the right hon. Gentleman on a former occasion regarding the necessity of finding employment for ex-service men. But that would only apply to cases where the employment is of a permanent character. Apparently, in this case, the employment is temporary, and it appears to me to be a great waste of money to go to the trouble and expense of training men to take the place of these women for work of a purely temporary character. Where the employment is temporary it is not necessary surely to train men to take the place of women. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will give us some idea of the nature of the work for which male staff is to be substituted for female, and will indicate for what time their services are likely to be required.

§ Captain Viscount CURZON
I have received lately many letters from both male and female constituents of mine, who are very anxious on the subject of the policy with regard to male and female staffs, and I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what exactly is the policy of the Government with regard to the substitution of male for female labour. As an ex-service man, I have every sympathy with ex-service men, and with the natural desire of everyone to see that they are given every possible opportunity for employment. I am told, however, that in some cases efficient female clerks are being superseded by ex-service men who, before the War, were not employed on clerical duties, and who are now not nearly as efficient as the female staffs for which they are substituted. In many cases the ex-service man is one who comes with all the glamour attaching to the overseas service; but in other cases, I fear, the ex-service men appointed to Government Departments have been men who never went overseas at all. I feel certain that the bulk of the ex-service men in this 1928 country, provided that they can be assured that those ex-service men who are appointed in substitution for female labour in Government offices have served overseas, would have nothing to say on the subject; but I do not think that the ex-service men themselves desire that men who have merely enjoyed comfortable billets in England during the whole of the War should be used to replace highly efficient female labour in the various Ministries. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some explanation of the policy.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
This Vote includes two items—one an additional sum for travelling and incidental expenses, the other an increase in the salaries, wages and allowances of the Paymaster-General's office. With regard to travelling and incidental expenses (Item 13), there are three directions in which, daring the year, greater expenditure has arisen than was anticipated when the original Estimate was prepared. First of all, as has been mentioned, three members of our staff are working in Dublin. They are not employed in such exciting and dramatic work as was sketched by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), but it was felt by the present Chief Secretary that the office in Dublin required some fresh blood in the way of highly trained civil servants, who had had more experience than some of those civil servants who had been working on the other side of the Channel. To strengthen his office, therefore, we lent from the Treasury three very competent civil servants. Apart from the strengthening of the office in Dublin, it is a great advantage, in the present circumstances in Ireland, that we should have our own representatives in the office there who can advise us in London with first-hand knowledge. We are now, more than we have in the past, inspecting staffs, and we find that by doing so we are often able, by advice and investigation, to improve the efficiency, and sometimes, indeed, to effect economies in administration.

§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY
Is that in Ireland alone?

§ Mr. BALDWIN
No, anywhere. Further, we have had to supply expert financial help on the Commissions that have met on the Continent, when 1929 financial business has been discussed. During the Conference at Spa last December we had some of our chief financial men employed there for some time while that Conference lasted.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
Are the expenses of going to Spa included in this Vote?

§ Mr. BALDWIN
The expenses of the men whom we sent from the Treasury, but nothing else. With regard to Item K, which relates to the Paymaster-General's office, I was rather surprised myself, when I first examined the Estimate, to find that it had been necessary to increase the staff in that office. I ascertained the reason, however, and I think that the Committee, when they hear it, will understand as well as I did the necessity for the increase. It is not a large increase; it is 32. The hon. Member for Harrow (Mr. Mosley) asked if the work is likely to be of a temporary nature. I am afraid that a good deal of it will last for some time. The increase of work has been caused largely by the complexities of pension work. All the pension warrants come into that office for checking against the original lists, and that takes a great deal of time. In addition, the revision of the Income Tax has led to a great deal more checking in that office, because all payments made have to be examined in order to see that the tax allowed is what it should be. A great deal of that work must, I am afraid, continue for some time, although it may, of course, be possible, with further experience, to devise methods of reducing the staff presently; but in the current year this is the least number they have found competent to deal with the work. The increase of numbers has taken place almost entirely in the temporary staff. The permanent men remain as they were a year ago. There is one more permanent woman. There are seven fewer temporary women and 38 more temporary men. That makes a net increase on the year of 32. I owe an apology to my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rawlinson). He is quite correct in what he pointed out. What I stated is also correct, that we find, owing to these causes, the expenses have been greater than we anticipated, but the amount that is down here is for Ireland, and I am very glad to be corrected in the statement I made about Spa. I was quite under the 1930 impression that the cost of our delegates to Spa came on this Vote. I was in error, and I apologise for having made the statement.

§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY
I wish to ask a question on K. I understand the extra clerical assistance in connection with certain pension cases is the checking of the work of the Minister of Pensions, or is it the pensions of civil servants?

§ Mr. BALDWIN
The actual payment is made through the Paymaster-General's office, I understand, and when the pay warrants come in they have to be checked against the authority that he has from the issuing office to make the payments.

§ Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
There is another question in connection with the complexity of the Income Tax. Owing to the differences in the Income Tax forms and so on, it has been necessary to have a slightly larger staff.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
It is impossible to say exactly what the additional work will be.

§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY
It is more complex, and therefore it has been necessary to bring in an extra staff. I think these are temporary tax clerks who have been appointed to do the work and they are a class in whom I am particularly interested. At present the tax clerks are in a state of great distress of mind.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
They are not tax clerks in any sense of the word. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will have an Opportunity of raising his point on the Inland Revenue Vote.

§ Mr. LAWSON
In regard to Item B, as far as I understand the explanation we got of the doubling of the cost of the original Estimate was that we wanted new blood in the Treasury Department at Dublin. I do not really know what that means. Various other phrases were used, but no detailed answer was given as to the doubling of the cost. It is for the location of a section of the Treasury Staff and Investigation Staff at Dublin. I suppose that will be the result of the improved state of things generally in Ireland. I should like to have some real explanation, because the right hon. Gentleman contented himself with using phrases instead of giving a real explanation.

§ Mr. G. THORNE
I should like it made perfectly clear that, as I understand from the right hon. Gentleman s later explanation, the £1,500 is confined to what took place in Ireland, and has nothing whatever to do with Spa, so that we may have it clear on the records.

§ Mr. THORNE
Then I do not think the right hon. Gentleman answered my hon. Friend behind me in regard to K. I understand the net increase at Spa is 32. My hon. Friend asked why, as it is a temporary staff, you could not be content with allowing it to be left to the women's staff instead of bringing in a much more expensive staff of males for a temporary purpose.

§ Viscount CURZON
My right hon. Friend did not answer a word of what I said. It may be better to raise it upon a subsequent Vote and if so I shall be delighted to do so, but I should like to get some indication of what the policy of the Government is in regard to the general question of the substitution of male for female labour.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
A question of policy of that kind cannot arise on this Vote. What is being done in regard to substitution is being done on the recommendations of a Committee which was set up with the knowledge of this House under the chairmanship of Lord Lytton. It is quite true that there are some difficulties in practice, and I suggest to him that an opportunity for raising the whole question, and asking what is being done with regard to that work of substitution, might very well be taken on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
No doubt my right hon. Friend is right, and he cannot answer whether or not it is the policy of the Cabinet to substitute male for female labour, but it is in the power of the Committee to reject a Vote which substitutes male for female labour if they think that is a mistaken thing to do. In the last Vote there was a substitution of male for female labour. I did not say anything about it because I did not want to make too many points, but if on every Supplementary Vote we are going to substitute male for female labour, the question will arise whether or not we ought not to say, "It may or may not be right, but until we have had a declara- 1932 tion from the Government on this point we will not pass the Vote." I have always been a very strong opponent of female suffrage. I have fought it to the best of my ability for a great number of years, and I shall fight it still, and I am sorry it was ever introduced, and still more sorry that we have another sex in this House. I only instance that to show my prejudice, that I am not in favour of women as against men, but on the other hand I think we ought to draw the line somewhere, and I really do not think we are justified in turning women wholesale out of their employment, and I suggest to the Committee, if there are any other Supplementary Votes in which this occurs that it might be advisable to refuse to grant them. Further, I should like to ask this question. There is again in this Vote a sum of £52,050 for war bonus. I know this is the ordinary form of Estimate. Where a charge which should be on one Vote is borne on another, attention is drawn to it in this way by a foot-note. I make, no objection to that, but I should like to know how it is that when the Estimate is only for £5,000, we find that in another Vote there is an increased Estimate for £53,000 for war bonus?

§ Mr. BALDWIN
The right hon. Baronet is not quite right. If he will read the note in small type, he will see that the total of the original Estimate for Treasury and Subordinate Departments was £313,000, so that the figure which he has read out is not quite so large an increase as he suggests.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
My right hon. Friend means that the increase is on an original Vote of £313,000, so that it is only an increase of 20 per cent, or 18 per cent. What I mean was that here we are asked for a Supplementary Estimate for £5,000, and hon. Members may think that they are sanctioning a Supplementary Vote to the Government for £5,000, but what they are really doing is granting a Supplementary Vote for £53,000.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
My right hon. Friend is wrong there. With regard to the war bonus, I have had the sum inserted here, because the war bonus has up to now been presented in one single Estimate. Next year the proper charge will appear under the heading of each Vote. This lasts only for this year. We are only 1933 voting an additional £5,000. The bulk of the war bonus has already been voted by this House, but there remains a final Supplementary Estimate for war bonus which we shall take in due course, and on which the House will be asked to express its opinion.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
The Supplementary Estimate for war bonus will be taken later on, and we can have a discussion then?

§ Mr. BALDWIN
Yes, a full discussion.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I understand that in future the Estimates will be prepared in a different way.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
The Estimates for next year are being prepared so that the war bonus will appear under respective heads. During the current year, in order to save presenting about 100 or 150 Supplementary Estimates, we had the whole bonus for all the Departments put into one Vote, except in a few cases where Departments were having Supplementary Estimates on other matters.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, and I will not say anything more now, except to congratulate him on his astuteness whereby he passes in one Vote 150 Votes, and saved perhaps 150 Divisions.

§ Major MACKENZIE WOOD
We are entitled to a little more explanation as to the details of Item (B). The right hon. Gentleman said that that was caused by the fact that the Chief Secretary had asked for assistance from the Treasury. One can well understand that the Chief Secretary would require some additional assistance from the Treasury in these days, and no one would complain of the Treasury lending him that assistance; but that assistance means, apparently, the loan of three officials who are now in Dublin. So far as I can gather, that is only going to cost the Treasury, at the outside, three return fares from London to Dublin, and it does not go nearly far enough to account for the additional £1,500. The rest of the £1,500 is taken up by staff investigation. There is no suggestion that any of these officials are getting more in the way of salary. How is it that these investigations are going to cost so much money? What are they, and why do they cost money? It must be a big investigation to cost nearly £1,500.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
By far the largest amount under this Sub-head (B) is for Civil servants belonging to the Treasury, who are in Dublin. Where I think my hon. Friend has been led into an error is that he does not realise that the phrase "Travelling and incidental expenses" covers more than the actual purchase of tickets. It includes subsistence allowances for the men who have to live in Dublin for the temporary period during which they may be employed, while at the same time their own homes and families are in England. The subsistence is a considerably larger item than the travelling allowance. It is impossible to say at any given time how much will be expended in travelling, because sometimes it is necessary for journeys to be made to London where there is an important matter for decision. The Treasury has always had one representative in Dublin watching the financial business of that country, and acting as our watchdog, and at a time like the present, when, owing to causes which we cannot discuss on this Vote, there is necessity for a good deal more expenditure in Ireland, it is of very great importance that we should have three of our trained men to watch this expenditure, and to exercise whatever control may be practicable. We believe that having them there will be productive of as much economy as we could possibly get in the circumstances.

§ Mr. SPENCER
Can the right hon. Gentleman inform us what is the amount of the subsistence allowance. What is the word "allowance" intended to cover. I understand that it does not refer to war bonus?

§ Mr. BALDWIN
It is the usual phrase. "allowance" means subsistence allowance, which is the money given to anyone who is travelling on business of this kind. The subsistence allowance paid in Dublin is 13s. 4d. a day for those residing outside Dublin Castle and 10s. 6d. a day for those who are lodged inside Dublin Castle.

§ Mr. SPENCER
The right hon. Gentleman is rather confusing my mind. My hon. and Gallant Friend says that travelling and incidental expenses are the cost of travelling and hotels. Then he goes on to say that allowance also covers subsistence allowance. If so it is very unfortunate that one definite charge should be covered in two ways. It would 1935 be far better if a charge of this character were covered in one way than in two. I thought the word "allowance" referred to war bonus.

Mr. RAWLINON
I do not share the difficulty of the hon. Member who has just sat down. The word "allowance" comes under K, and travelling and incidental expenses come under B. What the Financial Secretary says is perfectly clear. Whether it is right or not is another matter. The Treasury thought it advisable to send three experts to Dublin to assist the gentleman who is always there and has done most excellent work on behalf of the Treasury. What is new to me is that that should not appear on the Irish Vote.

§ Mr. BALDWIN
This is the case of three officers who are loaned for this temporary work which does not clash with the work done by the official to whom my hon. and learned Friend refers.

§ Mr. RAWLINSON
Still they went to assist the official who was there, and so it ought to appear on the Irish Vote. It has got to come on one Vote or the other, and it does not make much difference under which Vote it comes. As to the increase in K, we find that there are 32 extra officials in the Paymaster-General's office. Their salary does not seem exorbitant. I understand they have been there a considerable period, and so far they have not received more than £100 each, though that may grow in future. But I am dissatisfied with the lack of explanation as to why 32 new officials are needed there. One cannot help feeling that there ought to be a certain amount of supervision there to necessitate that. As an example, I may refer to the cheque sent out to each Member each quarter from the Postmaster-General which we get from the Fee Office here. That was sent to me in the ordinary way. My initials are J.F.P. There is no other person of my name in the House. The cheque was endorsed by me, and paid into the Central Bank in the ordinary way. It was returned from the Paymaster-General's Office on the ground that the signature of the Member did not appear on it. It was sent back by me, and passed through my bank and returned again. The Fee Office said they could not understand it. At last it turned out that in the list of Members sent by the Fee Office 1936 they simply sent my name as J., and I signed it as J.F.P. An office in which there could be such an amount of waste of time over such a small matter is one in which more supervision ought to be exercised. I am not satisfied from what has been said to-day that there is any necessity for an increase of staff in Government offices. I have given that as an example. I do not know what became of the gentleman who caused all that trouble in that particular case. I suppose that he has been promoted, because he scored to a certain extent over another Department. There is no case for any increase in the Departments at the present time when the staffs should be cut down rather than enlarged.