§ 78. Lieut.-Colonel POWNALLasked the Secretary of State for Air whether efficient ex-service men are being discharged from the Air Ministry to make room for clerical officers who qualified at the recent examination; whether cases have occurred in which it has been found impossible to obtain a sufficiently qualified clerical officer to fill the vacant post; whether the procedure in the case of substituting non-service personnel has always been to obtain a suitable substitute before dismissing the non-service man; why this preferential treatment has been extended to non-service men; and why ex-service men liable for substitution are not similarly retained until a suitable substitute is actually obtained?
Captain GUESTThe answer to the first part of the question is that the permanent clerical officers now being appointed to the Air Ministry are in the main the product of the examination held as a result of the Lytton Committee's recommendations, and are most of them ex-service men; and certain temporary ex-service men who were not successful in the examination or who did not enter for the examination have been discharged from the Air Ministry. The answers to 1262 the second and third parts are in the negative and the fourth and fifth parts do not, therefore, arise.
§ 80. Captain GEEasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that two separate investigation committees were set up under Clauses 36 to 39 of the Third Interim Report of the Lytton Committee, the first committee to investigate the claims of candidates unsuccessful in the recent examination for clerical officers as to exceptional circumstances which militated against the probability of their passing or qualifying in the examination, and the second committee to investigate the claims on the grounds of special competency; if he will state by whom the terms of reference of the first committee were drawn up; the terms of reference; whether they placed any limit on the considerations that were to be regarded by the committee as exceptional circumstances; whether the member who represented ex-service men in the body which prepared the terms of reference was selected from an association catering for other interests besides those of ex-service men; what was the constitution of the first investigation committee; did the chairman of the ex-service men's association send a written protest against the constitution of the committee and the limitations imposed; what was the constitution of the committee dealing with special competency; was there an ex-service representative on this committee; if not, why such an appointment was not made; whether several candidates, recommended as specially competent by their chiefs, were rejected by this committee, and the chiefs concerned have protested in writing that their evidence before the committee was misrepresented; and, in view of this injustice, if he will state why no steps have been taken to review all the applications by candidates for retention under Clauses 36 to 39 of the Third Interim Report of the Lytton Committee?
Captain GUESTI would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given to the identical question put by the hon. and gallant Member for North Islington yesterday.