§ 79. Mr. HAYDAYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to the great difficulty experienced by ex-service men, temporary civil servants, who are discharged as redundant, in obtaining other employment; whether representations have been made by the association representing these men that, in view of the fact that the nature of their work in the Civil Service does not qualify them for posts in civil employment, and that there is a prejudice in commercial circles against employing them as clerks, they should be given a month's pay for each year's service where the officer discharged as redundant has been at least four years in the Civil Service; and whether action will be taken to give the ex-service men and women discharged as redundant a gratuity on discharge if they have completed four years or more satisfactory service as temporary civil servants?
§ Major BOYD-CARPENTERIt is largely in view of the difficulty of obtaining private employment in present circumstances that a special body has been set up with the duty of seeing that, where ever possible, alternative employment in other Government Departments is offered to ex-service men who have been engaged in temporary capacies in a Department in which their services are no longer required. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. The Treasury have no power to grant retiring gratuities in these cases.
§ Mr. HAYDAYSeeing that female telegraphists and other women civil servants are granted a gratuity upon leaving the Service, could not the Department 1581 reconsider the matter with a view to extending the same principle to ex-service men and women when they leave the Service on redundancy?
§ Major BOYD-CARPENTERI have already said that we have no power in this matter.