CLAUSE 22.—(Interpretation.) (Hansard, 19 June 1925)

Lieut.-Colonel HENDERSON

I beg to move, in page 17, line 20, to leave out the words "at drill" and to insert instead thereof the words "while engaged in drill involving special risk."

This raises a question which was raised during Committee stage but not pressed to a division because there was some misunderstanding and I thought it better to hold it over till I could make some further inquiries. As the Sub-section is drafted it means that a man who is injured at a fire, or at drill, gets the higher seals of compensation as laid down in the Schedule. There is all the difference between one form of drill and another in the Fire Brigade Service. The ordinary squad drill is not dangerous, whilst the ladder drill and some similar drills of that nature are really just as dangerous as actual fire-fighting itself. What we want to ensure is that whilst a fireman who is injured in any form of dangerous drill, like hook-ladder drill, should be entitled to the same higher scale of compensation as the man who is actually injured at a fire, that should not necessarily apply to a man injured at ordinary squad drill. I have discussed this with representatives of the Fire Brigade and they quite accept and appreciate the point, as also do the Municipal Corporations. There was some misconception on the subject in Committee because some Members were under the impression that if we put in these words it would mean that if a fireman was injured at ordinary drill he would not get any compensation at all. That is not true. It is simply a question of the higher and the lower scale. In the list of different scales of compensation there is an accidental and a non-accidental scale and all we are trying to do is to ensure that, 978 whilst a man who is injured at really dangerous hook-ladder drill goes on to the non-accidental scale, the man who may have an accident at ordinary squad drill merely gets the accidental scale of pension.