§ 61. Captain Pluggeasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he can give any approximate statistics as to the present proportion of the working population of this country who qualify for pensions on retirement, and how the pro portion varies for private employment, local government employment, and employment in the Civil Service and Defence Forces, respectively?
§ Captain WallaceThere are no comprehensive up-to-date statistics on which the comparison desired could be based. As regards private employment, the latest available figure is the estimate published by the Minister of Labour in May, 1938, that at the end of 1936, 1,617,093 employés were covered by pension schemes. This figure excluded civil servants, local government employés, the Defence Forces and other groups of public employés. As I informed the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir R. Gower) on 28th February, about 50 per cent. of civil servants, industrial and non-industrial, are eligible for pension. The proportion for the Defence Services is in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent. I regret that corresponding information for local government employés is not available.