10. Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can yet state the new scale of salaries proposed for the Foreign Service.
§ Mr. LawI hope that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be in a position to announce the scale of salaries in the near future and in any event before the opening of recruitment to the Foreign Service.
11. Miss Wardasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will give an assurance that the new scale of salaries for the Foreign Service will ensure that new entrants with no private means will be able to carry out their duties without financial embarrassment to themselves and their families.
§ Mr. LawI would refer my hon. Friend to paragraph 26 of Command Paper 6420 (Proposals for the Reform of the Foreign Service) in which attention is drawn to the proposal to give assistance from public funds to enable persons without private means to compete for the new Service, and in which it is stated that it is clearly necessary that such persons should be able to live on their emoluments once they are in the Service, whether at home or abroad. The intentions of His Majesty's Government in this respect remain unchanged.
Miss WardIn view of the long delay, may I ask whether good progress is being made with the Treasury in the direction that I suggest and whether all salaries in the Foreign Service will be on an appropriate and generous scale?