Vote 1. Pay etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines (Hansard, 14 March 1961)

§ Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)
On a point of order. It would be for the convenience of hon. Members, Sir Gordon, if you would be good enough to indicate how much time is to be allotted to each of the Estimates which we are asked to consider. In due course, between now and ten o'clock, the Committee is expected to deal with five Estimates. That means an average of one hour for each Estimate, involving many hundreds of millions of pounds.

§ The Chairman
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I cannot regulate the time.

§ Mr. Lipton
Sir Gordon, what right is left to hon. Members to discuss these Estimates? It is true that, through no fault of yours, the time available for the discussion of the Navy Estimates and succeeding ones will be truncated and the debate will have to finish within about five hours. If the Committee discusses the Navy Estimates for the next five hours, no time will be left for the Army Estimates, the Air Estimates, the Royal 1228 Ordnance Factories Estimate and the War Office Purchasing (Repayment) Services Estimate.
I am asking you, Sir Gordon, to indicate whether the time available to us for the discussion of these Estimates is to be allocated, or is it to be left entirely to chance as to how much time, if any, will be allowed for the Estimates following the Navy Estimates?

§ The Chairman
That is a matter for the Committee and not for myself.

§ Brigadier Terence Clarke (Portsmouth, West)
Further to that point of order. The other night I wanted to speak on the Navy Estimates. Twelve o'clock came before I could. In the old days we used to be able to sit up all night.

§ The Chairman
Order. This does not seem to be a point of order.

§ Brigadier Clarke
I am sorry if I have not made it clear. My point of order is this. We cannot now speak on Vote 8. The only occasion when we could have done so was in the debate on the Navy Estimates the other day. That debate was curtailed, as it never used to be in the past, and we cannot even talk about that subject during the Committee stage. That applies to many other Votes. Twenty-five thousand of my constituents expect me to raise various grievances they may have under Vote 8. I can do nothing about it. I should like your guidance, Sir Gordon, as to how I can do it.

§ The Chairman
The hon. Member can speak only on the Votes before the Committee.

§ Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby (Dorset, West)
Before we leave Vote 1, I should like to raise a fairly short point.

§ The Chairman
Is this a point of order.

§ Mr. Wingfield Digby
It is not a point of order. My point concerns the career structure for officers. The number of officers has decreased a little this year, as was to be expected. Consequently, the Vote has diminished by £176,000. We were all very sorry to hear that Admiral Lamb had unfortunately died. He did splendid work. About four years ago when he was Second Sea Lord 1229 he improved the career prospects and structure for naval officers. How has that been affected by the changes there have been since 1957?
One notes in paragraph 48 of the Statement on the Army Estimates that the Army has a very late retiring age for different types of officers, and has what I would call a very satisfactory career structure. I wonder whether it has been possible for the Navy to do much the same thing? I know that the difficulties of providing a late retiring age are much greater in the Royal Navy, but career structure is a very important factor, and I should be glad to hear my hon. Friend's views on the career structure as he sees it at present.

§ Mr. George Wigg (Dudley)
Further to what has been said, Sir Gordon, about the way in which these debates are to take place, I remember that in previous years, whilst the Chair has taken no part in it, of course, there has been an agreement between the two Front Benches about the period of time to be allocated, and it would be useful to know——

§ Mr. G. W. Reynolds (Islington, North)
My hon. Friend has denounced such a thing in previous years.

§ Mr. Wigg
Of course I have, but I am now inquiring whether there is to be a timetable. If there is to be one—well and good; if there is not to be one—well and good. But one wants to know whether or not there is a timetable.

§ The Chairman
That is not a point of order for me.

§ Mr. Wigg
I did not raise it as a point of order, Sir Gordon. I merely wondered whether the Government would give their view on the form that these debates should take.

§ Mr. E. G. Willis (Edinburgh, East)
I want to refer to the pay of chief petty officers, because the Admiralty has now turned down proposals for a master rate. When we compare the pay of chief petty officers with the pay of Army warrant officers, Class I and Class II, and warrant officers in the Royal Air Force, we find that the chief petty officers come out rather badly. 1230 The ordinary chief petty officer, Scale B, draws 42s. per day, compared with 42s. for a warrant officer II in the Army and 44s. for a warrant officer I, and he draws 3s. per day less than the warrant officer in the Royal Air Force. That means that after fourteen years' service the chief petty officer receives a guinea a week less than the R.A.F. warrant officer. After eighteen years' service he draws the same amount as the Army warrant officer II, 2s. less than the Army warrant officer I, and the same as the warrant officer in the Royal Air Force. After twenty-two years, and after twenty-seven years—that is, for the remainder of his service as a chief petty officer—his daily pay remains at 45s. 6d., the pay of the warrant officer II in the Army remains at 45s. 6d. and that of the warrant officer I remains at 47s. 6d., but the pay of the warrant officer, skilled trades, in the Royal Air Force goes up to 48s. 6d.
The Civil Lord will appreciate that artificers are rather difficult to recruit, and that electrical artificers are proving rather reluctant to re-engage. The demand for electrical artificers is bound to increase with the developments that are now taking place, and pay comparisons are therefore important. A first-class artificer gets 50s. a day; after twenty-two years' service his pay remains at 50s., and after twenty-seven years it is still 50s. a day. The warrant officer II in the Army gets 51s. and the warrant officer I gets 53s. The warrant officer in the R.A.F. also gets 53s. There is thus a considerable disparity between the highest pay that men on the lower deck can get and the pay of warrant officers in the Army and in the Royal Air Force.
The chief petty officer's pay gives us the real comparison. The chief petty officer gets 53s. 6d. a day, and that includes all his various allowances—charge pay, trade pay and the rest. He gets that after eighteen years' service. He gets 53s. 6d. a day after twenty-two years' service, and 53s. 6d. a day after twenty-seven years' service. In the Army, the warrant officer I gets 53s., which is 6d. less, but in the Royal Air Force the warrant officer, skilled tradesman—a rank comparable with the chief artificer. who is also a skilled tradesman—gets 55s. a day.
1231 In all these cases we find that chief petty officers, no matter in what branch of the Royal Navy they serve, get less than the highest non-commissioned rank in the Army and in the Royal Air Force. We also have to bear in mind that the chief petty officer gets a marriage allowance that is smaller than that of warrant officers I and II in the Army, or warrant officers in the Royal Air Force, and smaller than that received by the R.S.M. and the C.Q.S.M. in the Royal Marines. In addition, his pension is considerably less, and his terminal grant is about £100 less. It will thus be seen that the highest ranks on the lower deck are at a very definite disadvantage compared with the highest non-commissioned ranks in the other two Services. That is quite unfair.
I had hoped that if the Admiralty had seen its way to accepting a master rate or something equivalent, it would have made up this difference, and we should have had for the highest lower-deck rank scales comparable with those prevailing in the highest non-commissioned ranks in the Army and the Royal Air Force. The proposal for a master rate has been turned down and it is most unfair that these men should be at this disadvantage.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will at least tell the Board of the Admiralty, of which he is a distinguished member, that there is some concern about this and that, in view of the Admiralty's decision not to introduce any other ranks, it is time that something is done for these men.
A chief artificer—and this applies in all the artificer branches—may be appointed before he finishes his twelve years' service and, as a result, will carry on for another twelve or more years without any increase in pay at all. There is something wrong there. There is a gap that should be filled if we are to have a satisfactory pay structure on the lower deck.
I hope that, in the light of its decision, the Admiralty will consider the position with a view to offering some inducement to men to continue for twenty-two or twenty-seven years, and that it will try to bring about equality as between the Services, which has been the declared aim of Governments since the end of the war.

Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett (Croydon, North-East)
I intervene in this debate for two reasons. The first reason arises from the remarks of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), which I think he has made on previous occasions—and quite rightly—when we have debated this stage of Vote 1. I always understood that the reason the Navy never went in for a master rate—and if I am wrong I hope I may be told—but accepted this apparent disadvantage, is that the prospects of the boy who enlists in the Navy becoming commissioned into the Special Duties Branch are considerably higher than the comparable prospects in the other two Services.

§ Mr. Willis
One in five.

§ Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett
If that is so, it should be on the record, because it is of some recruiting importance.
My second reason for intervening is that I notice that Subhead G—"Local Overseas Allowance"—has once again gone up. I have referred to this on a number of previous occasions. I can never understand why, as the total numbers in the three Services fall and as the pay rates rise, local overseas allowance—which is intended to compensate officers, ratings and other ranks for the extra cost of living abroad—should continue to rise. I am not asking my hon. Friend to reply to this point today, because I do not suppose that the information is readily at hand, but I appeal to him to look closely at this in the interests of economy.
Most of us, even those who used to serve in the Services and certainly most civilians, are critical as it is of the high standards to which British military personnel have become accustomed when they live ashore overseas. It has for long been a matter of criticism within the Navy from seafarers who when they visit ports see the conditions under which those enjoying what they regard as fairly cushy jobs ashore are living.
What wants looking into is whether this rise has come about because for some reason, notwithstanding the fall in Vote A, the numbers of persons employed overseas have gone up or whether it has arisen because there has been an alarming increase in the cost of 1233 living at stations where naval personnel are based which has outrun the increases in pay in the last few years. I find it hard to believe that that can be so.
There have been dramatic increases even percentagewise in the pay of both officers and men in the last three or four years and I find it difficult to believe that the cost of living at Malta, Singapore, Aden and other places has risen even faster. We should have had a revolution in those places had it done so. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend the Civil Lord whether this rise could be looked at with a close and a critical eye.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayshire)
We should examine with a keen, careful and critical mind not only certain items of Vote 1, but the sum total of nearly £70 million. I have no intention of claiming any knowledge of the technical operation of the Navy. I am here at the consumer's end. When I am presented with a bill, as we are in Vote 1, for £70 million for the pay of officers and men, I want to know what we are getting for the money.
I have listened carefully to all the speeches on the Navy Estimates and I am completely bewildered whether there is any real directive thought on either side. I simply cannot agree to support the expenditure of £70 million when we see such large sums as this all lumped together and no attempt made at detailed examination.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) put a sensible point of view in the earlier Estimates debate, when he argued that the only way to give careful consideration to these items was to have a standing committee dealing with the Admiralty Estimates before they came before the House. Instead of doing this work now and rushing it through in a few hours, as we are asked to do today, it should have been done back in the early months of the year. We should have had all the pooled experience of hon. Members, who have spoken with such a wealth of technical knowledge, brought to bear upon these Estimates before they were produced.
Before I came to the House of Commons, I used to consider budget items of 1234 a county council and a town council. We examined with meticulous care all the different items before they were presented in the annual budget. Here, however, laymen like myself are having these huge items thrown at us with only the vaguest explanations of what they mean.
We are told, for example, that the pay of the Navy is needed because the Navy is necessary to protect the people of these islands. What is the position? I read with great care the speech from the Opposition Front Bench in the debate on the Navy Estimates on 2nd March, and I have been trying ever since to find out what we are providing the money for. We are told that in the event of a hot war, This island—and I think that this has been accepted for a very long time—could not survive an atomic bombardment and emerge as of Power"——

§ The Temporary Chairman (Mr. W. R. Williams)
Order. This is going outside the scope of the debate. I think that the hon. Member is starting to talk about foreign policy. In this debate, we must deal with the facts and figures which are before us in the Estimates.

§ Mr. Hughes
I quite understand your difficulty, Mr. Williams——

§ The Temporary Chairman
It is not my difficulty. It is the hon. Member's difficulty.

§ Mr. Hughes
I am only asking for consideration of my difficulty. I am not intending to discuss broad questions of policy. When, however, I am presented with a bill for £70 million, I want a clear idea of what it is for. The people of the country are under the impression that this vast sum of money protects them. What will we get for the £70 million in the event of a sudden emergency in a hot war? I am told by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), who leads from this side of the House of Commons, that there would be only one task for the Navy, and that would be to `get the hell out of it '." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd March, 1961; Vol. 635, c. 1784–5.] I am not prepared to provide £70 million for a Service——

§ The Temporary Chairman
I am sorry that I must again ask the hon. Member to apply his mind to these categories in the Estimates. If he does that, I feel 1235 sure that he will please hon. Members and the Chair.

§ Mr. Hughes
All these categories are evidently "getting the hell out of it" and leaving us alone. In those circumstances, I flatly refuse to vote for this £70 million. I do not know what it is for and I do not know how I can justify it when I go to my constituents.
I want to ask certain detailed questions, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East about artificers. I want to know exactly the duties of the liaison officers who are provided for in these Estimates. I refer to the liaison officers now operating on the Clyde. I presume that they come under the heading of pay of officers or of men. In the Scottish Press, we see frequent references to the liaison officers who are operating as a result of the bringing of the Polaris naval vessel to the Clyde. I am not talking about the American officers—I know that it would be out of order to refer to them—but I want to know whether these liaison officers who are attached to the American Navy are being paid for by the Admiralty.
What is the function of a liaison officer? Can we be told how much in Vote 1 is for liaison officers? What are the duties of these liaison officers? We are told that their duty is to explain certain things to the American Navy and some things to the civil population. Liaison goes both ways. One of the duties of the liaison officers has been to explain to the American Navy about the recent rises in prices in the neighbourhood of Dunoon. They have to explain why whisky, Coco-Cola and cinema seats have gone up in price and why the whole range of prices in the Clyde area has gone up as the result of the Americans coming here. Therefore, I think that we should have some experienced officers and that they should be paid not by the Admiralty but by the American Navy. This is a new kind of duty which we have not had before——

§ The Temporary Chairman
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but I do not quite see how we can get as far as that on the pay of officers and men. I think the hon. Member is stretching the procedure a little bit too far, and I remind him again of the Vote with which we are dealing.

§ Mr. Hughes
Yes, it is not men, it is pay, and I am asked to agree to a bill of £70 million, which is an enormous bill, and I fail to see what remedy I have, except to ask for details about this pay. I find some difficulty in the whole method of voting public money.
After all, the amount of money which was voted for Ship Money at the time of the Civil War was much less than this, and I cannot see how I can defend the passing of a sum of approximately £70 million, or justify it to my constituents, on the evidence which is before us at present. Yesterday, for example, we marched through the Lobbies fifteen times to protest against certain items of Government expenditure; fifteen times we marched through the Lobbies because of a sum approximating £50 million. Today we are asked not to march through the Lobbies at all for a sum of £1,600 million, and all I can do on this very slight evidence——

§ Mr. Wigg
Would my hon. Friend allow me to interrupt him on a point of order? The previous occupant of the Chair rebuked my hon. Friend for being out of order when he made reference to the fact that liaison officers should be paid by a foreign navy, but, with respect, it is surely in order, because there is a specific reference in this Vote for repayments to be made by foreign Governments under Subhead "Appropriations in Aid".

§ The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Ronald Russell)
Discussion of appropriations in aid is not in order under this Vote.

§ Mr. Hughes
I quite understand that, Mr. Russell, and I should look upon items of appropriations in aid with the greatest suspicion and I will have nothing to do with them, but the burden of my complaint is against the whole method of rushing through Estimates of which there has been no adequate explanation given to the Committee.
I join with the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) in his protest about the way public money is being spent without the people of Portsmouth having any say in the matter at all. I have a great affection for Portsmouth. The hon. and gallant Member even asked to take Polaris to Portsmouth, and when he raised the 1237 question of how it was brought in here he was ruled out of order and closured down. I do not want to see the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West closured down.

§ Brigadier Clarke
May I say how grateful I am to the hon. Member?

§ Mr. Hughes
I have been grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for the last eleven years.
I hope that it is not only laymen like myself who will ask questions, and I shall listen very patiently indeed to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West who, I am glad to see, has just returned safely from a Communist country and appears to be none the worse for it.

§ Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)
I rather enjoyed my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) claiming to speak on behalf of the consumer in an Estimates debate. I thought that he classed himself as an anti-consumer in this category.
There are two matters which I wanted to raise. The first is the curious feature that Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval nurses seem to have got cheaper. This is such an unusual thing to happen. How has it arisen? The Vote is down £6,000 although the numbers seem to have gone up. I wondered what had happened there. The other item is Subhead J. The National Insurance contributions have gone up by over £500,000 for 2,000 fewer men. I think that this is a little illustrative of what government costs the Government on occasions.

§ The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing)
I should like to deal with some of the points which have been made. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) who preceded me in my office as a very distinguished Civil Lord asked me about the new career structure. I think that there has been a little bit of uncertainty about this, so perhaps I may deal with it rather fully.
My hon. Friend will remember that all three Services announced through my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence that they were going to have a new 1238 career structure. This announcement was made on 10th February last year. Further details of the careers for naval officers were given in my noble Friend's Explanatory Statement last year. But let me briefly put the position in this manner. The Royal Navy offers General List officers joining after May, 1957, a career up to the age of 50 for lieutenant-commanders and to 53 for commanders and 55 for captains. Alternatively, voluntary retirement will normally be allowed to lieutenant-commanders if they are not selected for promotion in their late thirties. Post List officers will necessarily be commanders and above, and they will be promoted at an earlier age and will retire somewhat earlier than General List officers.
We have also now been able to extend somewhat similar arrangements to Royal Marine officers entering after May, 1957. Captains and majors will retire at the age of 50 which gives them a minimum career similar to General List officers. Lieutenant-colonels of the Royal Marines and colonels are expected to retire at about the age of 51.
We cannot in fact produce an exactly similar career structure as the Army or Air Force but we have worked quite well in that direction. In the Navy, particularly a small ship Navy and a robust Navy, we want young, active men. If we were to guarantee a longer career we should in fact be stultifying the Navy as a whole and reducing the chances of promotion and the chances of sea-time and commands to the young men, and the very men we most want to command our ships.
The second point was raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). This is a hardy annual.

§ Mr. Willis
A very good one.

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
Yes. When I first got to my present post and started my visits to the fleet I was bombarded with questions about the master rate. We have been round this buoy many, many times. We have looked at it most carefully at the Board of Admiralty and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's complimentary remarks about the manner in which we presented the facts for himself, and also more generally for the fleet. We tried to present them in two ways, what we called an official document, and 1239 a popular document which could put the problem as plainly as possible.
The facts are that there are a limited number of complement positions which would really justify the equivalent of a warrant officer class 1 or a master rate. We could find few positions in the Navy which would justify the extra pay. This means that very large numbers of people would not have the opportunity of rising to this rate, and whereas we could give extra incentives and the extra rewards to a few, we should, I am afraid, have to downgrade the great majority of the chief petty officers to the level where they would be paid the same as a staff sergeant or a flight sergeant. So, whereas some would benefit, I am afraid the majority would not.
We summarised this in a profit and loss account, and the profit is that a small number of the most senior ratings would become equivalent in all respects, such as allowances, pensions and terminal grants, to the highest other ranks in the Army and Royal Air Force. The loss is that chief petty officers would lose their present advantage in pay over staff sergeants and suffer some loss of status.

§ Mr. Willis
That is a very interesting argument, but how is it that it can be done in the Air Force but it cannot be done with these artificers who are doing exactly the same job?

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
It can be done in the Air Force because on the whole that Service has bigger establishments than we have. We have a small-ship Navy, except possibly for cruisers and aircraft carriers, and there would be not all that number of billets suitable for master ratings. That must be taken into consideration.
I would also endorse the point made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallet). It was brought out in an independent report that in fact the Navy offers better facilities for promotion on Ito the Special Duties list as officers than any other Service. I am not sure of the exact figures, but I can say that we offer unique facilities and therefore we must consider this as a balancing factor against the decision that we took to turn this suggestion down.

§ Mr. Willis
I was accepting the fact that the Admiralty had turned down this idea. I was not arguing about that, but I was asking whether, in view of the fact that it had rejected the idea, the Admiralty now intended to do something to equate the higher rank of the lower deck with the higher rank of noncommissioned officers in the other Services.

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
We have looked at this, but I am afraid that we have not been able to find an equitable solution. Even with the best will in the world one cannot exactly pair conditions and rewards in all three Services. I do not want to suggest that the Navy comes off second best. I have always maintained that the Navy should travel first-class and that we should reward our officers and men accordingly, but one cannot make sure all through each person's career that he marches pari passu with his opposite number in the other Services.
The reason overseas allowances have gone up is that with the strengthening of the fleet in the Far East we have more men and officers serving there and therefore more people now qualifying for overseas allowance. It is the Singapore station in particular which has caused this rise. I will certainly look at the point of view expressed, but the cost of living overseas is often materially higher than in this country and it is only right that the person serving there should be compensated for his increased cost of living. The biggest factor is housing accommodation, because of increases in rents. The causes of this rise therefore are increased prices and increased rents in Singapore and the greater numbers serving there.

§ Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)
I have written to my hon. Friend about a case in connection with this matter. How is it that if a man serving in the Navy happens to be married to a Wren and they are both overseas in the same station they are not allowed to have the same local overseas allowance as they would get if a man were married to a civilian?

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
I am afraid that I cannot answer that question now, but no doubt it has been dealt with by my Department and I will make a point of 1241 answering by letter. It seems to be an anomaly on the face of it.
The pacifist views of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) are well known, and if we ever forget them we are always refreshed in our memory when we debate defence or Service Estimates.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
On a point of order. If the Civil Lord is discussing general policy I am prepared to discuss it with him at the appropriate moment, but I was told by your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Russell, that we must confine ourselves to what is in the Estimate, and my pacifist views are not in Vote I.

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
I apologise if I touched the hon. Member and was out of order. The House gave approval earlier to the numbers and the hon. Member did not vote against them. We are now asking the Committee to approve pay and rewards for the numbers already voted.

§ Mr. Hughes
On a point of order. I am entitled to as much consideration as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). I asked a definite, specific question of the Civil Lord about the pay of liaison officers on the Clyde and, when I ask a question on a Vote, I am entitled to have some attempt made to answer it.

§ The Temporary Chairman
The hon. Member should give the Civil Lord an opportunity to answer.

§ Mr. Hughes
The Civil Lord is dodging it.

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
The liaison officer is paid as a captain and if the hon. Member looks up the Votes he will find out what is a captain's pay. He will know that the liaison officer's pay is no different. The hon. Member has asked me question after question about this issue and I should be pulled up as being out of order if I tried to answer his questions about numbers.

§ Mr. Hughes
On a point of order. I am asking quite a legitimate question about liaison activities on the Clyde and I submit that I am entitled to have some attempt made to answer that question.

§ The Temporary Chairman
The hon. Member should give the Minister a chance to answer, but it is out of order to discuss the numbers.

§ Mr. Hughes
There is some misapprehension here. I am discussing the amount of money allocated to liaison officers on the Clyde, that is, the total amount, and not the numbers at all.

§ Mr. Orr-Ewing
I should be delighted to look up exactly how much pay and allowances a particular captain is drawing and pass the information on to the hon. Member in a letter, but I am not in a position to give facts like that off the cuff at the Dispatch Box. The hon. Member has already asked me about the cost of the liaison committee and I have given him information in a Parliamentary Answer. I know, therefore, that he has the overall cost even if he does not know the cost of each individual officer.
The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) asked me what re-organisation was taking place in the Q.A.R.N.N.S. The numbers have gone up and the total Vote has gone down and I think that the reason is that we slightly over-estimated the Vote last time. This year's is a more realistic approach and one has to remember that young people joining the Service would be paid slightly less than people who are on the point of retiring and there is therefore probably some small adjustment on that account. As for the nursing auxiliaries, it will be remembered that we announced a re-organisation in which we have done away with the V.A.D.; now we are recruiting extra nursing auxiliaries to support the nursing service. The numbers have risen from 36 to 47 and we aim at having 300 before very long.
The hon. and learned Member for Northampton also asked me about Subhead J—"National Insurance Contributions"—and he drew attention to the increase. He is quite right. There has been a rise in the Health portion of the National Insurance contribution and therefore we have to pay for that. It will start in June of the present year, I think. We have also to pay more on the pension contribution. In answer to a Parliamentary Question from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East, I said some days ago that we have to pay on pensions both for those who opt out and those who do not.
Therefore this is an adjustment because of the new pension scheme for the nation as it concerns officers and men 1243 and also an adjustment of the National Insurance contribution because of the new rates which operate in April and June.

§ Mr. Paget
I commiserate with the hon. Gentleman. It is dreadful how the Government put up prices.