HL Deb 23 March 1908 vol 186 cc995-1005

*THE EARL OF ERROLL rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether any steps were being taken to give effect to the recommendation of Sir Edward "Ward's Committee, viz., that the service of ex-soldiers employed in the Civil Service should be allowed to count towards civil pension. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the object of the Question which stands in my name is to call attention to a grievance under which a large number of very deserving men are at present suffering, and to express a hope that the Government may see their way to remedy this state of affairs, which inflicts considerable injustice on men who have spent many of the best years of their lives in the service of the State. I cannot do better than read to your Lordships one or two extracts from the Report of the Committee on Civil Employment of Ex-soldiers and Sailors, which will put the case clearly before your Lordships, and show, I hope, how injuriously the Regulations as they stand act on the interests of ex-soldiers and sailors. In Paragraph 43 the Committee say— At present ex-soldiers and sailors who, having been discharged from the Army or Navy without pension, subsequently obtain an established position in the Civil Service, are debarred from reckoning any of their military or naval service for pension on final retirement. The disadvantage of such an arrangement to the ex-soldier and sailor can best be illustrated in the following manner, viz.:—'A' joins the Civil Service at the age of nineteen, and 'B' joins the Army at the same age, and obtains on his discharge at the age of twenty-six, a Civil Service appointment. Both men, their total service being equal, are superannuated, at the age of sixty; 'A,' whose service has been entirely Civil, receives the maximum pension of forty-sixtieths, and 'B,' not being able to count his military service, only thirty-four-sixtieths of his salary. In point of fact, the longer the Army service the greater will be the disproportion in favour of the civilian. Such an arrangement as this is in our opinion inequitable and rests upon a purely arbitrary basis, for Army or Navy service, with its attendant risks, should surely be regarded as at least equivalent in its pension-bearing value to Civil Service; and the existence of a rule which declines to recognise the former as such is not unnaturally viewed by those concerned as unjust. The Committee go on to say that this principle has already been recognised in some cases. They state that— An amalgamation of Civil and Naval Service for civil superannuation is admitted in the case of certain shipwright boys who engage to serve for twelve years from the age of eighteen in the Fleet and are then transferred to the Civil Establishment of His Majesty's Dockyards, being held liable to sea service in emergency up to the ago of fifty, and for this purpose enrolled in the Royal Fleet Reserve. 'Sea time' is allowed in all such oases to reckon for civil superannuation. Similar provision is made in regard to dockyard riggers and seamen in yard craft by Order in Council of 16th April, 1861, and the Civil servant who joins the Police carries with him his Civil Service towards pensions, under the Police Act, 1890. Then the Committee proceed— We recommend that similar treatment should be accorded to ex-soldiers and sailors who, having received no Army or Navy pension, are eventually appointed to pensionable posts in the Civil Service, and that, if there is not power under the existing law to carry out this recommendation, early steps should be taken to obtain legislative authority to remedy this legitimate grievance. The Committee call attention to the fact that in 1891 the Postmaster-General, with the sanction of the Treasury— Made a regulation that telegraph messengers in order to be come postmen should first serve for five years with the colours. At the age of eighteen they were to be encouraged to enlist, and when they returned to the Department as postmen, half their military service was to count as Post Office service for the purposes of pay. I regret that that suggestion was never carried out.

I should like to state to your Lordships the position of the men to whose case I am calling attention. The maximum age for ex-soldiers and sailors to enter the Civil Service is forty-five. Therefore, should a man retire at sixty years of age, he would be allowed to count fifteen years, and at sixty-five years of age, when he must retire, twenty years service for Civil Service superannuation. Under these circumstances it is utterly impossible for an ex-soldier or sailor entering the Civil Service at forty-five, to retire with more than one-half of the maximum Civil Service pension.

I will give an example. Three men join the public services at the age of twenty years. A. joins the Civil Service, and B. and C. the Army or Navy. B. and C. on leaving the Army or Navy also receive appointments in the Civil Service. The maximum salary in each case is £150 per annum. A. on attaining the age of sixty would have thus completed forty years' service, which would entitle him to the maximum pension, viz., forty-sixtieths of his salary, which would be £100 per annum. B. enters the Civil Service at the age of thirty-seven with seventeen years service without pension. Should the whole of his military service be allowed to reckon as Civil service he would be enabled to retire at sixty years of age with twenty-three years Civil service, plus seventeen years military or naval service, making the maximum pension of forty-sixtieths years service, which would also amount to £100 per annum. C. (a sergeant or petty officer) enters the Civil Service with twenty-one years service in the Army or Navy at the age of forty-one, with a pension of 2s. per diem—or £36 10s. per annum. Therefore, when he reached sixty years of age he would be allowed to count nineteen years for Civil Service superannuation, which would amount to £47 10s. So that the pensioner with only four years less Civil Service than B. would receive less than half the Civil Service pension awarded to the non-pensioner; adding his military or naval pension on to this (viz., £36 10.) it would amount to £84 per annum, or £16 per annum less than the non-pensioner. Should C have been pensioned as a private instead of as a non-commissioned or petty officer, with, say, 1s. per diem pension, his military or naval pension would be one-half of the amount shown—viz., £18 5s., which, added to his Civil Service pension of £47 10s., would amount to £65 15s. per annum, or £34 5s. less than the civilian or non-pensioner.

I base my argument on two grounds—first, on the ground of injustice of treatment, and, secondly, on the ground of policy. It seems to me grossly unfair that one man should receive a full pension, whereas another man doing the same work should be given a reduced pension. Both men are serving the same master—the State. No opportunity should be lost of impressing upon men wishing to enlist that their public spirit would not prejudice them afterwards when they came to leave the Colours. This principle has been conceded in the case of the police. A Civil servant on entering the police is entitled to reckon his service in both capacities. Yet this privilege is denied to soldiers. I cannot see how this can be justified, especially as the man in the Army is probably serving under much worse conditions than the other. Again, if we take two men serving in civil employment I think we should find that they would be treated on similar lines for superannuation, although one of them had been transferred to another department. This view was taken by Sir Edward Ward's Committee, and a very strong recommendation was embodied in their Report.

The number of men affected in the country must necessarily be very large. From one-third to one-half of the discipline staff of the prisons in England consist of ex-soldiers, their number probably amounting to something like 2,000, and I am informed that the training they have received in the Army peculiarly fits them for this work. In the convict prison at Peterhead there are twenty-three ex-soldiers serving, nineteen of them without pension. There are two typical cases I should like to mention. A man who served in my old regiment, the Royal Horse Guards, writes to me from Peterhead Convict Prison— I served for twelve years in His Majesty's Royal. Horse Guards, under your Lordship Not being able to count this twelve years for pension I cannot obtain any more than thirty-sixtieths of my pay, although I serve until I reach the age limit, sixty-five years of age; yet, I will have served the State for forty-two years. Had this been entirely Civil Service I would have been able to retire on maximum pension after forty years service. Thus, because I give twelve years service to the State as a soldier, I receive, at the end of forty-two years, 6s. 2d. per week less pension than I would have received for forty years Civil Service. This is neither just nor reasonable treatment of men who have worthily served their country. There is another case of a man serving in the same prison who is the son of a shepherd on my property. His service in the Army, it is true, was only four years, but nearly the whole of that time was spent on active service. He served all through the South African War in the King's Own Borderers, and it does seem to me unfair that the services of this man, who has borne the hardships and dangers incidental to active service, should rank lower than those of the civilian who all that time was at home in peace and comfort.

The advantage to the State of men leaving the Army in a contented spirit, feeling that they have been well treated, is of the utmost importance. Such men are the very best recruiting agents you can have in the country. On the other hand, if you get men going up and down the country airing their grievances and warning others as to the way in which they have been treated, many most desirable men will be prevented from joining the Colours. Good men are afraid of prejudicing their chances by becoming soldiers when they see the prospect of earning an old-age pension for themselves made, if not impossible, at any rate much more difficult by the regulations. It is too big a handicap for men proposing to become soldiers to start seven years behind their civilian brethren, and this goes a long way to make the Army unpopular with the best class of men. The fact that so many old soldiers find their way into the workhouse is a strong argument that we should do all we can to induce a superior class to enlist. This I think we shall never do unless we can show that their service will not act to their detriment when they return to civil life. In a voluntary Army it is always difficult to get recruits, and I think it is well worth the nation's while to treat the men liberally. On these grounds I ask the Question which stands in my name, and I would urge that effect may be given to the recommendations of Sir Edward Ward's Committee.

*LORD DENMAN

My Lords, my impression when I saw this Question on the Notice Paper was that it mainly affected the War Office. I have, however, been informed that it is principally the concern of the Treasury, and therefore it is that, on behalf of that Department, I rise to reply to the speech of the noble and gallant Earl. I agree with him that the general question of the employment of time-expired soldiers and sailors is a very important one in its bearing on the subject of recruiting for the Army. For myself, on the few occasions before the present Government came into office that I ventured to address the House, I always urged the great importance of the problem of recruiting, and that this was one of the most difficult questions which those responsible for our Army administration were called upon to face. I see no reason to change that opinion to-day; but I am obliged to differ from the particular suggestion which the noble Earl makes.

In the first place, I think it would not be difficult to show, purely on grounds of economy, that it is not a very desirable proposition, for when it is considered that the pension list on the Votes amounts to the enormous sum of over £8,000,000 per annum it must be seen that the Treasury would naturally object to any addition being made to that already gigantic figure. But there are, as I hope I shall be able to show the House, other and stronger objections to it. Let us consider what are the terms on which a soldier undertakes to serve the State. He engages for a period of twelve years. It is not till after he has completed twelve years that he begins to reckon his service towards earning a pension. After he has served for fourteen years, if invalided, he obtains a pension, and after eighteen years if discharged; but, in the ordinary course of events, it is not until he has served for twenty-one years that he earns a military pension. If he goes into the Civil Service drawing a military pension, he gets his pay as a Civil servant and commences to qualify towards a Civil Service pension. Therefore, I do not think it can be contended that the State does not keep its bargain in this respect with the soldier.

The soldier joins knowing that after so many years he will become entitled to a pension. He prefers to enter the Civil Service knowing what the conditions and terms of service will be, and I presume that it is for reasons of his own that he adopts that course. Surely one of the objects of giving a military pension is that you desire to retain your best men with the Colours, and if you offer them superior inducements to leave the Army in order to enter the Civil Service you may then run the risk of taking away some of your best men from the Army, which I contend is undesirable from every point of view. I notice that in the Report quoted by the noble and gallant Earl, Sir Edward Ward and his colleagues lay stress upon compensating the soldier for the risks he has to undergo in the exercise of his profession. That may be so; but I have yet to learn that the average Englishman of from eighteen to twenty-five years, which is, I believe, the age at which recruits join the Army, will be deterred from joining by the risks he will naturally have to run.

THE EARL OF ERROLL

I did not say that.

*LORD DENMAN

The noble and gallant Earl did not say so, but I notice that Sir Edward Ward and his colleagues lay stress upon that point in their Report. I will not however, pursue that further. The noble Earl placed before the House one or two cases where injustice does arise. I would like to put a case also. I will take the case of two men who desire to enter the Civil Service at the same time. One of them passes his examination and qualifies; the other fails, and subsequently enters the Army. I maintain, and should always be prepared to argue, that of the two the soldier for the first few years, at any rate, leads a very much pleasanter life. Thanks to improvements in regard to pay and rations, and the reduction of hours of sentry-go and of unnecessary fatigues—and I may say that these reductions are due to the energies of several successive Secretaries of State for War—the soldier has a very good time of it on the whole. The average Civil servant for the first few years is bound to spend many hours in what would be regarded by many people as drudgery. Now, let us suppose that the man who failed to get into the Civil Service and had entered the Army left after seven years and obtained an appointment in the Civil Service. Although probably a much improved man owing to his period of Army service, nevertheless he could not be as expert as the Civil servant with seven years experience behind him for the particular duties which a Civil servant is called upon to perform.

THE EARL OF ERROLL

That would not affect prison officials.

*LORD DENMAN

I am afraid I cannot speak with any authority as regards prison officials, because I am not acquainted with their terms of service or the duties they have to perform. I was taking rather the ordinary case. If the noble Earl's proposal were adopted the soldier would, as regards pension, be able to qualify on exactly the same footing as the Civil servant. Of course, it may be said that that would remove the grievance from the soldier's point of view, but I contend that it would create a very real grievance from the point of view of the Civil servant, and I am sure that is not a thing which my noble friend would propose to do. There is another objection, and it is this. As many ex-soldiers and ex-sailors as possible are given employment by the State. They are necessarily not a very large number in comparison with the number of men who annually leave the service and go into the Reserve, because that is not possible. Therefore, the time-expired soldier and sailor who obtain this Civil Service employment must be regarded as fortunate. If you increase the value of these already desirable appointments you naturally accentuate the hard lot of those retired soldiers who are unable to obtain suitable employment, or, as I fear is frequently the case, employment of any kind whatever. The noble Earl speaks of the desirability of men leaving the service in a contented spirit. I think the suggestion he has just made would act in an exactly contrary way.

The noble Earl also touched on the case of certain men who serve in the Navy and who are allowed to reckon some of their sea service towards their pension, and he argued, I understood, that this exception should be made the general rule. This may appear to be an anomaly, but it is not so in fact. The shipwright apprentices who serve in the Navy are not in anything but name engaged in one of the combatant forces; their work is of a civil character both in the Navy and in the dockyards. Yard craft men are seamen during their civil as well as their naval service. That explains the apparent anomaly which is mentioned in the Report of the Ward Committee, and has been alluded to this afternoon by my noble friend. I have only to add that the late Government were approached on several occasions with a view to adopting this particular proposal, and on each occasion they negatived it. For the reasons, therefore, that I have given, I do not think you can possibly expect Mr. Asquith to look upon in any favourable light. I think, however, it is only fair to my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War, that I should state that he is very keenly alive to the desirability of doing everything in his power to obtain employment for time-expired soldiers. With this end in view, I understand that the War Office are now establishing courses of technical training in order the better to fit these men for civil life when they leave the Colours and go to the Reserve. I also understand that the Secretary of State is endeavouring to enlist the help of the County Association in obtaining work for men who leave the Colours and go to the Reserve; and I can assure the House that any practicable suggestions which may be put forward from any quarter will at all times receive his earnest attention and consideration.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE

My Lords, I know that an important debate on another subject awaits your Lordships, and therefore, I do not desire to detain the House for more than two or three minutes on this question. The speech of the noble Lord was at the end sympathetic towards the Army, as, of course, any speech of his would be, though it was not sympathetic to the object which my noble friend behind me had in view. The noble Lord re minded us that the late Government were approached on this subject several times and my recollection corresponds with his statement; but I do not think that that is any reason for not continuing the consideration of the subject. I confess that in my opinion a considerable grievance does exist, and there is great cause for its existence. I was glad that the noble Lord did not lay particular stress on the objection of economy. Of course, that is an important consideration, but it is not one which the noble Lord or any Member of His Majesty's Government would desire to push too far; and no one would suggest that if they have a grievance we should deny justice to these men simply on the ground of economy. The noble Lord's first point was that soldiers, after all, did this with their eyes open, and had no grievance because they under stood the conditions. That is true, but I do not think that is the grievance. The grievance, as I understand it, is that these twelve years, to continue the case quoted by the noble Lord, are spent in the service of the State, but are not allowed to qualify for a pension. There are, after all, a great many cases in which it could be easily proved that it is the same type of man who joins the Army and who joins the Civil Service. The noble Lord contended that the soldier had the easier time——

*LORD DENMAN

During the first few years of his service.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE

That is true in peace time. But in war time I think it can be argued that the soldier is doing much greater service for the State. Therefore, I think if anybody is to have preferential treatment the soldier is entitled to it, but all that is asked for is that all persons who serve the Crown should receive equal treatment. There is no doubt this is a grievance which is felt by a large number of people, and I hope that pressure will continue to be placed on the Treasury while the grievance remains unremoved.