THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDMy Lords, I rise to ask a Question of which I have given private notice to the noble Marquess the Leader of the House. My Question is: To ask His Majesty's Government whether, in view of the hardship inflicted on claimants owing to the uncertainty as to the amounts and to the delay in payment of their awards, the Irish Grants Committee may be authorised to inform claimants, as soon as their cases have been decided, what are the amounts awarded to them and whether such amounts will be paid in full without delay.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend for having given me notice of this Question. In the cases referred to by my noble friend the duty of the Irish Grants Committee is to make recom- 1235 mendations. The awards are the acts of His Majesty's Government. These awards as and when they are decided will be published and the amounts of the awards will be paid without delay, but these do not in all cases reach the same figure as the recommendations. When these post-Truce cases were referred to the Grants Committee in pursuance of the Report of Lord Dunedin's Committee, the Secretary of State for the Dominions informed the Grants Committee that the Government had no means of knowing until the work of the Committee was completed, or nearly completed, what was the extent of the hardship with which they would have to deal and they had not felt justified in committing the British taxpayer to an indefinite liability. The Government had in their minds a limited expenditure beyond which they were not prepared to go. They had decided that £400,000 was the absolute maximum which could be provided to meet the recommendations of the Committee and had indeed hoped that this figure might not be reached.
In view, however, of the very natural anxiety to which my noble friend refers that the sums of money should be paid forthwith, and the fact that it has become apparent that the total sum recommended by the Grants Committee would largely exceed the £400,000 limit for which the Government had stipulated, it became necessary to begin to adjust the amounts recommended without waiting. The Government therefore have decided to apply the same principle to these awards as was used by the Committee presided over by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Sumner, in the case of the claims of the sufferers from enemy air raids in this country during the War. That principle is to award sums equal to the recommendations in every case for the first £250 of all awards; on any excess over £250 up to £1,000 to award 50 per cent, of such excess; and on any excess of £1,000 up to £50,000—a figure which of course is not reached in these cases at all—to award 30 per cent., notwithstanding that the total estimated amount will be £625,000, or £225,000 over the maximum limit originally fixed.