§ Colonel PRYCE-JONESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that those officers of Customs and Excise who entered the service as assistants of Customs, and were promoted to the grade of second class examining officers of Customs, became entitled on such promotion to twenty-four days' leave annually, increasing to thirty days on attaining a salary of £200; that paragraph 255 of the Hobhouse Committee's Report states that, while it would not be equitable to reduce the leave to which any officer is at present actually entitled, there is no reason why, on promotion after amalgamation, he should not be required to accept the amount of leave assigned to the class to which he is promoted; and that the Board of Customs and Excise, in General Order 5/1913, paragraph 3, in interpreting the aforementioned paragraph 255, substitute for the words actually entitled the words actually in receipt of, thereby reading into 1465W the Committee's Report a meaning contrary to the spirit of their recommendation that only on promotion after amalgamation should an officer's scale of leave be interfered with; and whether he will instruct the Board of Customs and Excise to apply to the officers concerned the scale of leave assigned to them as second class examining officers, and thus ensure that their leave shall be thirty days annually on attaining a salary of £200?
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEAfter the fullest consideration I am unable to accept the suggestion that the intention of the Amalgamation Committee in this matter has been wrongly interpreted. The right to additional leave under the old organisation was contingent on reaching a salary of £200 on the scale then in force. This scale disappeared as the result of the reorganisation. Had the Committee intended to guarantee to officers a prospective right to additional leave they would certainly have made precise recommendations as to the mode in which under the new organisation such right should mature.