§ Major BARNETTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Joint Substitution Board has decided that it is not possible to justify the continued employment even of war widows and war dependants on grounds of hardship except in very exceptional cases; and whether, seeing that the recommendations of the Lytton Committee authorise heads of Departments to decide cases within their own purview, he will say for what reason is the Imperial War Graves Commission1 being compelled to dismiss elderly women with seven years' service whom they desire to retain alike on grounds of efficiency and of hardship?
§ Mr. BALDWINIn view of the fact that the retention on duties which can be 3203W discharged by men of non-service clerical staff in present circumstances either involves the discharge in their stead of ex-service employés or prevents the reallocation to fresh Departments of ex-service men discharged from their former Departments on reduction, it has been decided that such retention cannot normally be permitted on grounds of hardship even in the class of case described. It was therefore incumbent on the Joint Substitution Board to press the Imperial War Graves Commission to substitute ex-service men for their non-service clerical staff, but I understand that discharges of war widows are not in fact involved.