§ Mr. Parkerasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will state the number of engineer commanders commissioned from artificers under the mate (E) schemes who are eligible for promotion to engineer captain; and whether any of these officers are likely to be promoted before being retired, observing that the promotion to captain of executive officers
2186WRoyal Marines who have been commissioned early in their careers in each year since the introduction of the ranker promotion scheme of 1914; the number who have been promoted to the rank of major and above on the active list; the number and ranks of those who are still on the active list; and what steps the Admiralty propose to take to commission more men from the ranks in view of the increased demand for officers?
Mr. CooperThe information asked for in the first three parts of the question is set out in the table below:
from the ranks commenced four years ago and that three such officers have been promoted?
§ Mr. ShakespeareThe number of these officers who are qualified for promotion by length of service and by sea-time is 28. It will be understood, however, that although the claims of all officers who are eligible are reviewed on each occasion, an officer cannot generally be considered suitable for promotion until he has given sufficient service in the rank to allow the Admiralty to judge his capacity. In the case of engineer commanders this limit is, as a general rule, taken as eight years. The engineer commanders who were granted their commissions under the mate 2187W (E) scheme are only now reaching this seniority. The number of qualified officers of this category of over eight years' seniority is only three.