§ Mr. R. Morganasked the Home Secretary whether prison officers occupying 604W official quarters are being required to billet brother officers and their wives and to provide them with furniture and equipment without receiving payment therefore?
§ Sir J. AndersonNo, Sir. There is no compulsion in this matter. In consequence, however, of the redistribution of prison staff rendered necessary on the outbreak of war, a number of officers had to be transferred to other prisons at short notice, and some of these have been accommodated by members of the prison staff in their official quarters. As the official quarters are occupied rent free, subsistence allowances paid to billeted officers do not include any payment in respect of rent.
§ Mr. Morganasked the Home Secretary whether he will take steps to remove the dissatisfaction now existing amongst officers at Parkhurst and Dartmoor prisons who are billeted on brother officers, and who pay their brother officers for accommodation, owing to the action of the Prison Commission in refusing to pay normal subsistence allowances, and in two cases refusing to pay subsistence allowance at all?
§ Sir J. AndersonPrison officers when transferred from one station to another are treated in the same way as other Government servants. Subsistence allowance is payable to an officer who is transferred to help him to meet the extra expenses to which he is put during the preliminary period when he is living away from home and in finding accommodation for himself and his family at his new station. The allowance is paid only for a limited period, and when the officer has found, or has had a reasonable opportunity of finding, new accommodation and getting rid of any liabilities in respect of his former house, the allowance ceases. The allowance includes an element in respect of additional rent, except in cases where the officer is temporarily accommodated in official quarters for which no rent is paid. In the two cases in question subsistence allowances have been paid, but have ceased to be payable. Each of these officers has decided to keep on a house in London in respect of which he receives a rent allowance, and consequently cannot draw another rent allowance in respect of his accommodation at Dartmoor.