§ Mr. Harveyasked the Minister of Health whether he is now in a position to announce the result of the negotiations which have been proceeding between representatives of the teachers' organisations and his Department on the subject of billeting allowances for evacuated teachers?
§ Mr. ElliotI am glad to say that it has now been decided, with the agreement of the teachers' organisations, that evacuated teachers of State-aided schools with certain continuing obligations at home shall receive allowances over and above the 5s. billeting allowance which the Government already pays in respect of lodging to the householder with whom they are billeted. These allowances will also be payable under certain conditions to teachers who have made their own arrangements for accommodation in the reception areas. The effect of the new scheme is, broadly speaking, to put evacuated teachers on an equality with evacuated civil servants, though it has1026W been modified in certain particulars at the teachers' request to meet their special circumstances. The cost of the allowances, the payment of which will be undertaken by the local education authority or body normally responsible for paying the teachers' salaries, will be an evacuation charge. The new scheme will be retrospective as from 29th January last, which is the date on which the terms for evacuated civil servants were finally settled, and payments will begin as soon as the appropriate machinery for receiving and considering claims for allowances can be set in motion. In addition, evacuated teachers, like evacuated civil servants, will be eligible to receive two free return journeys to their homes each year, and the difference between the cost of a return journey and the single fare on three occasions in the same period. I am asked by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to say that the same arrangements will apply to Scotland.