Transferred Officers (Demobilisation)

HC Deb 23 October 1945 vol 414 cc1979-80W

Flight-Lieut. Parkin

asked the Under-Secretary of State for India if he will take steps to have restored to officers who volunteered to be seconded for service with the Royal Indian Navy and who now find themselves transferred to that Service, the conditions for repatriation and demobilisation to which they would have been entitled had they not been so transferred.

Mr. Henderson

Officers of the British Army volunteered not for secondment but for transfer to the R.I.N.V.R. I am advised that they are therefore not entitled to claim demobilisation under the same conditions as if they had remained in the British Army. But the Government of India are, in fact, arranging for their release from naval service for demobilisation at approximately the same dates and under the same conditions as if they had remained in the British Army. As regards repatriation, by which I take my hon. and gallant Friend to mean posting to a unit in this country, this is inapplicable to officers serving with the R.I.N. which maintains no units based here. But the officers in question are eligible for leave to this country under schemes substantially the same as those applicable to officers of the Indian Army.

Mr. Astor

asked the Under-Secretary of State for India if he will make a statement to the House on the disparagement in demobilisation of non-Regular British officers now serving in the Indian Army with other British officers in S.E.A.C.

Mr. Henderson

The date of release of the age and service groups for officers of the Indian Army is the same as that of the corresponding groups in the British Service. The only discrimination that I am aware of lies in the fact that in the former case the date in India corresponds to the date in United Kingdom and there is therefore a short time-lag due to the voyage period. The Government of India have, however, accepted in principle that for British officers recruited in the United Kingdom date of release should be date in the United Kingdom and are attempting to give effect to this in practice so far as considerations of manpower and shipping permit.