§ Mr. Martenasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the percentage of disabled staff in the Customs and Excise, the Inland Revenue and the Royal Mint is below 3 per cent.
§ Mr. TaverneIn Customs and Excise a high standard of physical fiitness is necessarily required on recruitment to some of the Departmental grades because of the active outdoor nature of the duties. The field for the recruitment of disabled persons is therefore confined to a small number of grades and in these the proportion of disabled persons is well above 3 per cent.
In the Inland Revenue the main reason is that the number of registered disabled persons with the necessary qualifications applying for employment has been insufficient.
The relatively low figure shown by the Royal Mint at the date of the last return was due to abnormally high labour turnover during 1969. The position has since improved considerably and the Royal Mint figure is now very close to 3 per cent.