§ Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the dissatisfaction existing amongst officers of Customs and Excise, formerly Customs port clerks, is due not merely to the manner in which the substitution of a fixed annual overtime allowance of £3 in lieu of actual payment on a daily basis 1009W afflicts many of them individually, but also to the fact that, concurrently with this offer of £3 per annum, their liability of attendance has been increased from seven hours per day to forty-eight hours per week, without any compensation whatever; whether he is aware that in many ports where collectors' offices have for years past been staffed on this basis the exigencies of the Customs service have habitually required that Customs port clerks shall give, at certain periods of the year, an amount of extra attendance for which the £3 offered to them is a most inadequate payment; whether he is aware that Customs port clerks will now be liable to be employed in the Customs and Excise service outside collectors' offices, where his promise that such offices shall continue to be staffed on the basis of a normal seven-hour day will presumably not operate; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that no question of economy is involved, he will consider the desirability of a reconsideration of the position of Customs port clerks so far as their hours and conditions of overtime are concerned?
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI have nothing to add to my answer to the hon. Member's question of the 1st instant on this subject.