§ Mr. SNOWDENasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are proceeding to release second-division and assistant clerks for military service; whether this permission will also be extended to first-division and intermediate clerks; and if he will state the number of clerks in each of the two last-named classes under twenty-six years of age and the number who have entered the Department since the outbreak of War.
751W
§ Mr. McKENNAThe Board of Inland Revenue have decided to release for military service their remaining second-division and assistant clerks under the ages respectively of twenty-six and thirty-one who have not already joined His Majesty's Forces.
The first-division clerks working in the Department are at present 40 per cent. below the normal establishment, and no further diminution of their numbers is possible. Nor is it possible to reduce further the intermediate clerks in the Estate Duty Office, where the shortage of trained and even partially-trained staff engaged upon the technical work in that office is already a matter of some concern.
I presume the figures for which my hon. Friend asks are meant to relate to officers now at work in the Department, and they are:
For first-division clerks 4 and 4 For Estate Duty Office, intermediate clerks, respectively 104 and 47