§ Mr. LAWSONasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that it has hitherto been the recognised practice that an appointment in the Civil Service shall not be terminated except for misconduct or inefficiency, and that in those cases where an office has been 1521W abolished and the position filled becomes redundant, compensation for loss of salary has been paid in addition to pension, he will say why Captain R. W. Pinder, Royal Engineers, who in 1920 was offered and accepted a permanent post as staff officer at the Board of Trade, and who, in consequence of the representation made by the Board of Trade that this was a permanent appointment carrying rights to pensions and gratuities refused an offer of a post of £1,000 a year with his pre-War employers, Messrs. Elders and Fyffes, Limited, has received one month's notice to terminate his appointment in March last and has only been offered a gratuity of £263; and whether he will take action to ensure the retention of this officer in the Civil Service on a grade commensurate with that occupied by him on 31st March, 1923?
§ Viscount WOLMERI have been asked to reply. Captain Pinder was engaged by the Board of Trade in 1920 because of his special knowledge of railway rates. In 1922 the duties of the Board of Trade in connection with railway rates were transferred to the Ministry of Transport, but that Department was unable to make use of the services of Captain Pinder, and no post requiring his special qualifications was available in any Department. Captain Pinder was aware of his redundancy for many months before the Board fixed the termination of his services on the scale of salary appropriate to the service he was engaged for, and offered him a post at a lower salary. Captain Pinder declined to accept the alternative post, and the Board then applied to the Treasury for the grant of the full amount of compensation for which he was eligible under the Superannuation Acts on abolition of office. Captain Pinder has been given a cheque for the sum due to him, and the question of his reinstatement in the Civil Service cannot be reopened.