§ Sir B. FALLEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that pensioner petty officers employed as instructors in seamen boys' training establishments, who had signed a non-continuous service engagement for five years' service prior to the issue of Admiralty Fleet Order 2,859/1925, and are in receipt of the old rates of pay, have been informed that from the 1st April next they will be paid the new rates of 6s. per day authorised by Admiralty Fleet Order 2,859/1925; and, seeing that this is in direct contradiction to the Fleet Order in question, which definitely states that the reduced rates of pay are only applicable to all ratings entering after 4th October 1925, he will have the matter reconsidered?
Mr. DAVIDSONOne of the conditions of a non-continuous service engagement is that a rating has no claim to be retained for the whole period of five years. It was, and is, considered that the new rate of pay brought into effect on 1st April, 1926, for those pensioners who were actually serving as such on the 5th October last, of which ample notice was given, was more beneficial to these ratings than the alternative of discharging them, and entering others in their place.