HC Deb 19 December 1941 vol 376 c2259W
Mr. McEntee

asked the Postmaster-General why payment of interest on money in the Post Office Savings Bank which has hitherto been paid in December each year is now being postponed until May of the following year; under what Parliamentary enactment this step is taken; and who will receive the benefit of the five months' delay in the payment of this interest?

Mr. W. S. Morrison

The statutory regulations of the Post Office Savings Bank provide that interestshall be calculated to the 31st December in every year, and shall then be added to and become part of the principal money. In practice the calculation of the interest due on all the accounts—now numbering nearly 15,000,000—cannot be completed until some time in the year following that for which the interest is due; and the calculation of interest for 1940 was not in fact completed before the autumn of the present year. This, however, makes no difference whatever to the depositors, each one of whom has been entitled since the 1st of January, 1941, to all the interest due to him in respect of the year 1940. In these circumstances the other questions asked by the hon. Member do not arise.