Dr. Morganasked the Secretary of State for War (1) whether he is aware that the gate porters at Sutton Emergency Hospital, L.C.C., now used by the military, have been given by the military registrar and the Medical superintendent additional duties formerly carried out by military police, involving inspection of Service patients leaving the hospital, checking their passes and identity documents or collecting official receipts for articles taken out of hospital; and what steps are taken to protect civilian gate porters from any legal disabilities in connection with duties imposed on them though outside their ordinary contract of service;
(2) whether he will undertake to provide legal protection for civilian workers in institutions and hospitals now taken over by his Department as military establishments when, as was the case recently at the Sutton Emergency Hospital, the civilian gatekeepers were compelled, as part of their work, to undertake the duty of searching or exercising on behalf of the military authorities the right to search, on Service patients going out of the hospital on discharge or leave and carrying parcels and continuing this legal protection until other arrangements can be made for the search to be conducted by military personnel.
§ Sir J. GriggThe arrangement at the Sutton Emergency Hospital referred to in the Questions has been discontinued. So far as I am aware, no such arrangement has been made at any other military hospital or similar institution, and the question of providing legal protection does not arise.