§ Mr. Garry Allighanasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the hardship and inconvenience caused to married couples with growing children by his Department's delay in granting applications for bedding dockets; and if he will instruct his officials to take earlier action or, failing that, to make earlier acknowledgment of the application, which now often takes eight weeks.
§ Sir S. Cripps:I regret the delay which has occurred in some cases owing to the very large number of docket applications. Every effort has been made to add to the staff on this work and to speed up procedure, with the result that the time taken to deal with these applications has been considerably reduced during the past few months and that, in straightforward cases, where the application form has been pro 140W perly completed and no further inquiries have to be made, dockets are now being issued in about two weeks. In other cases, more time is required; but there should be no cases of applicants remaining without any reply to their applications for anything like the time stated in the Question.