§ 62. Mr. H. Fraserasked the Secretary of State for War why the families of troops serving in the Tripolitanian district are not permitted to obtain flats or houses by private treaty; why such families arriving unofficially are not placed on the waiting list for married quarters; and why married rates of local overseas allowances are not issuable to officers whose families arrive in the M.E.L.F. without his Department's authority.
§ Mr. BellengerIt is laid down in King's Regulations that families of other ranks overseas on the married quarters roll must be accommodated in quarters, but this rule is to be cancelled shortly and I am not aware that there is any other rule forbidding families to obtain flats or houses by private treaty. Married quarters overseas (whether public quarters or requisitioned houses), are primarily intended for the families or personnel who join their husbands having been granted a passage or being eligible for a passage at public expense. In most overseas commands there is a waiting list for quarters and on a quarter becoming vacant it is allotted to the family at the top of the list. It would not be reasonable to allot it to an unentitled in preference to an entitled family. The rule referred to in the last part of the Question was introduced as a deterrent to families who, being ineligible to he moved overseas at public expense, or being not prepared to wait their turn for a passage, proceeded overseas under 123W their own arrangements. In such cases the presence of the family at the overseas station is not recognised and the man continues to draw the allowances applicable to a single man or to a man separated from his family.