HC Deb 11 February 1960 vol 617 c61W
50. Mr. A. Lewis

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the appropriate grade in the Civil Service for a civil servant in receipt of £1,750 per annum; what pension rate and other emoluments are included in this grading; and what is his estimate of the cost to the Treasury of attaching Members of Parliament to this grade for salary and pension purposes.

Sir E. Boyle

Many Civil Service grades may earn £1,750 per annum; examples are Principals in the Administrative Class and Senior Executive Officers in the Executive Class. The immediate cost of attaching Members of Parliament for salary purposes to a grade with the same salary would be nil, while the future cost would be conjectural. The pension payable to a civil servant who retired on a salary of £1,750 could be anything from nil to £980 according to the number of years for which he had served; the qualifying period for a Civil Service pension is ten years. Civil Service pensions would be inappropriate to the circumstances of hon. Members; and I do not think that the difficult actuarial calculation needed to estimate the cost of giving such pensions to Members would be justified.