§ Mr. Pounderasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the total sums of money invested in premium bonds in Northern Ireland during 1964; what was the value of prizes for that year; what were the values of prizes expressed as a percentage of the sums invested; and if he will give the comparable figures for England and Wales, and for Scotland, respectively, in that year.
§ Mr. MacDermotThe figures are as follows:
since the last pay revaluation based on outside comparisons in July, 1957, range from 3.3 per cent. to 4.0 per cent.
§ Mr. Ian Gilmourasked the Chancellar of the Exchequer into which category of exceptions to Her Majesty's Government's incomes policy, as outlined in paragraph 15 in the White Paper on Prices and Incomes Policy, the increase in salary for 15,000 tax offices employed by the Inland Revenue of 10.9 per cent. and back-dated to 1st January, 1964, comes.
§ Mr. MacDermotAs my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State explained to the House on Tuesday, 11th May, 1965, pay revisions in the Civil Service are based on the Priestley Commission principle of "fair comparisons" with comparable outside employment. Tax Officers were the subject of a pay research survey. As the parties failed to reach agreement on the amount of the increases due on the evidence of the Survey, reference to the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal was necessary. As the Survey related to pay and conditions 285W of service in comparable outside employment at 1st January, 1964, in accordance with the 1964 Civil Service Pay Agreement, this was the operative date of the scale awarded by the Tribunal for tax officers.
The scale awarded by the Tribunal gives increases on existing pay of 1.2 per cent. at the minimum and 7.7 per cent. at the maximum, with somewhat larger increases in the middle of the scale. The compounded annual rate of increase at the maximum over the 6½ years since the last pay revaluation based on outside comparisons in July, 1957 is 4.3 per cent.