asked the right hon. Gentleman the result of the inquiry instituted into the financial condition of the United National Friendly Assurance Collecting Society; the number of persons insured; the total amount collected from them; the total expenditure; the total liabilities incurred; the amount secured to meet those liabilities; the nature and value of any security given by officers for fidelity, and by whom held; the amount of the endowment policies due to mature in 1914; whether the society continues collecting and canvassing in Ireland; whether approval has been withdrawn from the society worked by it under the National Insurance Act; and whether he will institute an actuarial investigation into this society's affairs?

The complaints made by my hon. Friend and others with regard to this society have been the subject of investigation, as promised in the answer given to him on 1st January. No such irregularities have been disclosed as would justify the withdrawal of approval under Section 29 of the Insurance Act from the United National Friendly Approved Society, which is a separate section conducting business under the Insurance Act under conditions which keep the finances absolutely distinct from those of the collecting society; but the affairs of the society will continue to be under the observation of the Commissioners and the auditors. The return of the collecting society for 1912 has not yet been received, and is not finally due until 31st May next. Particulars as to the assets and liabilities of the society, as shown in the Return for 1911, were given to my hon. Friend in the answer of 1st January. I have no knowledge of the other matters referred to in the question and no power to institute an actuarial investigation into the affairs of the collecting society.

asked whether the valuation of approved societies having over 5,000 members in England and less than 5,000 members in Scotland and Wales will be conducted on a system which will secure to the members in Scotland and Wales not less than the minimum benefits paid to the members of the same society resident in England after the valuation?

The answer is in the negative. The English, Scottish and Welsh sections of societies having members in all three countries have each complete financial independence of each other whatever their respective numbers.

May we take it for granted from the hon. Gentleman's answer that there may be, after the next valuation, three scales of benefits for the different sets of members of one society?

This is the result, of course, of the decision arrived at by the House. It does not follow, as the hon. Member infers, that the English set will always have the best of it.

Seeing that they all pay the same, does not the hon. Gentleman think they should all receive the same, and that any regulation which prevents that is ridiculous?

It is the Act which creates four separate funds. We cannot override that.

Will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of dealing with this part of the business in the amending Bill?

I will pass on the suggestion.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that William Butler, of Llanelly, an insured person and a member of the Prudential Approved Society, was unable to obtain the benefits of the National Insurance Act during a recent illness through failure on the part of the Prudential Society to provide him with a medical ticket after repeated applications; whether he is aware that the man is still without a medical ticket; and whether he will take steps to compel the Prudential Society to at once give Butler his card and to prevent similar occurrences in future?

I am informed by the society that the insured person was a deposit contributor who subsequently transferred to the society, and that the delay in providing him with a medical ticket was due to a misunderstanding on the part of the society's local representative who was under the impression that all the formalities in connection with the transfer of the insured person from the Post Office Fund to the society must be completed before the ticket could be issued. A medical ticket has now been supplied to the member, and the position has been made clear to the society's agent.

Will this person suffer any financial loss through the neglect of the society?

I cannot say. Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a further question.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the case of Mrs. Parry, a school teacher at Deal, who, on the 15th January, 1913, became entitled to sickness benefit, being furnished with a medical certificate in the prescribed form stating that she was totally incapacitated from work; whether he is aware that Mrs. Parry, being dangerously ill, was admitted on the 22nd of January to the Victoria Cottage Hospital at Deal, being, as an insured person, only eligible for admission to the hospital as a case of urgency and on condition of paying for her maintenance and medical attendance; that she is still unable to resume her employment, but that, in spite of repeated applications to her approved society, the Teachers' Provident Society, she has been unable to obtain any payment of sickness benefit except for the first week of her illness, and although she has a blind infant dependent upon her; whether this treatment is due to a decision of the Insurance Commissioners that under no circumstances shall sickness benefit be paid to insured persons in hospital, even though obliged to provide their own maintenance; and whether he will take steps to reverse this decision of the Commissioners and to remove the injustice inflicted thereby on Mrs. Parry and other insured persons in similar circumstances?

It is not a decision of the Insurance Commissioners, but a definite provision of Section 12 of the National Insurance Act that sickness benefit shall not be paid to insured persons while they are in hospitals of the kind described in the Section. The same Section, however, provides for the application of the benefit, in whole or in part, for the relief or maintenance of any dependants. I am informed by the society that they were unable until last week to ascertain whether Mrs. Perry had any dependants, and that immediately on being satisfied that such was the case the whole amount of the sickness benefit calculated up to 13th April, namely, £4 10s., was paid for the relief and maintenance of the dependants, in acccordance with the provisions of Section 12. Any inconvenience that may have been caused would appear to have been due to the insured person not supplying the society at once with information as to her dependants, and not to any decision of the Insurance Commissioners.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that Mrs. Johanna Murphy made an application at the Aherla post office last September for an old age pension, filling up the usual form and showing her certificate of birth that she was seventy years of age on 1st January, 1913; whether she was informed in the first week of February, 1913, by the clerk of the Bandon (No. 1) Pension Sub-committee that the committee did not meet until the last Monday in January and that she was granted pension allowance from that date; will Mrs. Murphy be deprived of her pension for four weeks from 1st January owing to the failure of the committee to meet; and, if not, what steps must be taken to recover the amount properly due to her?

I understand that the officer's report in this case was sent to the sub-committee in due time for the usual meeting in December, but that the sub-committee did not meet until the end of January. Under the provisions of the Old Age Pension Act a pension only commences to accrue as from the Friday following its allowance by a committee, and I fear that Mrs. Murphy therefore only became entitled to a pension as from that date.

Is Mr. Murphy to suffer because of the fact that the committee did not have the usual meeting?

I admit there is a hardship but we have no statutory power to remedy it. The blame must lie on the committee.

asked whether the general Order issued to old age pension officers in September, 1908, or any substituted Order, on the value of maintenance has been communicated to every pension officer in Ireland and is now used by them for their guidance; if so, what scale the Order fixes in normal cases in urban and rural districts in Great Britain and in Ireland, respectively; whether it leaves each officer discretion to increase or reduce the pension according to circumstances within the limits of the Act; what is the authority or scale whereby this discretion is always used to reduce or extinguish pensions in Ireland but not in Great Britain; whether the opinion of the medical officer is obtained in all such cases before the reduction is made; if the rent or valuation of the home where the claimant resides affects the pension, what is the practice on that point in the two countries, respectively; and in what percentage of the claims for old age pensions has the pension been reduced or disallowed on account of the value of maintenance in Great Britain and in Ireland, respectively?

No scale is in force under either the Order of September, 1908, or any subsequent Order, for general application by pension officers in framing their estimates of the value of maintenance, and the general rule governing the officers' practice is as stated in my reply to the hon. Member's previous question of the 11th instant. Pension officers have no discretion to increase or reduce a pension. This discretion rests with the local committee or the Local Government Board on appeal. So far as I am aware, it is not the practice of pension officers to obtain medical opinion on questions affecting the value of means. The rent or valuation of the house in which a claimant resides is one of several factors which a pension officer might take into account in framing an estimate in either country. The information asked for in the last paragraph of the question is not available.

Is is not a fact that the circular issued in September, 1908, contained a scale; is that circular, or any one corresponding to it, still in force; and is the circular of 1908, which exempted £30 of furniture, clothes, and personal effects from the estimate, still in force?

The hon. Member is mistaken. The so-called circular of which he speaks was not a scale, but simply a set of a few suggestions to officers. They never constituted a scale. The suggestions have been modified as a result of the experience acquired.

Is the earlier circular exempting £30 of personal effects still in force?

Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice of that special point. I cannot answer it at the moment.

asked if the approval of the Treasury is required to the appointment to posts in the Civil Service to which a commencing salary on a rising scale is attached at higher than the commencing rates; and, if so, whether the approval of the Treasury was given in all the cases specified in the Returns recently published of persons appointed without competitive examination in which the commencing salary paid was in excess of the fixed minimum?

The special sanction of the Treasury would be required for the appointment of any Civil servant at a rate of salary higher than the minimum of the scale attached to the post to which he was appointed unless the case fell within certain categories covered by general authorities given under Treasury Minutes. If in any case such sanction were not obtained, the omission would be noticed by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and queried by him. I am not aware of any case among those to which the hon. Member refers in which such omission has occurred.

asked whether the Board of Education employs permanent clerks at salaries less than the equivalent of £l per week; and what is the number of clerks in the Board's service receiving, on 31st March ultimo, less than £1 per week, 25s. per week, and 30s. per week, respectively?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The hon. Member is, no doubt, aware that the commencing salary of an assistant clerk is £45. The number of permanent clerks, including women clerks and typists, in the Board's service receiving on 31st March last less than 30s. per week was 199. Of these, 136 received less than 25s. per week, and of these, again, forty-four received less than £1 per week.

Is any distinction made in the salaries paid to men and women for the same class of work?

If the hon. Member will put down a question I will give him the figures.

What is the age of these people who start at £45 a year?

Seventeen.

asked whether the Board's assistant clerks are eligible for special increments similar to those awarded to second division clerks?

Assistant clerks serving under the Board of Education are eligible for special increments only under the conditions laid down in Treasury Regulations of 22nd December, 1908, but the conditions of these increments are not similar to those under which special increments are granted to second division clerks under Clause 33 of the Order in Council of 10th January, 1910.

asked the Secretary of State for War the number of adults serving in a civil capacity in his Department; the grades and numbers of persons so employed who receive less than 30s. per week or £78 per annum; and the number whose working day exceeds eight hours?

The total number so serving in the War Office amounts to 1,179, of whom 268 are receiving less than 30s. a week or £78 a year. This latter number includes 33 lady typists, 110 messengers and porters, and 100 female servants and charwomen. The normal working day for all classes is less than eight hours a day, except for messengers, who are liable for a longer period, but are rarely called up to work beyond a period of eight hours.

Are the wages paid to women typists less than those paid to men typists?

I must ask for notice.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that all departments of the Holy Trinity Church of England school, Wey-mouth, have been overcrowded for some years past; whether he will give the reasons why this overcrowding has been allowed to continue; whether he is aware that the latest official list of schools shows that 40 per cent. of the scholars in Wey mouth are in overcrowded schools; and whether anything will be done to remedy the present overcrowding?

Overcrowding occurred in the school referred to in 1910 and 1911, partly as a result of the reassessment of accommodation on the ten and nine square feet basis which took place in 1909 as a result of rearrangements. The only overcrowded department in the school in 1912 was that of the infants, in which the average attendance exceeded the recognised accommodation by two. No other department of any school in the area of the authority was overcrowded during the last school year.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the official list of schools shows that 100 per cent. of the scholars in Pelsall are in overcrowded schools, and that in the Wesleyan school and the Church of England school the average attendance is in excess of the accommodation in all departments; and what steps he is taking to provide additional accommodation as required by the code?

For the last school year only one department of the four departments in the two schools in Pelsall was overcrowded, and the overcrowding amounted only to thirteen units. As the result of conferences between the authority, the school managers, and the Board the two schools will be reorganised, and proposals have been put forward by the local authority for the provision of a new school for 250 children.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the latest volume of statistics shows that after excluding all scholars under five years of age there are in all the elementary schools of Coventry only 16,188 school places for 16,719 children on the roll; whether he is aware that 32 per cent. of the scholars are in overcrowded schools, and that the average attendance greatly exceeds the accommodation in All Saints and Holy Trinity Church of England schools, and in Wheatley Street and Edgewick council schools; and what steps will be taken to enable all children between five and fifteen years of age to attend schools?

The figures given in the first part of the question are correct. With regard to the second part of the question, during the year ended 31st March, 1912, approximately 28 per cent. of the children were in overcrowded schools. There is no longer overcrowding in the Church of England schools, mentioned in the question; but there is some excess of average attendance over accommodation in the case of the Wheatley Street council school, and a small excess in the case of the Edgewick council school. The Board have been in correspondence with the authority on the subject of accommodation for some time. Two new council schools, making provision for over 1,700 scholars, have been opened since September, 1911, and proposals are at present before the Board for the provision of 5,200 additional places in the area of the authority. The hon. Member will be aware that there has been in recent years a rapid growth in the population of Coventry.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether the education of physically defective children is included in the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Bill; and, if not, whether he will extend its provisions so as to include them?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. My right hon. Friend is not at present prepared to make compulsory upon local education authorities the provision of special schools for physically defective children. The hon. Member will be aware that local authorities already have power to make this provision under the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899.