asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to what extent, when his officers review war pensions every two years, regard is had for the time lost by the pensioner through pensioned illness which may amount to many years, thus handicapping him in his promotion in civil life; and if he will give instructions that the past health of the applicant should also be taken into account in the event of a reduction in pension being recommended.

Assessments of war disability are reduced only where there is definite evidence that fortunately the pensioner's condition has improved since the previous assessment was made. I have on occasions had representations against questions such as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests being put to war pensioners on the ground that answers to them may penalise men who make special efforts to keep going despite severe disability, and such questions are now asked only when it appears that they will help the pensioner's case. In any event loss of earning capacity is a factor taken into account not in the assessment of disability but in the award of special allowances related directly to it.

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what percentage of the national average wage was represented by the basic retirement pension in 1946, 1951, 1959, and at the latest convenient date.

Taking October of those years, the standard rate of retirement pension for a single man was 21·5, 18·1 and 18·5 per cent. respectively of the average earnings of men in the manufacturing and principal non-manufacturing industries as shown by the Ministry of Labour's half-yearly inquiry. In relation to average women's earnings the percentages were 39·8, 33·3 and 35·6 respectively. The figures for October, 1959, are the latest available.

asked the Minister of Aviation whether he is aware of concern in Wales at the continued neglect of the Principality in relation to the development of civil aviation; and if he will authorise improvements of airports and airport facilities in Wales.

The provision of air services in Wales is a matter for the commercial judgment of the airlines. I am satisfied that the airport facilities provided by my Department in Wales are at present adequate.

asked the hon. Member for Holland with Boston, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, what steps he takes to check the terms of publicity in connection with functions held in the Dining Rooms of the House.

It is a rule of the Kitchen Committee that any advertisement or publicity in connection with any function held in the Dining Rooms must be submitted to the Manager of the Refreshment Department for the approval of the Chairman of the Committee before publication.

asked the Minister of Health if he is aware of the work just started by the Industrial Therapy Organisation in Bristol as an experiment in training and rehabilitating mental patients by providing them with suitable employment; and, in view of the fact that such incentive may be destroyed if the full National Health contributions are deducted from their wages and if the benefits are reduced when they earn over £2 a week, if he will assist this effort to assist sufferers of mental disabilities by relaxing the regulations in such cases or introducing new ones to meet this exceptional situation, and also bring this scheme to the attention of other local authorities.

My right hon. and learned Friend is of course aware of, and warmly welcomes, this widely publicised experimental project. He is also aware that for a combination of reasons, including the liability for National Insurance and National Health Service contributions, certain difficulties have arisen over the financial position of some of the patients, especially those who were formerly entitled to National Insurance benefits. He is having these difficulties examined.

asked the Minister of Health when he expects to be in a position to announce his decision on the Report of the Royal Commission on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I are arranging to meet representatives of the professions in the near future for preliminary general discussions. I would hope to be able to make a statement to the House after these discussions.

asked the Minister of Health, as representing the Minister for Science, what further reports he has received since 1st March of increase of radioactivity, in the air and in rainfall over Great Britain and other countries where he has recording stations, directly attributable to the French atomic explosion in the Sahara.

I would refer the hon. Member as respects Great Britain to my Answer to the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun).Air and rain sampling has continued over this period in the other territories to which the hon. Member refers and occasionally measurable radioactivity has been observed, but in all cases the amounts have been well below the levels recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection as admissible continuously over a lifetime for the general public.

asked the Minister of Health at what date the plans for the improvement and extension of Orsett Hospital were first submitted to his Department.

Sketch plans were formally submitted by the regional hospital board on 22nd August, 1958, and were later modified following discussions with my officers.

asked the Minister of Health on what date the improvement and extension of Orsett Hospital will begin.

The regional hospital board is preparing working drawings for stage I, but I cannot yet say when building work will be started.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to what extent it is on security grounds that he has refused his authorisation to publish the manuscript, "Breathe Not My Name," which was submitted to him by the author.

It has long been regarded as an important principle that serving officials of the Foreign Service should not publish books on matters relating to their official employment. It was on these grounds that authorisation to publish could not be given in this case.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any progress has been made with the Japanese Government in obtaining a settlement of the claims for compensation of British subjects arising out of the China incident.

Yes. Progress has been made since the Japanese Prime Minister visited this country last year and I hope that we are now nearer to a settlement.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has now received a report from the British Consul on the ill-treatment given by the French Customs officials at Dunkirk on 11th to 12th February to Mr. and Mrs. George Adams, who were searched and kept under close guard for 24 hours with only one meal and whose possessions and jewellery were confiscated; and what steps he is taking to obtain satisfaction for Mrs. Adams and to protect British subjects against such treatment in future.

Yes. My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has written to my hon. Friend giving details.Mrs. Adams has now recovered her confiscated property.The French Customs authorities have assured Her Majesty's Vice-Consul at Dunkirk that their officers behaved correctly throughout and that Mr. and Mrs. Adams were provided with a decent standard of comfort.However, I am now asking the Vice-Consul to make further representations about the conditions under which Mrs. Adams was detained. He will do this both on her behalf and in the general interest of other British subjects who might find themselves in a similar position.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will attend in person the Security Council meetings on South Africa, in order to emphasise the British people's deep sympathy with the people of Africa, and especially the bereaved of the Sharpeville tragedy.

No. My right hon. and learned Friend has at present no intention of attending the forthcoming meeting of the Security Council himself.

asked the Minister of Labour what estimate he has been able to make of the total number of working days lost in 1959 through stoppages not officially recognised by the trade unions concerned.

In 1959, a total of 5¼ million working days were lost through strikes of all kinds. Three and a half million days were lost in the official printing and printing ink disputes, and 100,000 in other disputes known to be official; of the remaining 1,650,000 days lost, the bulk were apparently due to unofficial strikes, but accurate information is not available owing to the difficulties of definition.

asked the Minister of Labour what arrangements are provided in the Drumchapel area for employment exchange dealing with youth.

Young persons from the Drumchapel area are at present dealt with mainly at the Partick Youth Employment Bureau, which is approximately four miles away. There is also a Youth Employment Bureau at Clyde-bank, approximately three miles away. The Glasgow Education Authority, which provides the youth employment service in the Drumchapel area, is keeping the situation under review.

asked the Minister of Labour if he will supply an occupational analysis of unemployment in Glasgow at the latest available date.

I am having the necessary information extracted and will send it to the hon. Member.

asked the Minister of Labour (1) the numbers of registered unemployed at 14th March, 1960, in each of the districts listed under the Local Employment Act; and what percentage rate of unemployment in each area that represents;(2) if he will list the employment exchange areas, outside the districts listed under the Local Employment Act, where the percentage rate of unemployment at 14th March, 1960, was 4 per cent. or over; and, in each case, the number of unemployed and the percentage.

I am having the necessary information extracted and will send it to the hon. Member.

asked the Minister of Labour if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing, at the latest date for which figures are available,

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take steps to relate the feeding-stuffs formula, for the guaranteed price for pigs, to retail prices.

The present formula, which was agreed with the National Farmers' Unions, has operated satisfactorily for a number of years and I see no justification for a change.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many applicants there are for local authority smallholdings in England, and in each county of Wales; how many tenancies were granted in England and Wales, respectively, in the latest available year; and how many holdings were newly acquired in a similar period.

At 31st March, 1959, there were 6,780 applicants for local authority smallholdings in England, and 966 in Wales. The number of tenancies

The following table gives provisional figures of the numbers unemployed on 14th March and the numbers of notified vacancies remaining unfilled on March 9th.granted during the financial year 1958–59 was 483 in England and 60 in Wales. Five holdings were newly acquired during the same period, all in England. The figures for the individual counties in Wales are as follows:

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food his estimate of the reduction in the total value of the guarantees for the purposes of the 1960 Annual Price Review which will be effected by the reduction in the guaranteed price for hen eggs.

The reduction in the guaranteed price for eggs represents a reduction of about £4½ million in the total value of the guarantees as calculated for the purposes of the 1960 Annual Review.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food his estimate of the money value of the saving to consumers effected by lowering the fixed retail price of milk from 8d. a pint to 7½d. for six months of the year.

Statutory prices for milk are not fixed, but maximum prices. It is estimated that a reduction from 8d. to 7½d. a pint for six months represents a saving to consumers of £13 million.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will now state the amount which is to be contributed by Her Majesty's Government to the costs of the freedom from hunger campaign of the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Her Majesty's Government received a communication on this matter from the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation at the beginning of this month. This is now being examined.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what forestry grants have been applied for by the syndicate which is ploughing and afforesting 200 acres of Dendles Mood in the Dartmoor National Park; and what grants have been authorised.

Discussions about dedication of this area are in progress, but it would not be proper for me to give details relating to grants for individual properties.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the cost of establishing the three poultry breeding stations and the annual running cost; and what results of value to commercial egg producers are coming from this undertaking.

The initial net cost of establishing and equipping the three poultry progency testing stations in England and Wales was £510,000. This sum was contributed by the industry by way of adjustments to the guaranteed prices for eggs. Since then, the Exchequer has borne expenditure of about £7,000 on minor capital works and machinery.The current net annual cost of the stations is about £60,000. This figure includes the cost of scientific, technical and administrative staff and depreciation of machinery and equiment, but not depreciation on buildings or interest on capital.The tests were designed and are being operated, in consultation with representatives of the poultry industry, with the object of improving the standard of purebred breeding stock. If this objective is achieved the tests will undoubtedly be of considerable benefit to commercial egg producers. But since the first cycle of tests has not yet been completed it is not possible at this stage to assess their value to commercial egg producers.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a wide range of goods in use by all sections of the community are still subject to Purchase Tax at rates varying from 50 per cent. downwards; and whether, with a view to the achievement of price reductions wherever possible, he will undertake to set an example in this matter by substantially reducing the higher ranges of Purchase Tax at the earliest possible opportunity.

I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget statement.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what organisations have so far submitted to him representations urging reductions in various categories of Purchase Tax; and from which of these organisations he has received or proposes to receive deputations before opening his next Budget.

This information could not be published without the consent of the organisations concerned. I think it is fair to assume that those which wish for publicity for this aspect of their activities have already obtained it.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has recently examined the present effect of the 50 per cent. Purchase Tax imposed on television sets on the export trade in British television apparatus; whether he will state the results of his inquiry into that matter; and what remedial action he proposes to take.

The effects of taxation are comprehensively reviewed before the Budget; but I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's decisions.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent men contributors still get tax relief on £13 of their yearly contribution to National Insurance at their highest rate of Income Tax; what is the amount of this tax relief in the financial year for a man paying the highest rate of Income Tax; and to what extent employers' contributions are allowed as expenses incurred by them.

Adult male employees paying the full rate of National Insurance contribution are given a deduction of £13 a year in computing their taxable income. In the case of a man liable at the standard rate with income wholly qualifying for two-ninths earned income relief this is worth £3 17s. 6d. a year. Employers' contributions rank as an expense in computing income for tax purposes.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is yet in a position to announce his further plans to attract to Aberdeen new industries and to expand existing industries there in such a way as to stop the drift of workers away from the City and County of Aberdeen.

I hope that the Local Employment Act which provides the Board of Trade with powers which it did not have before, to build factories in Aberdeen, will operate to the benefit of Aberdeen and other development districts. The Board of Trade will continue in its efforts to attract industry to Aberdeen City and County.

asked the President of the Board of Trade when he intends to relax the import restrictions of foreign coal into Northern Ireland.

My right hon. Friend sees no prospect of any early change in present Government policy.

asked the President of the Board of Trade the total number of applications which have been received from firms which have entered the scheme for scrapping machinery under the Cotton Industry Act, 1959, to continue operating the machinery to be scrapped after 31st March, 1960; how many have been granted; and on what grounds.

The Cotton Board informs me that out of thirty applications, permission has been granted in seventeen cases for special reasons as provided for in the reorganisation schemes.

asked the Minister of Education the number of extra teachers provided year by year since 1945.

The net increase in the number of teachers in maintained schools has been as follows:

asked the Minister of Education if he will now state for each year from 1960 to 1970 the estimated number of extra teachers which will be provided if the present expansion of training college places from 23,000 to 39,000 is completed by 1964.

The net increase or decrease in the numbers of teachers in maintained schools during the next decade is difficult to estimate with accuracy. The best forecasts I can give are:

asked the Minister of Education how many new school places, primary and secondary, respectively, have been provided during the past three years in Brentford and Chiswick; and how these figures compare with the three preceding years.

The figures are as follows:

asked the Minister of Education what progress has been made in building the Technical College at Bennet's Bank, Wellington, Shropshire; and when he expects the building to be open.

I understand that work on the first instalment of the Wellington Technical College was started in July, 1959, and is expected to be completed in August, 1961.

asked the Minister of Education, as representing the Minister for Science, in view of the detrimental effect on British scientific progress, what steps he is taking to stop the gradual loss of scientific personnel from the United Kingdom to the United States of America, particularly in view of the number of scientists who have left the Jodrell Bank radio-telescope project.

The general problem of the emigration of scientific personnel has been under consideration for some years by the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy and its Manpower Committee. Since 1958 steps have been taken by the Civil Service Commission and the Atomic Energy Authority to recruit British scientists in America for official employment in the United Kingdom and these have met with some success.

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when he expects to give his decision on Birmingham's proposed expansion into the Wythall area.

Within a few days.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what pro-press has been made in the preservation, photographing and recording of documents, held in Aden Government Departments, which relate to the early history of Aden and the Protectorate.

Some financial provision for protection of volumes in the archives has been made in the Colony Estimates for 1960–61. Otherwise, so far as preservation is concerned, I have nothing to add to my predecessor's reply to the hon. Member of 16th July, 1958.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what additional cost he estimates is involved in clothing, provisioning and equipping the local security forces in Aden and the Protectorate with different types of dress, arms and supplies, from varied sources; and if he will consider a better and more uniform system of supply and indenting so as to save public moneys.

Considerable progress has been made towards standardisation of equipment, clothing and provisioning of local security forces in Aden. In the Western Protectorate the Tribal Guards who have been absorbed in the Federal National Guard are equipped in exactly the same way as the former Government Guards who have also been similarly absorbed. The Hadhrami Beduin Legion in the Eastern Protectorate has similar scales to the Federal National Guard and its equipment and provisions are indented for from the same sources. The Hadhrami Beduin Legion wears a different uniform to the Federal National Guard, but it is not considered that this involves additional cost. Equipment for the Aden Protectorate Levies is basically the same as for the Federal National Guard, although on a more generous scale of issue. There is no evidence to suggest that any change from the present arrangements is necessary or desirable.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convictions were recorded in 1959 in England and Wales and outside the metropolitan area, respectively, for the offence of emitting smoke from lorries contrary to the Construction and Use Regulations.

I regret that this information is not available.