asked the Minister of Pensions whether temporary non-service officers who have become substitutable in one branch of the Ministry of Pensions have been transferred to another branch; whether the regional finance officer, who has been sent to the North of Ireland under the Ministry of Pensions, is a non-service man who was removed from Newcastle owing to being substituted by an ex-service man; if so, if he will explain why this procedure is being permitted in his Department; and if he will undertake to have all such non-service officials substituted by ex-officers or men who have fought in His Majesty's forces during the War, as recommended by the Lytton Committee?

It is not the practice to transfer temporary non-service men from one branch of the Ministry to another. The services of the regional finance officer in the Ulster region have been temporarily lent to the Government. of Northern Ireland and provision has been made for his absence by the temporary loan of an established civil servant from the East Midlands region. During the last 12 months the number of non-service men in posts covered by the Reports of the Lytton Committee has been reduced from 287 to 83 and of the temporary male staff of the Ministry 99 per cent. are ex-service men.