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Pagether there is no adequate case on merits forextending these increases to National Service Officers. The main object of the recent increases was to encourage recruiting for regular personnel. The marriage-allowance increases for officers, as explained in the Parliamentary Statement, were designed to assist them in meeting the exceptional expenses of Service life, especially those arising from the present abnormal frequency of postings. The most important of these exceptional expenses were said to be very high rents, and in some cases boarding- school charges owing to the need to provide continuity of education for children. For National Service Officers the period in the Forces is a short interlude in a normal civilian career, and there will be no occasion for their families, where they are married, to move house to follow Service postings. Unlike career officers, they do not gear their entire domestic arrangements to continuous service in the Armed Forces with its threats of periodic disturbance. With regard to the extra educational expenses, it is highly improbable that the young National Service Officer will have children of an age at which continuity of education is of any importance.
National Service Grants
An important consideration leading to the exclusion of National Servicemen
from the marr horeases was that a scheme of special allowances
(National Service Grants) has been provided for National Servicemen whe normal pay and allowances in the Forces are insufficient to enable them to meet their civilian commitments. The Minister has offered to exclude National Service Officers from benefit under this scheme in consideration of their receiving the marriage-allowance increases. In most cases National Service Officers will find it unnecessary to apply for a National Service Grant. But where such an officer has exceptional commitments in civil life, e.g., in respect of the maintenance of a widowed mother, it would not be possible to satisfy public opinion that it was reasonable to deny him the special assistance provided for those undergoing compulsory service. And, as the Minister himself recognises, it would in any case be necessary to make special provision for National Service Officers who were awarded a National Service Grant before being promoted to commissioned rank. The Minister's proposal would thus give the National Service Officer the best of both worlds.
Reactions on National Service other ranks.
The practical effect of the Minister's proposal would be that, while refusing to extend to a married National Service private the marriage-allowance increase of 7s. a week which has been given to the regular, we should be giving an increase of 42s. a week in the marriage allowance of the National Service subaltern: Such a difference of treatment would be politically indefensible. We could have no confidence, moreover, that the demands that would arise for corresponding increases for National Service other ranks would be confined to marriage allowance. It might well become necessary to give them the recent pay increases as well. This would cost sofre £800,000 a year.
National Service Doctors
I recognise that, as the Minister points out, a substantial proportion of the National Service Officers will be professional men, and in particular doctors, and that the refusal of the marriage-allowance increases for the latter may give rise to représentations by the British Medical Association. It should be a sufficient answer to any such representations that doctors, in common with other members of the community, must be expected to take their share of National Service under the same conditions as are applicable to National Servicemen generally. Moreover, to the extent to which it may be shown that their remuneration while serving in the Forces is an inadequate reward for their professional skill, any adjustment required should properly be made to pay, and should not take the form of a general increase in the marriage allowance of all National Service Officers.
Summary
To sum up, I consider that
(i) We are not committed by the statement of 24th November, 1948, to Page 357pafing&he marriage-allowance increasesageNational $8vice Officers.
(ii) TherePan Berits for extending these increases 3108 National Service Officers; in particular they are not subject to the special expenses which these increases were designed to meet.
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(iii) To give an increase of 42s. a week in the marriage allowance of the National Service Officer while refusing an increase of 7s. a week in the marriage allowance of the National Service private would be politically indefensible.
(iv) The Minister's proposal would have reactions which might cost in all
some £800,000 a year.
For these reasons I ask the Cabinet to agree that the marriage-allowance increases announced in November last for officers of the Armed Forces should not now be extended to National Service Officers. ⠀⠀⠀
185
Treasury Chambers, S. W. 1, 10th March, 1949.
R. S. C.
Page 358.