BRITAIN WILL PAY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 7

BRITAIN WILL PAY

IN WAR GRATUITIES £700,000,000 INVOLVED LONDON. Britain is going to pay out £700,000,000 in cash and kind to its servicemen and women when they leave the forces. Of that, £200,000,000 will be taken up by the war gratuities scheme announced in the House of Commons by Sir.John Anderson. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also announced that resettlement grants—not loans—up to £150 are to be made to ex-members of the forces who want to start business again. Basic rates of the gratuities, which will be tax-free, range from 10/ for the lowest ranks to 75/ for the highest, for each complete month of service. The amount will be calculated on the substantive or war substantive ranks at the date of release. But if a man has held a higher rank for six months, his gratuity will be reckoned on this basis. For service in the ranks and as officer, the payment will be calculated separately for each period of service. Women will get two-thirds of the men's rate. Navy, Army and Air Force gratuities will all have the same basic rate. An Army sergeant and R.A.F. sergeant, for example, will get the same gratuity for a similar period of service, though the R.A.F. man's pay is higher than that of the Army sergeant's. In the last war they were calculated on rates of pay, producing different rates of gratuities. On top of the gratuities come 56 days' pay and ration allowance, foreign service leave pay, post-war credit, and value of civilian outfit.