Since 21st January, pension order books at increased rates from October have been issued to some 23,000 existing pensioners. This issue has cleared substantially all cases where the pensioners' circumstances were known to my Department by October. Since October, in addition to current notifications of retirement, many pensioners have given belated notice of retirement, at or before October, the overall total up to the end of January being about 100,000. Special measures have, as I have already indicated, been taken to deal with these cases. So far as I am at present able to to estimate, the number of these cases now outstanding, including both current and belated notification of retirement, is about 20,000 for the period up to the end of January. I should add that I have now almost completed new arrangements which will considerably expedite the procedure for dealing with new claims for pensions, and shall be able to announce details of these arrangements next week.