asked the Postmaster-General what is the national gross maximum weekly rate of wages for cleaners, doorkeepers, liftmen and handymen at wireless stations under his control.

For cleaners, liftmen and handymen £9 8s. a week. The rates in outer and inner London are greater by 10s. and £1 respectively. This corresponds to the pay of non-industrial male cleaners in the Civil Service generally.

Doorkeepers are paid £10 19s. a week, with an additional 14s. and £1 2s. in outer and inner London respectively.

The right hon. Gentleman has not mentioned liftmen. Will he do so in a further reply? Does he not agree that these wages are rather low and that this indicates his attitude and that of the Government towards the wages of employees in Departments? When did the Pay Research Unit last examine these wages? Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to bring them up to something like a reasonable level in the near future?

I mentioned liftmen in the opening sentence of my Answer. As the hon. Member knows, Civil Service pay—and these men and women are civil servants—is based on comparisons, and the current pay of doorkeepers was agreed with the trade union following a pay research in 1963. Cleaners were subject to the pay survey in 1957 and they were then shown to he paid more than cleaners in outside industry. Since then they have been paid a percentage increase given to the Civil Service generally. I will give the hon. Member more details, if he wishes, in a further communication.

Could my right hon. Friend publish a statement in HANSARD showing how much lower were the wages paid to these grades under the last Socialist Government in October, 1951?

I think that that supplementary question is a little off the Question.