§ MR. FIRTHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that the various Railway, Market, and other schemes affecting London, now before Parliament, involve the removal of more than 20,000 of the poorer classes of the Metropolis; and, whether, pending the constitution of a public body able and willing to protect the interests of the Metropolitan poor, he will provide for the insertion into these measures of clauses preventing the demolition of houses now occupied by the poor, until proper accommodation for the number scheduled for removal has been provided in the neighbourhood, such clauses to be of at least equal stringency to Clause 33 of "The Metropolitan Street Improvement Act, 1877?"
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTThe matter to which my hon. Friend refers is, I admit, one of considerable importance. I cannot say if Clause 33 of the Metropolitan Street Improvement Act, 1877, could be made available in the way he suggests. Our experience has been that the clause has not worked satisfactorily. I shall be happy to confer with my hon. Friend, and also with the President of the Board of Trade, as to whether any provision could be made for the purposes indicated in his Question.