AMENDMENT OF THE POOR REMOVAL BILL. (Hansard, 10 February 1848)

§ MR. BAINES

asked leave to bring in a Bill to amend the procedure in respect of orders for the removal of the Poor in England and Wales, and appeals there from. He said that the present system required alteration, in consequence of the appeals that were made by the removing parish on the one side, and the parish to which the poor were removed on the other, each of which declared to the other the grounds upon which they proceeded. The clause which enacted that provision was originally a good one, and well intended. But many legal questions had subsequently been raised upon it; and the consequence at length was, that questions respecting removals of the poor were now never tried upon their real merits, but upon mere legal technicalities. Such had been the state of things for the last ten or twelve years. It proceeded from there not being in the original Poor Law Act a provision relating to the grounds of removal, and providing for the appeal. The object of the Bill which he (Mr. Baines) now sought leave to introduce, was to do away with the consideration of mere technicalities, and to cause the questions of appeal to be tried solely upon their real merits. The order of removal itself might also be amended in certain points so as to meet the justice of each case. Another point in his Bill was this—that it would vest a sufficient power in the sessions to decide on the ground of appeal. That power would be vested absolutely in the magistrates, so as to prevent the parishes from being harassed by the expenses to which they had heretofore been subjected, and the magistrates from having mandamuses applied for to the superior courts of law, to be issued to them. One other point in the Bill would be the giving a power of obtaining the order of removal at any time.