HC Deb 24 February 1848 vol 96 cc1306-7
MR. P. SCROPE

then moved for leave to bring in a Bill to exempt small tenements from local taxation. He hoped that, notwithstanding the proposals already made that evening for the reduction of taxation, he should not be considered as trespassing on the domain of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he brought forward a humble proposal, not for the purpose of reducing taxation to any great extent, but of doing away with an inconvenient mode of taxa- tion, and substituting a more direct and beneficial mode. The poor, if unable, on account of poverty, to pay rates for their habitations, were exempted from doing so; and in some rural parishes the exemption extended to one in twenty or one in twenty-three on the number of houses; while in populous towns, Liverpool, for instance, the exemption extended actually to one-third of the aggregate amount of rateable property in the parish. In Liverpool, out of 40,000 houses forming the town, the occupiers of no less than 32,000 were excused on account of poverty, from contributions to the poor-rate. It was right and fair that exemptions should continue; but the present plan of determining the exemptions was most inconvenient, occasioning trouble to magistrates, expense to overseers, and loss of time and labour to the poor man in attending the petty sessions. It was far better that the exemptions should take place in a regular systematic mode, and that a line should be drawn according to the value of the houses occupied. He therefore proposed that, in rural districts, houses under the value of 5l. should be exempted from the rates; in towns of from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, the limit should be 8l.; and in cities like Liverpool the exemption should extend to houses of 10l. value. His proposal had a bearing on the moral and sanitary condition of the poor; and it was from that consideration that he advocated it. The consequence of the present state of things was, that the poor were driven to live in dwellings which were most prejudicial to their health. His Bill would assist in carrying out the sanitary views of the noble Lord at the head of the Woods and Forests, as he proposed that the exemption which his Bill would provide should not extend to houses which were reported to be not in a sanitary state.

Leave given.