§ SIR TINDAL ROBERTSON (Brighton)asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether, in settling the basis for the appropriation of the Probate Duty grant between the several counties and county boroughs constituted by the Local Government Bill, he will in the case of those county boroughs which have not hitherto claimed any particular grant—such, for instance, as the grant-in-aid of the salaries of Medical Officers of Health and Sanitary Inspector, or the grant-in-aid of main roads—add to the actual amount of the grants paid to the several localities the amounts to which they would have been entitled in respect of the unclaimed grants if application had been made for them?
§ THE PRESIDENT (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)The 320 Local Government Bill does not confer on the Local Government Board any power to proceed as suggested in the distribution of the Probate Duty grant. It is, of course, too late to make any alteration in the Bill in this respect; and, if it were not, I think it would not be practicable, in determining what grants were payable for certain purposes in the different counties and districts in the last financial year, to take into consideration what sums might have been payable during that year under the existing system of grants if circumstances had been different from what they actually were.