HC Deb 19 March 1895 vol 31 c1375
MR. J. G. WEIR

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that a number of persons have been killed and many injured owing to kitchen boiler explosions during the recent frost; and whether, having regard to the fact that the Department has no power to enforce regulations with reference to kitchen boilers, he will introduce a Bill to amend the Boiler Explosions Act of 1890, by striking out from Clause 2 the words which exempt boilers used exclusively for domestic purposes from the provisions of the Act?

MR. J. BRYCE

I have seen in the newspapers during the recent frost reports of kitchen boiler explosions unhappily attended in some cases with serious personal injury, but it is not clear how far a formal inquiry by a Government Department in each case of explosion in a private house would be of public advantage, or would meet with public approval. Whenever an accident is fatal, there is, of course, a coroner's inquest. The principal causes of these explosions are well known, and I am at present considering whether some means may not be adopted of warning householders, as winter approaches, of the means to be adopted to prevent accidents.