§ MR. J. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)I beg to ask the hon. Member for Thirsk, as a Charity Commissioner—(1) whether the Report of Mr. Rogers Field on the Horsham site for Christ's Hospital was treated as a private and confidential communication by the Almoners for above nine months; and (2) whether it had had due consideration by the Charity Commissioners before they authorised £20,000 to be expended on draining, roads, levelling, and planting?
MR. GRANT LAWSON (York, N. R., Thirsk)The Charity Commissioners have no information upon the point raised in the first paragraph of this Question. It relates to a matter of current administration in connection with the removal of the Hospital; and, as I stated in answer to a Question on July 28, the Commissioners are not charged with the duty of interfering in such matters. Mr. Rogers Field's Report was duly considered by the Commissioners before their sanction was given to the expenditure mentioned in the second paragraph of the Question. That Report, while condemning the then existing wells on the site, suggested a deeper boring. Some months before the Commissioners sanctioned the outlay referred to in the Question that boring had been sufficiently advanced to prove that a water suppty abundantly sufficient both in quantity and quality could be secured on the estate.