§ MR. BRIGG (York, W.R., Keighley)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he is aware that the Council of the Association of Public Vaccinators has declared that the time and trouble required under the proposed Vaccination Bill will be ten times that now paid for, thus increasing the probable cost to the ratepayers from £78,000 per annum to £780,000 per annum; and can he hold out any hope that this largely increased cost will be taken over by the Imperial Exchequer?
The following Questions, also in the name of the honourable Member, likewise appeared on the Paper on the same subject:—
To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he is willing to accede to the wish of the Council of the Association of Public Vaccinators that a public vaccinator should no longer be engaged by the board of guardians, but be appointed direct by the Local Government Board, thus removing every vestige of popular control or influence?
To ask the President of the Local Government Board, respecting the Vaccination Bill, if the public vaccinator, having received part of his fee on the birth of a child, will receive the second 1069 moiety of his fee in cases where he institutes proceedings, but fails to enforce vaccination?
To ask the President of the Local Government Board if the refusal of a board of guardians to sanction the costs of prosecutions under the Vaccination Bill will subject them to imprisonment for contempt of court?
To ask the President of the Local Government Board if, in cases of the refusal of parents to allow their children to be vaccinated on account of ill-health or what may appear to them some other good reason, the power of instituting legal proceedings will rest with the vaccinator without any other reference or appeal either to guardians or medical authority?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. CHAPLIN,) Lincolnshire, SleafordThe honourable Member asks me five Questions on the same subject. It will probably be convenient to him and the House if I answer them all at the same time. With regard to the first Question, I am not aware that the Council of the Association referred to have made any such estimate of the cost. In any case, my view is altogether different from that stated in the Question. The reply to the next two Questions is in the negative. With regard to the fourth, I am afraid I have nothing to add to the answer which was given on Tuesday to the Question of the honourable Member for the Chesterfield Division—viz., that I have no right to assume that local authorities will refuse to pay any expenses legally payable by them, and I cannot undertake to reply to hypothetical Questions. As to the fifth, the power of a vaccination officer, who, I presume, is the officer intended to be referred to, of instituting legal proceedings will be subject to certain conditions. If the child were unfit to be vaccinated through ill-health or otherwise, and the parent procured a certificate from a medical practitioner to that effect, it would be a bar to proceedings under section 29 of the Act of 1867, so long as the certificate continued in force. Further, the section referred to provides that a parent will be guilty of an offence for not caus- 1070 ing the child to be vaccinated in the absence only of a reasonable excuse being rendered by him to the satisfaction of the justices.