§ SIR. CHARLES DALRYMPLE (Ipswich)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention, as Chairman of the Select Committee on the Aged and Deserving Poor, has been called to the numerous paragraphs which have appeared in the Press with regard to the proceedings and deliberations of the Committee and whether the statements so made have been published with the sanction and authority of the Committee.
§ MR. CHAPLINYes, sir, my attention has been directed to the matters referred to, and I am very glad to reply to the question of my honourable friend, for it was my intention, at the unanimous request of my colleagues on the Committee, to have taken some means of correcting the misapprehensions to which these statements would otherwise give rise. I have to say on their behalf, in reply to the question, that none of the statements referred to are authorised; they have all been made without the knowledge or sanction of the Committee; many of them are inaccurate and misleading and they are not to be taken as representing the views and decisions of the Committee.