§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in the discharge of his statutory duty of approving schemes for providing new dwellings for persons of the labouring class evicted by railway companies in the exercise of their compulsory powers, he has regard to the rents to be charged for such dwellings; and whether he is aware that the scheme of the South-Eastern Railway Company for the erection of dwellings near Abbey Street, Bermondsey, authorises the charge of rents of 3s. 3d. per room per week, and that it is impossible for the persons displaced to pay such rents, whereas the rents charged by the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company for their workmen's dwellings in Bermondsey New Road are only 2s. 6d. per room per week.
§ *SIR M. WHITE RIDLEYThe answer to the first paragraph of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second paragraph the arrangement made with the South-Eastern Railway Company as to the rents of tenements on the Abbey Street site is not as stated. The maximum rental for the best rooms is to be 2s. 9d., lower amounts being charged for inferior accommodation.