§ MR. HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the public authorities have purchased an area now covered by cottage property in Shepherdess Walk. City Road, and that no provision has been made, or is proposed to be made, for the rehousing of the persons of the working class thus displaced; and whether he will take1 steps to compel the provision of houses for these persons.
§ *MR. RITCHIEI think my hon. friend is misinformed. Only five houses have been acquired by the Metropolitan Police in the neighbourhood of Shepherdess Walk, and under Section 5 of the Metropolitan Police Act, 1886, from which the powers of purchase are derived, as under other Acts giving similar powers in London, the obligation, to rehouse does not arise unless twenty or more houses occupied by the labouring classes are taken.