§ MR. HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether 1286 he is aware that the Great Northern and City Railway Company sought statutory powers in 1898 to compulsorily acquire for the purposes of the company's business certain lands facing Poole Street, Wickham Street, and the Regent's Canal, Shoreditch, then occupied by 142 persons of the labouring class whom the company would have been bound to rehouse if displaced by the company, under a scheme approved by the Secretary of State; whether he is aware that the railway company withdrew their Bill to confer the powers of compulsory purchase, and that these lands have since been acquired by the contractors to the railway company and the occupants displaced; and, seeing that the Great Northern and City Railway Company are now again seeking statutory powers to acquire the said property as a cleared site, thus avoiding the statutory obligation to rehouse persons of the labouring class thus displaced, will he state what steps he proposes to take.
§ *MR. RITCHIEI believe the facts to be substantially as stated in the Question. I am informed by the company referred to that the Bill of 1898 was withdrawn because a railway scheme in connection with which the site in question was wanted for a generating station was abandoned, and that subsequently this site was acquired from the freeholder by the contractors mentioned for their own purposes, many of the houses having in the meantime been closed as insanitary. The abandoned scheme is now revived, and the company have arranged to take over the site from the contractors. I can take no steps in the matter; but the question whether the Standing Orders as to rehousing should be extended so as to include such a case as this is one for the consideration of the Joint Committee which is about to be appointed.