§ MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can state the broad principle on which certain questions relating to the housing of the working classes in the Metropolis are placed under the jurisdiction of the Home Office, while similar questions in the rest of England and Wales are under that of the Local Government Board; and to what extent, if any, the division of jurisdiction is the result of the distinction drawn by the Treasury in the qualifications required of officials in their respective Departments.
§ THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,) Yorkshire, N. R. ThirskI do not think that the division of jurisdiction under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts rests on any broad principle. It is a survival of the arrangement made under the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Acts which were consolidated by the Act of 1890. I am not aware that this division of jurisdiction is in any sense the result of the distinction referred to in the concluding part of the Question.