§ MR. SHARPE (Kensington, N.)To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that a clause in the Public Health (Prevention of Diseases) Bill, 1888, seeking to give the medical officer of health powers to demand a full list of a dairyman's customers whose milk supply might come under suspicion, was struck out of the Bill; and that an identical clause, introduced in the Infectious Diseases (Prevention) Bill, 1890, was eliminated from that Bill; and whether the Board will in the present session make their recommendation to the Police and Sanitary Committee that the clause in question be omitted from the various Bills dealing with the milk supply.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I was not aware that the clause referred to was struck out of the Public Health (Prevention of Diseases) Bill, 1888. That Bill did not, I think, proceed beyond First Reading. The clause was, no doubt, eliminated from the Bill of 1890, and it was the practice of the Local Government Board for some years afterwards to draw attention to this circumstance in their Reports on Bills for local Acts. It was found, however, that, notwithstanding this, the clause was, in a large number of cases, allowed by Committees. Moreover, a similar provision was made for Scotland in The Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897. In these circumstances the Board in 1899 discontinued the practice of drawing attention in their Reports to the action of Parliament in 1890, and I do not propose to resume that practice.