§ MR. BROOKE (Tower Hamlets, Bow and Bromley)To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the fact that in some London boroughs distress owing to unemployment is still acute, he will consider the advisability of again modifying, temporarily, for this winter, Article II. (1) iv. (c) of the statutory rules made under the Unemployed Workmen's Act by adding to it now the paragraphs added thereto by him on 6th December, 1905, so as to permit of applicants for relief work, who have received parish relief during the twelve months preceding the date of their application, being eligible for employment under schemes initiated by the Central Unemployed Committee for London; and whether, if he cannot do this, he will state his reasons for not being able to do now what he did on 6th December, 1905.
(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The Regulations (Organisation for Unemployed), 1905, prescribed certain conditions under which an application for assistance under the Unemployed Workmen Act might be entertained. One of these conditions was that the applicant had not been, during the twelve months immediately preceding the date of application, in receipt of relief, other than medical relief, at the cost of the Poor Rate. By subsequent regulations this condition was modified, so as to allow of exceptions from it in the ease of persons who had received relief during a limited period, which in London expired on 1st January last. The object was to meet cases in which hardship might have arisen from excluding persons who were compelled to have recourse to Poor Law relief before the Act was passed or the distress committees were in a position to receive applications. The consideration on which the temporary modification was based have now ceased to apply, and it does not appear to me that it could properly be extended as suggested. I may add that the Act was intended to deal with a class of persons who would not ordinarily come within the operation of Poor Law.