§ MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether he will state the number of local authorities that have applied up to the present time for powers to enable them to put The Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905, into operation; whether any who have so applied have boon refused; and, if so, will he state what authorities have been refused and the grounds of such refusal.
§ (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The Act required that distress committees should be established in seventy-five boroughs and urban districts outside London. This has been done. It also enabled distress committees to be established in certain boroughs and urban districts if the borough or district council made application for the purpose to the Local Government Board, and the Board consented. Fifty-four such applications 1686 have been made. In fourteen of these cases distress committees have been established, in ton the application has not been proceeded with by the local authority, and in one the matter is at present under consideration. In the remaining cases no sufficient reason appeared to the Board to be shown for setting up a distress committee, and their consent was, therefore, not given.