§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the London County Council have determined to terminate the arrangement which they entered into in 1904 with the 469 National Institution for Inebriates, under which inebriates committed from London wore sent to their reformatories on condition that the more hopeful class of cases should be transferred to the Council's reformatory at Farmfield; whether the effect of this decision will be that London magistrates will be deprived of the opportunity of committing inebriates to inebriate reformatories, except as regards a small number of strictly selected cases eligible for Farmfield; and what steps he proposes to take to render possible the continued committal of London inebriates to reformatories in suitable cases, so that the Inebriates Act may not be made largely inoperative so far as London is concerned.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) My attention has been drawn to the decision of the London County Council to discontinue their present provision for the reception of all classes of female inebriates and to restrict their work to a few selected cases eligible for Farmfield, and there is no doubt that if this policy is maintained the London magistrates will be deprived of the opportunity to commit female inebriates to reformatories save as regards a few isolated cases. I am about to communicate with the Council upon this important matter.