§ MR. CROOKS (Woolwich)To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to difficulties that have arisen in obtaining the benefits of the Vaccination Act, 1907, in cases where the father of a child has been personally precluded from making a statutory declaration in consequence of absence from England on business as a sailor or otherwise at the time of the birth of his child and for the four months afterwards allowed by the Act in which the statutory declaration is to be made; and whether he will consider the advisability of taking steps, by legislation or otherwise, to enable under such circumstances the wife to make the necessary statutory declaration, under the provisions of Section 35 of the Vaccination Act, 1867, in the absence of her husband.
(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) My attention has not been called to difficulties of the kind mentioned since the passing of the Act of last session. The Law Officers advised in 1898 that, under ordinary circumstances, the father was the only person who could obtain certificate of conscientious objection, and a similar view would no doubt apply to the making of a declaration under the recent Act. I am not empowered 1056 to decide whether, in circumstances such as those mentioned in the Question, the mother would be the person competent to make the declaration; but it seems to me that, if she did so, proceedings ought not to be taken against the father.